Published Saturday, August 13, 2005, in the Los Angeles Times

Editorial

The politics of power
Hybrids don't need a push

After signing the energy bill, it must have been a challenge for
President Bush to come up with good things to tell the public about
it. The package, after all, contains so much good news for industry,
but so little for a nation addicted to foreign oil.

Cleverly, the president seized on two phrases everybody can love and
put them together: "tax credit" and "hybrid vehicle." "The way the
tax credit works," Bush said of the legislation's incentive to buy
gas-electric hybrids, "is that the more efficient the vehicle is, the
more money you will save."

Well, sort of.

Instead of simply going to buyers of cars that get the best gas
mileage, the tax credits are divided among manufacturers and allocated
according to a complicated formula. So, for example, a hybrid SUV
that gets less than 20 miles per gallon can qualify for the credit
depending on its weight and how fuel efficient it is compared to the
2002 model.

After the first gas-electric cars racked up eye-opening gasoline
savings, many later models have focused more on performance than
efficiency. The energy legislation doesn't go far enough toward
encouraging the latter.

Worse, it sets a quota for each manufacturer, with credits phasing out
after 60,000 cars. Buyers will snap up the popular and gas-miserly
Toyota Prius and certain Honda models, but as the credits for those
dry up, consumers will be forced to turn to other manufacturers and
cars. It sounds more like a business boost for Detroit than an effort
to encourage the most fuel-efficient cars.

Adding to the foolishness is the federal highway legislation, which
opens up carpool lanes to hybrids. Now California can go ahead with
its own misguided campaign, helping hybrid sales by giving carpool
stickers to 75,000 vehicles that meet its requirements (only the Prius
and two Honda models qualify now). But there already are 57,000
hybrids in the state, almost all of them among those models. This
means that in order to encourage the sale of 18,000 more hybrids --
something that would happen quite soon anyway -- the state will allow
another 75,000 vehicles to clog its carpool lanes.

With oil prices hitting new records and no end to high pump prices in
sight, motorists are lining up to buy fuel-efficient hybrids.
Incentives are a waste of money and resources. Neither Washington nor
Detroit seem ready to accept that. Raising fuel standards is the real
key to both greater energy independence and greater sales of American
cars.