The Car Talk guys had an interesting Puzzler about a similar topic.

My friend Joe lives a few blocks from me. He's a regular working stiff, just like me, though we work at different places, Now, Joe, he likes to do the right thing -- as he sees it -- so he recently bought himself a brand-new Prius.

Joe says, "Wow, it gets great gas mileage, almost 50 mpg around town and about 40 on the highway, even with 5 people in it -- you know 4 passengers and the driver. That's pretty good."

Anyway, Joe's grandmother for years drove a beat up old Plymouth Voyager. He used to tease her about it getting maybe just a little more than 15 mpg around town. Of course, it did a lot better on the highway with that 5-speed manual transmission and 4-cylinder engine.

Grandma claims she would get something like 28 mpg maybe a little more on the highway. Pretty good. But Joe hated that thing; it was underpowered and it was ugly.

So when Grandma died, you guessed it, she willed the Voyager to him. It sat in Joe's driveway for a couple of weeks while he advertised it for sale in the paper. But as you would expect, no takers.

I went on a vacation at about this time. Returning from Sand-in-Your-Shorts-Beach in Florida, I drove by his house on the way home and there was the Voyager in his driveway, but it looked like it had been driven.

Joe was home, so I stopped in. "What's up?" I asked. "Decide to keep that nifty Voyager?"

Joe says, "Well, yeah. You know I realized that I could get as good mileage as the Prius if I didn't drive it all the time."

So, is Joe flipped out or is there something going on here?

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ANSWER:

TOM: I know the answer. He got as good gas mileage in the beater Voyager if he drove it downhill all the time.

RAY: No, you knucklehead. He drove it when it was full of people. OK, now think about it. Let's say the Prius gets 40 miles per gallon per 5 people, right?

TOM: Yeah.

RAY: For 5, that's 200 people miles per gallon. The Voyager holds 7 people, so at 28 miles per gallon, or maybe a little bit better, that's 7 times 28, that's 196 people miles per gallon.

TOM: Yeah.

RAY: Twenty-eight, well it's almost as good as the Prius.

TOM: It is. So if you've got a crowd you can have a heap.

John, I believe if you take a look at more up to date info you will find that things are a bit different for various biofuels than you believe.

You also do not notice the huge amount of pollution generated to make the batteries for the hybrids and when they break or wear out, let alone if there is a vehicle fire.

Hybrids are a nice intermediate idea, not a final solution, and they work well with biofuels so they are by no means in competition a hybrid running biodiesel may well end up being one of the most workable overall near term solutions.

we should have a gratitude tribe, so we can announce to the world our daily top 5, just a thought, you know a group motivates a group to stick with it.