Cost is a key factor to consumers in determining what vehicle to purchase. On average hybrid vehicles cost fifteen hundred dollars more than the standard gasoline vehicle. However, this extra expense is well invested. A hybrid vehicle can reach sixty-one miles per gallon, whereas a typical gasoline vehicle can only reach twenty-eight miles per gallon. Currently gas costs two dollars and ten cents per gallon. The average individual can be expected to drive fifteen miles per year. This amounts to a total gas expense of eleven hundred dollars. If one were to own a hybrid vehicle this expense would eventually pay for the extra fifteen hundred dollars that was required to buy a hybrid car. In two years one would expect to have saved over seven hundred dollars and in three years more than nineteen hundred dollars. With such an incredible long term saving potential, the hybrid car is surely an economically sound choice.
In addition, another economical factor that hybrid cars have is a technological mechanism known as "regenerative braking". When a hybrid car brakes; the motion of the wheels against the braking mechanism creates heat in the form of kinetic and thermal energy. This kinetic and thermal energy is turned into electricity. This electricity then travels back to the battery source