You're comparing the weight of a very old vehicle to a modern hybrid
vehicle, which is absurd. Compare a the weight of a hybrid Civic with a
non-hybrid Civic, identically equipped, and you might have a case. Or not.
The cars of today have far more equipment and crashworthiness than that old
Rabbit you mention. There are also issues of noise, vibration, harshness
and ride quality that are more difficult at low curb weights.

Hybrids are specifically designed to improve city mileage, not highway
mileage. Batteries are expected to have a useful life of 8+ years and the
manufacturers are not concerned with the car's usefulness beyond the
batteries' warranty period.

Modern diesels are reaching the point now where they're highly viable here
so perhaps we'll start seeing more of them, assuming there are enough buyers
for them.

Applying aircraft standards is a just silly. The priorities of flight are
vastly different than the priorities of propulsion on wheels. Cars also
have to comply with ever more stringent crash standards that aircraft do not
have to comply with. Aircraft do not have to pass collision tests since the
planes won't survive any crash that they're likely to encounter. That
being said, they have been working on ways to reduce fatalities via newer
and more innovative aircraft designs.

"Nomen Nescio" > wrote in message
...
> Hybrids are heavier than ordinary models. Energy requirements are
> inversely proportional to weight, no matter how tricked out the
powerplants
> are.
>
> You will notice that hybrids achieve negligible improvements at constant
> highway speeds. Costwise, they may actually increase $/mile due to
> eventual battery replacements where battery cost >> fuel savings. Due to
> weight considerations, they also suffer in hill climbing and acceleration,
> except for off-the-mark pickup which the electric motor provides boost.
>
> A better approach is to go with conventional diesel or gasoline engines
> power and greatly reduce vehicle weight. Cars are grossly overweight.
> Many aircraft can carry a useful load equal to its weight (fuel, oil,
> payload = useful load). Therefore, if a car is rated for 1150 pounds load
> (passengers + baggage) and carries an additional 180 pounds of fuel (20
> gallons), then its empty weight should be 1330 pounds if the best aircraft
> weight performance standards would apply. Since cars require extra
> equipment such as transmission, differential gear, and extra wheel and
> brake, etc., 1800 pounds provides an allowance for that. Believe it or
> not, some cars in the past came close. The old steel-fabricated VW Rabbit
> was rated about 950 pounds, carried about 12 gallons fuel, and weighed
> empty about 1850 pounds, if memory serves me correct. Therefore, without
> making elaborate weight calculations, I estimate a larger car is doable at
> 1800 pounds with better materials.
>
> So, how do you trim a car down from 3500 pounds + to 1800? Easy. You use
> light weight materials like aluminum and carbon fibre, using mass
> production manufacturing methods to keep the cost competetive to the cast
> iron and steel lead sleds now the industry standard.
>
> A shameful case of squandering material and adding useless weight is the
> ornamentation. A tailgate emblem, for example, is made of pot metal,
> weights more than a pound. Wheel covers weigh a few pounds each and serve
> a contrary function; they add unsprung weight, reducing road holding. Car
> makers, all of them, have a century of shame carried on their shoulders
> when it comes to building fat cars.
>