The question came up following a colleague's fender bender in a Honda Insight hybrid. What seemed like a minor bump left the car undrivable and crumpled to the tune of several thousand dollars of repair work. So are hybrid cars more susceptible to damage than conventional models?

When summing up an accident such as this, one first has to talk through the denial (I'm sure I didn't hit him that hard) and the fact that anyone who walks away unhurt from a car crash is lucky. We're talking about potentially deadly force when two big objects weighing thousands of pounds come together, and people die in low-speed collisions all the time.

Beyond that, though, there might be something to the theory that hybrids are particularly delicate, or at least expensive to fix in part because they are built with more fragile lightweight structures aimed at saving fuel. Because they have both electric and gasoline-powered drive systems, hybrids tend to be more densely packed with electronics and other components that may be more exposed to damage in a crash. A Toyota spokesman noted there is little room to spare under the hood of the company's Prius hybrid, so certain parts may be exposed to damage in what seems like a minor crash.

Honda says the Insight shares a lot of its parts including its front-end assembly with the Honda Fit compact car. Crash damage to the Insight would be similar to that suffered by the Fit and other small cars. 'To me there is no hybrid link' to the severity of crash damage, Honda spokesman Chris Martin says.

According to 2008 bumper-test data from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the Toyota Prius was among the worst performers in low-speed collisions meant to test a bumper's ability to protect a car from damage in the typical parking lot crash. However, the Hyundai Elantra was nearly as bad and the Volkswagen Rabbit was worse. The total cost of damage after four bumper tests (full front, front corner, full rear and rear corner) was $9,070 for the Prius, $8,976 for the Elantra and $9,511 for the Rabbit. The top-performing Ford Focus had $3,031 of damage after the four tests.

The Insurance Institute concluded the susceptibility to damage seen among hybrids was part of a broader problem affecting small compacteconomy cars. In part because of their smaller size and lower weight, economy cars often don't fare well in low-speed crashes. However, the safety research group, which is funded by the insurance industry, did find hybrids cost more to insure in part because they tend to be driven for more miles and are therefore exposed to more potential damage.

The safety group says it is still poring over its data to figure out in greater detail why hybrids cost insurers more than conventional cars.

Jonathan Welsh

• repair [ri´peə] v.&n.修理，修补 (初中英语单词)
• deadly [´dedli] a.致命的 ad.死一般地 (初中英语单词)
• delicate [´delikət] a.精美的；微妙的 (初中英语单词)
• expensive [ik´spensiv] a.费钱的，昂贵的 (初中英语单词)
• assembly [ə´sembli] n.集会；装配；与会者 (初中英语单词)
• institute [´institju:t] n.学院 vt.建立；设置 (初中英语单词)
• highway [´haiwei] n.公路，大道 (初中英语单词)
• ability [ə´biliti] n.(办事)能力；才干 (初中英语单词)
• rabbit [´ræbit] n.兔子，野兔 (初中英语单词)
• economy [i´kɔnəmi] n.经济；机制；组织 (初中英语单词)
• research [ri´sə:tʃ] n.&vi.调查；探究；研究 (初中英语单词)
• driven [´driv(ə)n] drive 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
• therefore [´ðeəfɔ:] ad.&conj.因此；所以 (初中英语单词)
• compact [´kɔmpækt] n.契约 a.挤满的 (高中英语单词)
• typical [´tipikəl] a.典型的；象征的 (高中英语单词)
• insure [in´ʃuə] vt.给...保险 (高中英语单词)
• potential [pə´tenʃəl] n.&a.潜在的；可能的 (高中英语单词)
• conventional [kən´venʃənəl] a.常规的；协定的 (英语四级单词)
• fragile [´frædʒail] a.易碎的；虚弱的 (英语四级单词)
• severity [si´veriti] n.严厉；严重；苛刻 (英语四级单词)
• insight [´insait] n.洞悉；洞察力；见识 (英语六级单词)
• hybrid [´haibrid] n.杂种；混合物 (英语六级单词)
• susceptible [sə´septəbəl] a.敏感的；易受影响的 (英语六级单词)
• denial [di´naiəl] n.否认；拒绝 (英语六级单词)
• densely [´densli] ad.密集地；浓厚地 (英语六级单词)
• spokesman [´spəuksmən] n.发言人 (英语六级单词)