Boomers' New Ride

The Middle-Aged Are Going Green, and the Automakers Follow

At the grocery store, Lloyd Lachow buys organic milk and fruit. At the dealership, he shops for hybrids.

"It's a cultural thing," Lachow says. "I'm somebody who doesn't think global warming is a myth. I understand what science is. I take those things seriously and act accordingly."

Lachow, 55, is a baby boomer. The generation, born in the years between the end of World War II and the early 1960s, has driven every major automotive buying trend since the late 1970s, when boomers began giving up on Detroit's gas-guzzlers. They flocked to the small, boxy imports built by Toyota and Honda.

In the 1980s, they dissed station wagons in favor of minivans. As their wealth grew during the decade, they moved up to sexier and brawnier sport-utility vehicles to carry their growing families, their shopping bags and their boats. Along the way, they left behind the luxury of Lincoln and Cadillac for the foreign marques of Acura, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Lexus.

Now, the boomers could be on the verge of making another major turn. After decades of indifference, they are starting to change their buying habits in response to global warming. And automakers are rolling out a growing list of vehicles to take advantage of the changing attitudes.

Environment-conscious consumers have choices beyond the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic hybrids, such as other hybrids, diesels, high-mileage small cars with traditional gasoline engines, and ethanol-powered vehicles. Lachow, a Toyota devotee since the early 1990s, bought a Toyota Camry hybrid last year, a decision he says was motivated by concern over the environment.

Green drivers can find a cadre of subcompact, conventional gasoline-powered cars like Toyota's Yaris and Honda's Fit, which burst onto the U.S. market as hot sellers last year.

Hybrids, which even recently were viewed as a fad, are gaining traction in the marketplace. Toyota's Prius, of course, is king of the category. Toyota expects to sell 150,000 Prius cars this year, up 50 percent from last year. Tight supply had forced would-be buyers onto month-long waiting lists, but now the supply is more plentiful. Dealers say the automaker is intent on pushing hybrids -- including the Prius -- into the mainstream U.S. auto market. Toyota has sweetened deals on the Prius, enticing new customers like Joe Morra, a government attorney who lives in Rockville. Earlier this month, Morra was weighing the purchase of a new Prius at Lake Forest Toyota in Maryland.

"I'm almost 50 years old," Morra said. "I was raised at the tail end of the 1950s, when environmental activism was born. Concern for the environment has been instilled in me my whole life. I recycle. I plant trees. I am a member of the Wildlife Fund. I view owning a car as a necessary evil."

Toyota also sells the Highlander hybrid SUV, while Ford has the Escape and Mercury Mariner hybrids. The hybrid sedan market got a boost recently with the introduction of a hybrid-powered Nissan Altima. Saturn's Aura hybrid sedan is on the way.

Lexus is the sole luxury brand pushing hybrids, but the move hasn't engendered a lot of love from environmentalists, who complain the company is focusing on performance over improving fuel economy. Lexus has the GS 450 hybrid ($55,000) with 340 horsepower that accelerates to 60 miles per hour in the five-second range. It also has the upcoming LS 600h, the first hybrid system tied to a powerful V-8 engine. Typically, automakers take advantage of a hybrid's electric motors to fit vehicles with smaller gasoline engines, cutting down the use of fuel.

"Instead of taking the opportunity to put in a smaller, more fuel-efficient engine, Lexus put in big, gas-guzzling engines, giving you even more power than you had and in many cases more power than most people will ever use," said David Friedman, research director for the clean-vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "If we focus our hybrids on keeping fuel economy steady and boosting power, we are going to be spending a lot of money to run in place. That's what we've been doing for the past 20 years."