Ford hybrids cheaper in 5 to 7 years

Ford's Vice President of Product Creation believes the cost of Ford hybrid cars could come down in 5 to 7 years, according to MotorTrend. He also noted that he believes diesel electric hybrid cars will ultimately be more popular and fuel efficient than gasoline electric hybrids.

Ford has been selling the Ford Escape hybrid for almost a year now, and will probably sell about 20,000 of the hybrid SUVs. While Ford has also started selling the Mercury Mariner hybrid, only a few thousand units will be available for sale.

On the other hand, Toyota will easily sell more than 7 times that amount of hybrids. Thus, if it takes Ford 5 - 7 years to reduce hybrid costs, it isn't unreasonable to assume that Toyota could reduce hybrid costs significantly faster.