But hefty sticker prices and limited supplies aimed at a small market niche have led to slow sales.

"Being energy conscious is a little like heaven," said LeRoy Backity, salesman at Auto Park Honda in Cary. "Everybody wants to go there, but no one wants to go today."

Some industry experts predict the hybrid cars will catch on as customers get used to cars that are powered by both internal combustion engines and electric motors.

"They are new, they are different and people are a little apprehensive about new technology like this," said Mike Flynn, director of the Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation at the University of Michigan. "But in a few years, when the word gets around that these aren't any different from other cars, that's when you'll see a steep increase."

So far, despite near-record gasoline prices, buyers' response has been lukewarm.

One reason is the hybrids now on the market are compact cars, but their $20,500 sticker price is as high as a mid-sized auto.

Since the hybrids hit the market late last year, probably only several hundred cars have been sold in the Triangle.

Raleigh contractor Woody Wilson, searching the lot at Fred Anderson Toyota for a car for his son, said he didn't trust the new technology.

"As a primary car I'd stick with conventional equipment," Wilson said. "I don't want to say it's unproven, but it's new technology and it has not been around long enough."

Vice President Al Gore has proposed giving hybrid car buyers a $5,000 tax credit. But so few of the cars have been sold that his opponent for president, Republican George W. Bush, last week during an Illinois speech ridiculed the proposal because it would benefit so few people.

The only hybrids on the market are the five-seat Toyota Prius, which hit car lots this summer, and Honda's two-seat Insight, which has been available since late 1999.

Ford and General Motors have said they plan to roll out hybrids, starting with a modified SUV, the Ford Escape, in 2003. And last week Chrysler-Daimler said it will build a hybrid version of its Dodge Durango SUV. By 2003 about 15 percent of its Durangos will be hybrids.

Auto Park Honda sales manager Bill McNamara said he thinks that about half the Insights he's sold have gone to customers concerned about the environment. The others have gone to car buffs who want to be the first with the newest vehicle.

"Where there are lots of what we call 'tree huggers' they sell well," McNamara said, "but other dealers in Oxford, Asheboro and Goldsboro say they can't give them away."

Leith Toyota on Capital Boulevard in Raleigh has sold seven Priuses since June and has orders for another five to 10, said Internet sales manager Jeremy Piercy.

Fred Anderson Toyota in Raleigh has sold 26 Priuses since June, the most of any dealer in the Southeast, said Ted Pritchett, the dealership's Internet sales manager.

He said there is a six-month wait for the cars. Order a car today and you pick it up in April, Pritchett said.

Toyota began selling Priuses in Japan in 1997 but only began U.S. sales this year. The company builds 3,000 cars a month, half of them earmarked for U.S. lots. Orders are running 2,000 cars ahead of production, Flynn said.

By comparison, Toyota expects to sell about 400,000 Camrys this year, the company's most popular model, Piercy said.

The two-seat Insight is aimed at a smaller market than the Prius. Honda expects to hit its target of 6,500 Insights this year, Flynn said. Auto Park Honda has six Insights on its lot, but at Leith Toyota, the only Prius is a demo model to show prospective customers. Fred Anderson has two Prius demo models.

Toyota and Honda began making the cars to satisfy emission regulations, particularly in California, Flynn said.

The Insight and Prius use a sophisticated system of computers and sensors to balance the most efficient source of power -- gasoline, electric or both. The most innovative breakthrough is called "regenerative braking." When the car is braking, coasting or slowing, a generator charges the batteries, which eliminates overnight hookups for recharging.

That's important: Earlier electric cars never gained popularity because, in addition to being heavy and limited in range and speed, drivers were put off by the inconvenience of having to constantly recharge batteries.

On the road, the hybrid cars seem no different from "regular" cars, except there is a screen on the dash that constantly tells the driver mileage per gallon.

Piercy's wife, Katie, bought one of the first Priuses the Leith dealership received this summer. The car averages 50 to 55 mpg on city streets and gets 47 mpg on the highway, he said. Fuel economy for the Prius decreases on the highway because the gasoline engine is needed more at higher speeds. (And those speeds can be impressive -- Piercy said a salesman hit 100 mph on a test run.)

The Insight can average about 70 mpg on the highway. Auto Park's Backity, who switched to an Insight from a Honda Accord several months ago, said he averages 57 mpg.

Flynn predicts hybrid manufacturers will capture up to 4 percent of the U.S. car market in a decade, or about 450,000 cars.

"That's an assembly plant and a half," he said. "That's pretty good."

He said the biggest problem now for the manufacturers is that the hybrids are selling at $5,000 to $10,000 below their production cost. Manufacturers are hoping they can recoup those losses with future sales, Flynn said.