In about a month, we will be a family of five. We have struggled for a long time about what this means for us with regards to vehicles. We’ve always prefered smaller cars and were not looking forward to possibly needing a minivan or SUV. Additionally, we’d been hoping for a long time that our next car would be a Prius, which would probably not the best vehicle for a family with three kids.
Last weekend, we finally decided to purchase a Toyota Highlander Hybrid. The mid-size SUV has a third row of seats and thanks to the hybrid engine, gets about 30 mpg. This is actually better mileage than our previous 4WD sedan got, especially in the city. Buying the hybrid version added about 8k to the price of the car, but gives us about 10 more mpg (at least when driving around town). With an 18-gallon tank, that means we get an extra 150-200 miles per tank than non-hybrid versions. When I do the math, I don’t think we’ll ever save enough money in fuel costs to make up for the cost of the hybrid, but that’s okay with me. I love driving it, knowing I’m having a smaller impact on the environment. And the conversations I’ve had with my 5-year old about hybrids and where gasoline comes from and why it’s not good for the earth have been priceless.
I was really hoping that our next car would be used, because then all the off-gassing of VOC’s from the interior of the car would have already occured. But it’s nearly impossible to buy used hybrid Highlanders. So we ended up with a new one and yes, the inside stinks. Some fondly refer to this as the “new car smell” but to me, it’s my daily dose of VOC’s–not exactly what I want to be exposing my unborn child to. To manage this, I leave all the windows down overnight (and it’s amazing how the entire garage then smells of new car–good thing our garage is detached!), and we try to leave the moonroof or windows open when driving. It seems to help. I wonder how many months it will take until the strong smell is gone!
