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Originally Posted by Confed999
Significant - having meaning. A few inefficent hybreds aren't going to change things. Currently the weight to power ratio of electric motors is abysmal. The current battery life to weight to price ratio is barely above abysmal. Both are antiquated technologys. Both are something I deal with, as an electrician, everyday.
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a 40% improvement in fuel consumption is quoted for one of the cars here.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/hybrid_news.shtml
I don't know if 40% counts as significant because you haven't defined it in this context .. But i will give you a figure - what about 40% is that signifcant?
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Need - requirement. Since hybreds use oil, both to run and in production, with only limited savings, in oil but not price or maintainence, the benefit would be limited. The power plants, plastics, lubricants, cleaners, makeup, etc. made from oil would still be a major requirement as well.
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Granted they use oil, but they use less. Therefore the more of them that are in use, require less oil. Thus our need for oil is reduced because the same amount can go further. Our need for oil will never be removed. But it can be reduced to a far more manageable level.
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Time period would be the same ammount of time putting the tax breaks into R&D to produce a more efficient product, as putting the tax breaks into a few consumer's pockets. I don't believe giving tax breaks for consumption would make the investments into R&D bigger faster than putting the tax breaks into the R&D itself. Plus anything R&D produces could be used to reduce the power plants need for oil to run the many electric motors in everything from vacuumes to the power plants themselves. As well as reducing the strain of the toxic materials to be put into our landfills. I just don't see a point in giving breaks for a half effort, and I don't like to give breaks for consumption.
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The problem with investing in R&D is that it produces ever more sophisticated systems that are expensive to produce due to small volume. Unless you can define what makes an acceptable hybrid vehicle, people are going to be researching themselves up the wazoo.
The best way to drive costs down is to get something to market. The tax break is the catalyst to overcome market inertia (exactly what happened to the SUV). Once the cars roll off the forecourts, the auto makers will be able to eye up a market and produce cyclic R&D exactly as they do now for "conventional" cars. Remember that the tax break for SUV owners fuelled the market which drove down the cost of the SuV, meaning those that didn't get the tax break still benefited.
Also, lets remember that cars of 50 years were dirtier, slower, less safe, less efficient, less packed with toys and features and more expensive. It wasn't one off R&D that produced modern cars with a gap of 50 years, it was the competition in the market.
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More helpful bro? 
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Always mate.