For the record, the current Corvette Z06...which has 505hp, can travel at speeds CLOSE to 200mph, and was, at one point, a record holder at Nurburgring, get's around 25mpg highway(s'long as you can keep your right foot out of it), and 18 or so city. And that car is BLISTERINGLY, violently fast. It has a push rod motor that can trace it's basic, overall design, all the way back to the 40s. And...GASP...leaf springs.
Car companies are trying to reinvent the wheel, and the fact is, they're using expensive products for consumer research and testing. Are hybrids dangerous? No. Not that sort of testing. But neither are they all THAT economic, when you consider the amount of capitol and time put into their development. But they HAVE to have SOMETHING, to show us progress, right? Because every moron with a wallet in this country seems to think that "keep moving forward", "progress", or, dare I say it, "An American REVolution"...along with whatever other catch phrase or buzzword you can think of, means something completely new, and anything short of that, simply isn't real progress. I'll go back to my old Civic HX, designed in the late 80s, built till the mid 90s, which got GREAT gas mileage, and had LOW emissions. But car companies feel they can't give us americans that sort of car, even though similar things are all the rage in Europe...because, here in the US, it's just not green enough. Never mind that it's MORE green than the stuff these same companies are CALLING green, lol.
Not saying that car companies shouldn't invest in these new technologies, lord knows I can't believe we still don't have a workable hydrogen car, even though GM built one back in the late 90s, or something like that. But what I AM saying is, I feel that we the consumers are getting the hose in the deal, because WE"RE the one's doing the product testing for them, WE'RE the ones being sold something on a false pretense...that these cars are both economical, and good for the environment.