[diogenes ghost]

"Gas-electric hybrid works great....not so much"

It depends on what your criteria for 'works great' is.

By my criteria, it is phenomenal.

Porsche 918

McClaren P1

[Phlyer]

It depends on what your criteria for 'works great' is.

Of course. It would appear your criteria is: If you put unlimited money into a hybrid, can you get it to perform better than a car that costs 1/10 as much? I expect you could.

But if you let me have an unlimited budget, could I produce something that I called a hybrid that outperformed even the vehicles you mentioned? I expect I could. For example, if I put a brake/generator on an F-16 to recharge the existing battery after taxi I could call it a hybrid (even though recharging the battery is a negligible drain on the generator once the main engine is running) and I'd have performance that Porsche could only dream about.

But with equal constraints in every way *except* that one is a hybrid (a meaningful hybrid, where the battery/motors contribute significantly to the overall performance/range, etc. of the vehicle) and one is not, then the non-hybrid will be less expensive to own and to operate unless your driving is almost exclusively slow-speed, low-acceleration, start-and stop where the energy wasted idling in traffic is greater than the energy lost accelerating the heavier hybrid vehicle.