LazyMan – It’s also about leaving behind less pollution…but the argument about money always assumes that gas prices stay about the same as they are now. I am willing to bet that gas goes up, and rightly so: we should be paying a lot more for it than we currently do. When it reaches $5 + per gallon, it will be about the right price that it should be.

1. You are buying a new car. If you want to buy a 3-4 year old Kia Rio (which is a car that loses a lot of it’s resale value), you can drive for far less than $3,000 a year. As long as I’m going to drive something on the low end, I figure I might as well go all out and save as much as possible.
2. You drive around 15,000 miles a year. I’ve averaged around 9,000 and I’m on the low side. However, I’ll drive less soon as my commute is going to 6 miles a day, round trip.
3. That you are looking for a new Honda Civic type car before the end the year. It seems that if you are not the tax break doesn’t apply. As you say at the end, “Other than not knowing when…” that seems to be a key factor.
4. You believe that the hybrid is more environmentally friendly. I’ve read some stuff to the contrary. I’m sure you are more informed than I am, but I’d still need to do the research to make sure that we aren’t filling up landfills with batteries, or that it requires more energy/materials to make a hybrid.
5. Take this older article about the hybrid Accord… “The best you can say from all that is that the hybrid uses less fuel, but — typical of hybrids — not enough less to financially justify the purchase. In fact, it would take you more than a decade to save enough on fuel to repay that $3,400 price premium vs. a gas Accord, assuming today’s gas prices, 12,000 miles a year and fuel economy as good as the ratings.” That may have changed, but you need to do the research on the specific car that you intend to buy first.

In the end, that’s what it comes down to… doing the research and plugging in the numbers.