Tropicana Magazine Mar-Apr 2017 #112: Riding on a Life Line

LEAN, MEAN, GREEN MACHINES | THE DRIVE
The result is a fiercely loyal customer
pool who is also willing to invest in the
future of the brand, and an active group
of factories that will allow large enough
scales of production to bring down the
prohibitively high costs of electrification.
And yet, Tesla is not the only
answer. Electric cars are great, both as
an experience and for the environment,
but the mechanics are not quite as simple
as one would expect. For example,
if your source of electricity still uses
non-renewable resources, there is
still a somewhat harsh effect on the
environment. Range anxiety can also
be a relatively serious issue: without an
established fast-charging network, it
can be difficult to travel outside of town
without stopping for a day at a time
to recharge.
The next best thing to a fully electric
car is a hybrid vehicle. Hybrid vehicles
come in many different shapes and forms,
and the technology and image have come a
long way since its humble beginnings. We
can credit Toyota with giving us the Prius,
the world's first mass-produced hybrid
and already in its fourth generation.
While the Prius gets a bad reputation
for being relatively sedate and boring in
the eyes of some (to the contrary, they
can be surprisingly quick and fun to
drive), other manufacturers have adopted
and implemented hybrid technology in
their products.
Emulating Tesla's strategy has resulted
in some remarkable hybrid vehicles over
the last half decade or so. We've gone
from basic cheap-and-cheerful hybrid
cars to full-on luxury hybrids, and even
“It’s no longer uncool
to have a hybrid or
electric car - quite
the opposite.’'
119 MARCH/APRIL <strong>2017</strong> | TM