Hi Phil,

Inflation plays a role that "... the latest data shows people buying most hybrids will take even longer to make up the "premium" or higher price they are paying compared to standard models ..." may be inaccurate. In 2001 when the first Prius were sold, gas was only $1.35/gal and this same old argument was brought out then. But today is 2008 and a significant portion of those 2001 Prius are still rolling around and gas is at $4.50/gal. Where is your congratulations to these pioneers who did the experiment and won.

The other consistent mistake is to assign one mileage for all cars per year. In fact, owners have a wide range of mileage per year, which looks a lot like a modified bell curve. It turns out that those in the upper third easily do enough miles to pay the hybrid premium. The best are taxi drivers who make out like bandits.

Finally, there is the resale price, which for hybrids reaches a lower limit and seems to stop. In contrast, the gas-only car soon become 'scrap metal' and those with poor mileage, even less.

Those of us who own hybrids are happy that we do and got them when we did. New hybrid owners are joining our ranks and over time, we're not seeing them move back to gas. As a suggestion, you might ask your sources to report the ratio of hybrid->gas and gas->hybrid ownership changes. I suspect you'll find the numbers are and historically have been one way.