22 April 2002: The subsidies of an estimated $300m a year which are being spent on hybrid-powered cars by major manufacturers would be better spent on bringing closer the use of fuel cell-powered vehicles, according to the General Motors vice-president for research, Dr Larry Burns. Among other projects, he is in charge of GM's revolutionary AUTOnomy fuel-cell car (above).

In an interview with IrishCar.Com, Burns said the subsidy is probably between $5,000-$10,000 per vehicle, and the money would be better spent ‘towards getting to the endgame of fuel cells faster, than putting it towards market subsidies’.

“If you live in Tokyo, you can conceivably see where a customer could get a payback because gas prices are so high and stop-go pressures are so intense that there may be enough fuel to be saved to pay back a premium for the purchase of a hybrid vehicle,” he says. “But right now it would take 20 years of owning a Civic hybrid in the US to save enough gasoline to pay the cost difference between it and a non-hybrid Civic.”

Burns is not knocking hybrid technology in itself - indeed, he makes the point that GM knows as much as is possible about it from its work with the Precept concept car that can get 80mpg. But he feels the emphasis has not been where the best value lies.

“Hybrids make a lot of sense on vehicles that are already high consumption, or with intensive stop and go, like buses. That’s where it makes sense to apply this technology. You can improve 30mpg up to 50mpg in an ordinary car and actually save less fuel than bringing a 20mpg vehicle up to 30mpg.”

The key hybrid car players are Toyota with its Prius and Honda with its Insight.

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