Do hybrid cars really help our environment? if so how? if not how?

Answer 1

No, in and of themselves, hybrid cars do not help the environment.

However, it's almost certain they do comparatively less harm to the environment than conventional cars do. A person who switches from a 15mpg car to a 45mpg car and makes no other change in driving habits uses 1/3 the gasoline that would have otherwise been used.

Some people have made arguments that if we all switched to hybrid cars, we'd drive a lot more. Based on my own personal experience, there's only a small bit of truth to that -- a year after I purchased my 2004 Prius, I took a cross-country trip by car that I might otherwise have taken by plane or train. (The train would have been much kinder to the environment; I simply don't know about the plane.)

However, I've more than made up for it in the time since then, getting a routine 45 to 50 mpg in my typical driving (37.5 miles each way to and from work). I am no more inclined now than I was before to move farther away from work and increase my commute. And I am more environmentally inclined than I was before I purchased the Prius (solar panels on the roof, recycling, etc.).

So: No, hybrid cars do not help the environment in an absolute sense, but they certainly help in comparison to most mainstream alternatives.

Answer 2

No they do not.

Every single mile they are driven occurs as a result of either burning gasoline under the hood to propel the car directly, or by running off batteries that were charged as a result of motion (and regenerative braking) created by burning gasoline.

And any time gasoline is burned, the carbon content is emitted into the atmosphere in the form of CO2 gas which a UN panel of scientists is blaming for Global Warming. The carbon contained in gasoline and all fossil fuels has previously been safely stored underground for millions of years in the form of crude oil, methane gas or coal.

Yet another of one those Inconvenient Truths.

Answer 3

Yeah because it doesnt use gas which can reduce the fossil fuels being burned