The Toyota Prius, a five passenger hybrid about the size of a Corolla, gets 52 miles per gallon around town and 45 on the highway. Hybrid technology also works on a larger scale. In 1999, five hybrid busses ran up to 18 hours a day in New York City. The 40-foot busses used a diesel engine running at constant speed. The hefty batteries were used to accelerate and recover energy from braking.
Hybrids combine the best of electricity and gasoline.
Instead of recharging through a plug, the batteries get their juice from a small, light gasoline or diesel engine. When you hit the brakes, kinetic energy is converted into electricity, then stored in the battery. At a stop light, the engine shuts down entirely. Because the battery is not the car's sole source of support, so to speak, it can be much smaller than the weighty, costly monsters used for battery-operated cars. But even hybrids could seem passe by 2004, when major auto makers promise to start selling cars powered by fuel cells.