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To kick start the debate we've invited a panel of well known experts to share their views on the proliferation of hybrid cars.

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The way we travel influences our day to day behaviour and social interactions. Would we drive as much, or even more, if we knew our car had a lower environmental impact?

  • Overcoming our need for one car each by Joanna Yarrow
  • Families & Lifestyle Wed, 17 Oct 2007 5:17 p.m.

  • For hybrids to have a positive impact, their proliferation must be accompanied by a shift towards greater car-sharing. If more people were to take passengers in their cars then there would be a massively disproportionate impact on fuel consumption, infrastructural wear, scrap disposal and so on.

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  • Teenaged kicks in the hybrid age by Roger Kemp
  • Families & Lifestyle Thu, 18 Oct 2007 3:46 p.m.

  • Buying a car, or indeed any other form of personal transport, has always been a public statement of values, status or hang-ups. So, in order for the majority of cars on the road to be hybrids, our relationship with personal transport would have to change significantly.

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  • The hybrid as viral statement by Joanna Yarrow
  • Families & Lifestyle Thu, 18 Oct 2007 3:45 p.m.

  • Imagine your car is the only one on the road with a conventional petrol engine. Everyone else is driving hybrids, or cars based on cleaner technology. How do you suppose other road-users, and especially pedestrians, feel about your behaviour? Probably, they’re offended. This is a future in which the public is highly aware of how traditional cars contribute to local pollution and global climate change. And in which living "unsustainably" has become socially unacceptable. When you buy your next car, peer-pressure may be a significant factor.

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  • Weaning the public on the hybrid's invisible benefits by Richard Scase
  • Families & Lifestyle Thu, 18 Oct 2007 3:44 p.m.

  • The majority of Britons now believe that human activity is contributing to global warming. So why don’t the majority of us drive hybrid cars? The simple answer is that we’re unwilling to pay more money for our personal transportation without receiving a proportionate benefit.

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