STAMFORD -- Once she got past her car "stalling" at stop lights, Dr. Lisa Newton fell in love with her new ride.

"It's been wonderful," Newton said.

Toyota Prius

Newton owns a Toyota Prius, a new generation of "hybrid" car that doesn't really stall, but does cut the engine during idle stops to reduce emissions. The car kicks on when the accelerator is depressed again.

Newton was on hand at the monthly Soundwaters business luncheon Thursday to listen to Brian Bankson of Greenwich Honda speak about the evolving world of hybrid cars.

Hybrid cars are part gasoline-powered internal combustion engine and part electric motor. The electric motor assists the gasoline engine to help reduce emissions and improve gas mileage. Honda calls it an Integrated Motor Assist System.

The hybrid car has evolved at Honda from the two-seat Insight to now include plans to have hybrids on every platform in Honda's stable, including their SUV models. The Honda Civic model on display at Soundwaters looks exactly like a normal Civic, except when you look at the mileage. The hybrid Civic has an expected miles-per-gallon rating of between 48 and 52, depending on the transmission.

"Honda sees this as a bridge to the future," Bankson said. Bankson said Honda expects to sell 15,000 units this year. Pricing for the Honda Civic is around $21,000, about $4,000 higher than a regular Civic, but the hybrid comes with standard features such as climate control and collapsible mirrors that the standard Honda does not have.

The hybrid Civic, Bankson said, contains more lightweight aluminum but meets all of Honda's safety standards.

What was once viewed as an inconvenient, lifestyle-altering purchase is now an environmentally and economically friendly acquisition that does not require plugging anything in or special fuel. The battery recharges automatically and the combustion engine uses unleaded gasoline. For Newton, the director of the environmental studies program at Fairfield University, her hybrid car not only saves on emissions but improves her gas mileage. During a recent trip from New Hampshire, the car averaged over 50 miles per gallon.

"I put my money where my mouth is," Newton said.

Honda Civic Hybrid

Hybrids are one of the responses from the automobile industry to demands for improved fuel economy and reduced emissions. In Connecticut, a newly released report from the Connecticut Public Interest Research Group spells out why hybrids are needed.

According to the EPA, between 2000 and 2002 the number of days when Connecticut's residents were exposed to unhealthy amounts of smog pollution rose by 177 percent. Automobile and truck emissions are the leading causes of smog.

Increasing smog levels threaten the health of people with asthma, heart disease and respiratory ailments. Eighty-six thousand, or 10 percent, of Connecticut's children have asthma, compared to 6 percent nationally. Westport was one of three cities with the highest number of smog days recorded in 2002.

Those types of statistics have led ConnPIRG to push for a Clean Cars bill to be passed by the state legislature. The Clean Cars Bill would enact the strongest tailpipe emissions standards allowed under federal law, matching standards already in place in New York and Massachusetts.

"The cars we drive are polluting the air we breathe," said ConnPIRG advocate Christopher Phelps. "Tailpipe emissions aggravate asthma in our children, contribute to global warming and harm the health of each resident of Connecticut. It's time for carmakers to produce the clean cars that consumers are demanding. Adopting Clean Car standards will get cleaner cars onto our roads, clean our air and improve the quality of life in Connecticut."

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