Dec. 31, 2025 7:30 AM PT
To the editor: I agree with the driving force who says he’s bummed when his hybrid’s gasoline engine kicks in (“Hybrid sales surge as automakers recalibrate electrification strategies,” Dec. 29). No kidding. In case your baby had bronchial asthma, would you need them to face subsequent to that tailpipe?
Gasoline is the issue. And the issue with this text is that it frames hybrids as a optimistic step that can “transfer the needle” within the transition to completely electrical automobiles. Positive, perhaps 20 years in the past! However no, the transfer towards hybrids is a big step backward, due to President Trump and the fossil gas business that reportedly spent lots of of tens of millions of {dollars} to assist his marketing campaign.
Electrical automobiles have been accessible to mainstream patrons since at least 2011. Right this moment, they boast an average range of around 250-300 miles and price roughly the identical as gasoline guzzlers, but are less expensive to gas and preserve: no oil adjustments, smog checks or different conventional tune-ups required.
We should race to cut back climate-warming emissions, not backtrack. And corporations like Toyota, blurring the traces with phrases like “electrification” after they’re nonetheless referring to vehicles with tailpipes, ought to be ashamed. That’s lethal obfuscation.
Zan Dubin, Santa Monica
This author is a former Los Angeles Occasions staffer and co-founder of Nationwide Drive Electrical Month.
