For the first time since Karl Benz was in diapers, there's a fundamentally new, fuel-efficient, power-plant design: Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs), also known as hybrids. Not only are they fuel efficient, but they produce far less pollution than gasoline engines.

How do hybrids work? Which cars are available with hybrid power plants? And, if you buy one, will the pouty, Birkenstock-wearing, Natalie Merchant look-a-like down the street think you're the sexiest thing since Fair Trade cruelty-free carob soymilk?

For answers — to almost all of these questions — click on a link above or start with All About Hybrids.

Tom and Ray Magliozzi
Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers