For the Civic-minded

Dan Neil assesses the political debate over hybrid cars as a lead-in to a rave for the 2006 Honda Civic hybrid.

The reason hybrid cars are flying off dealers’ lots is not because they make such a galvanizing financial brief. It’s because people of goodwill, conservative and liberal, are growing weary of the moral calculus of gasoline. What people are learning is that private choices have public consequences. Sure, I’ll make my money back, but the more important thing is the 643 gallons of liquid crack I will save. Now that’s conservative.

Almost lost in all this is just how amazing these machines are. The Honda Civic hybrid is a five-passenger, full-featured sedan measuring 176.7 inches long; it’s packed with safety features, everything from compatibility-minded body structures (helping to protect occupants in collisions with heavier, higher vehicles such as SUVs) to an energy-absorbing hood to help lessen impacts to pedestrians. And yet, loaded like Tara Reid on Ibiza, the car weighs only 2,875 pounds, aces Honda’s internal tests mimicking the government’s frontal and side-impact resilience, gets in excess of 40 mpg and has almost immeasurably clean emissions. Such a car was the stuff of science fiction 10 years ago.

According to Neil, “The EPA rates the 2006 Honda Civic hybrid at 50 miles per gallon city and 50 mpg highway. Honda’s testing puts those numbers at more modest 47/49 mpg and suggests real-world results of around 44 mpg….”