Mr. Buford, a telecommunications analyst at Kraft Foods who works in the Chicago area, said he decided on a hybrid because he wanted to "go green," although he added, "I wasn't willing to make any of the trade-offs normally associated with a hybrid." He said he liked the way that the electric motor on his new car kicked in early during acceleration, at a speed range in which the V-6 gasoline engine is relatively weak. And its emissions of smog-forming pollutants are low, he said. (The Environmental Protection Agency puts the hybrid and nonhybrid Accords in the same emissions category).

If sold at list price, the hybrid costs about $3,300 more than the V-6 with no hybrid. Mr. Buford said he was not sure if the gas savings would ever pay for the difference. But in that price range -- about $30,000 -- many buyers are not looking for a car that is the cheapest to buy or to operate.

Mr. Buford said he expected that when he files his taxes next April, the purchase will cut his tax bill by about $600. The tax credit will begin to be phased out in 2006.

The Accord hybrid is not alone in using technology for power; the Toyota Highlander and the Lexus RX330, two premium vehicles, both gained horsepower when they were produced as hybrids. When Lexus created a hybrid version of the RX330 it kept the same 3.3-liter engine, but to get across the idea that the hybrid had as much power as a vehicle with a 4-liter engine it named it the RX400h.

In the Accord, the mechanism was simple. Honda took the model with the 3.0-liter V-6 engine, which generates 240 horsepower, and added a 16-horsepower electric system. That is in contrast to the Civic, in which Honda pulled out the standard 1.7-liter engine and replaced it with a 1.3-liter engine when it made a hybrid version of the car. Combined with the electric drive, the car's horsepower remained roughly constant.

Consumer Reports called the hybrid portion of the Accord a "green turbocharger." The main benefit is in getting from zero to 60 miles per hour in 6.9 seconds, compared with 9.0 seconds for the basic four-cylinder model.

A Honda spokesman, Andrew Boyd, said the company already had hybrids that minimize fuel use, notably the Insight, for customers whose top priority was to save gasoline, and the Civic for customers who wanted a car that performs the same but uses less fuel. Performance in the Civic hybrid is slightly lower than the original model, Mr. Boyd said, and as a result it gets 36 miles per gallon instead of 29.