It makes sense when you think about it, but hybrids have one serious flaw in that they are typically reliant on having both fuel in the tank and juice in the battery in order to work right. Think about it: a Prius has a 76 horsepower gasoline engine and a 67 horsepower electric motor. Taken alone, neither will be very punchy; put together,they can pack a surprising whallop!

As I’ve mentioned at times in the past, I commute by bus for most of the year (typically foregoing it during the winter months). Many of the buses owned by CDTA, and particularly those bought in the last three years, are hybrids.

This morning, one of the two buses it takes me to get to work was a brand-new hybrid. I don’t know if this was its first trip ever, but it had to be close.

I think that the driver had never driven a hybrid before, because, going around the loop in downtown Albany, he kept putting his foot right into it hard to get started, like what you would do with one of the diesels. Unlike a diesel, however, it took off like a bat out of hell!

I think he killed the battery doing this.

Not five minutes later, the bus was trudging up the Third Ave. hill in Rensselaer, barely hitting 30 MPH, I would guess, and unable to get moving any faster.

I’m sure the battery level recovered some time after I got off, but I found this interesting, because it demonstrates a flaw in the assumptios of hybrid vehicle design.

Just for the record, lest I be accused of being anti-hybrid, I am only anti-hybrid in that I would prefer to see pure electric vehicles, but hybrids are a good step forward, and away from purely fuel-powered vehicles.