With the current trend towards hybrid technology and the push to find cleaner fuel, todays hybrid vehicles are just the beginning.

There are already quite a few options to choose from and enough of them have been produced for them to have emerged onto the used market as well.

You’d be surprised to find out just how many different types of hybrid vehicles there are on the market today.

Compact & Sedan Hybrids

Honda leads the way in this category with three existing models offered as a hybrid

The Civic and Accord are popular in the American market anyway and the favorably reviewed hybrid options have been well received.

Toyota ranks a close second offering both the popular Camry as a hybrid to compliment the best selling hybrid car on the market, the groundbreaking Prius.

The Camry is one of the best selling sedans in the world, and Toyota took its reputation for clean reliability and gave it fantastic gas mileage, what’s not to like?

The Prius speaks for itself, not only does it get some of the best gas mileage of any hybrid vehicle on the road today; but it is the grandpappy of hybrid technology.

Lexus is also showing interest in the hybrid market and they offer what hybridcars.com calls the ‘Hermes of Hybrids’, the Lexus GS. Utilizing the same technology as Formula 1 cars to achieve a cleaner ride with some muscle to it.

While this hybrid does not get the fantastic mileage some of its cousins get; if it’s quick acceleration and love of speed are factored in it’s a guilt free stomp on the gas pedal.

Popular SUV & Minivan Hybrids

Again Toyota is high on the list where hybrid technology is concerned, offering a well liked SUV as a hybrid. As with all of their hybrids, Toyota’s Highlander is a great hybrid vehicle, it’s powerful enough, efficient enough and affordable enough to be one of the best SUV hybrids on the market today.

Toyota’s upscale Lexus name offered its AWD Lexus RX as a hybrid in 2005 and by the time they hit American soil they had some 12,000 already spoken for.

This mid sized SUV was an instant hit, combining the plush opulence that the Lexus name has come to stand for with the advanced technology of Toyota standards.

Although any vehicle designed to get maximum performance and utilize hybrid technology won’t ever get the best gas mileage of others in its category. It does allow drivers who appreciate a quick ride the ability to do it without as many harmful effects on the environment.

Ford also offers a mid sized SUV, the Escape as a hybrid and it boosts the title of the first American made hybrid.

While it may be the first, its popularity has fizzled partly because Japanese technology is a force to be reckoned with.

This SUV does have the ability to stay in all electric mode for longer stretches of time than any of its cousins, and that includes the Toyota Prius. Not to mention it still offers some of the best gas mileage for any SUV hybrid.

The Hybrid Truck

GM is the first to venture into full sized truck hybrid territory. Their goal was to keep the trucks competitively priced so that the cleaner option was affordable.

The Silverado and the Sierra are offered as hybrids and the cost is projected to be only $1500 more than their gas guzzling brothers, a pittance when you consider how much their advanced flywheel alternator hybrid system will save you at the pump.

There you have a good cross section of how hybrid technology is working its way into our mainstream. Lets hope these companies perservere and continue to bring us new cleaner options.