Well eventually all cars fail, and what a difficult year it is to buy a new car. There is so much innovation happening in the car business right now, it is hard to believe and so many new models for 2012. So the big decision is essentially, what to do until those come out and we can all figure out their true reliability, but here are a few of the upcoming ones of high efficiency cars from hybridcars.com
Ford
Well if you need an all wheel drive call to go skiing and camping so forth, the only choice has been the Ford Escape Hybrid. This gets discontinued this year. They have a new Ford Escape but not in hybrid. The C-Max ships in late 2012 as a crossover front-wheel drive car that looks like a hatchback and is like a cross-over SUV.
It seats five. The hybrid version competes with the Prius V and should come in under $30K.
The Energi is a plug-in version will be more, but can reportedly run as much as 15 miles in electric only. This is a nice compromise for someone who mainly commutes very short distances (in which case they will get their 100mpg equivalent for electricity) and then 45 mpg as a hybrid. Wow.
Ford Focus Electric is the other option for in town driving. It has the same battery as the Volt so should get about 70 miles per charge. It is also a hatchback.
Toyota
They are rapidly expanding their line now from the original Prius to a whole line that includes a Prius-c (smaller), Prius-v (crossover) and Prius (the original prius is now called the Liftback). This is a compact version that is more for in town.
Mitsubishi
They will be competing with the Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt for an mini all electric car called the Mitsubishi i
Hyundai
The leaders in the sedan segment are the (too big for me really), Ford Fusion and Toyota Camry Hybrid. Competing with them is the new Sonata Hybrid which uses Li-io batteries (not Ni-MH in the Ford Fusion so is 250 pounds lighter) and also a six speed automatic instead of a CVT. All are about the same fuel efficiency with this expected at 37/39 vs Fusion at 41/36 (city/highway).
Volvo
In Europe in 2012, they will have a V60 plug-in hybrid wagon and in 2013 it comes to the US. It cost $75K and goes 30 miles on electric alone. They are introducing a plug-in hybrid SUV as well called the XC60 as a concept for now.
