Station Wagan

First, a PSA. If you have been having trouble commenting, either here or elsewhere, or you have noticed that I haven't been commenting lately, it's because of this new blogger beta bullshit. Here is a quote from the 'Known Issues for Blogger in Beta' blog:

Users who have not switched to Blogger in beta will not be able to login to comment on blogs that have been switched. Commenting using the “anonymous' or “other” options will still work.

So the gist of it is that if you want to post here without switching to the new beta, post as anonymous. If I post as anon on your blog, I will sign it so you know it was me! Now back to the subject at hand.

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We have taken the plunge into the world of family vehicles and purchased a station wagon. Sam is now the proud passenger of a Volkswagen Passat wagon with all sorts of little bells and gadegty thingies. It's nice. But it wasn't what we went looking for.

I had made a promise to myself a long time ago that the next car I purchased would be a hybrid. I came to this decision for several reasons. I was a charter member of the Earth First Club when I was in 7th grade. Also, I knew that soon enough I would be bringing some new folks into this world, and maybe I should start thinking about keeping it pretty for them. Finally, if there's anything I can do to give a big ole' 'F You' to Dubbya and his oil buddies then bring it on!

The problem is, the market just isn't open enough yet. You'd think that by now we'd have tons of makes and models operating with a hybrid system, but that's just not the case. There are the small models like the Prius and the Civic hybrid, but the reason we were buying a car in the first place was because we out grew our little Saturn. Then you have a few SUV hybrids, but they are all very expensive. I don't think that many folks who can afford a $35,000 car are going to want to buy a Ford Escape hybrid. And forget about the Lexus hybrid. We couldn't even afford to take it for a test drive.

We couldn't find one station wagon or minivan on the market that comes with a hybrid option. Now, in my mind, the folks who are somewhat more likely to want a hybrid are people with children. Sure there are others who care about the environment and our dependency on foreign oil, but those of us with kids or those who plan to have children, I feel have an even stronger motivation. So why hasn’t the automobile industry tapped into this? It begs a question I don't have the energy to even try and answer.

So we went with the VW. They kept trying to sell us on the bigger engine, but we insisted on the 4-cylinder. It's not the most fuel efficient car on the market, but it's not the worst either.

And it is pretty.