Prius haters unite! (rant)

Wow, you get 3?

You must not push hard!

 

I demand pictures of this!

 

Get out of CA. The most smug Prius owners live there. At least you are south, apparantly the Prius rolling roadblock can add up to 54 minutes to your work commute in the San Fran area.

BT

 

I too like them as well as other hybrid and high tech cars...I can't wait until someone comes out with a fast diesel-hybrid...

 

South Park had a show about Pious hybrid drivers and how they caused a smug alert. It was very educational.
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A Hummer is actually better than a Prius!!! Take that hippies!

Article location is here:
http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/editorial/editorial_item.asp?NewsID=188

Prius Outdoes Hummer in Environmental Damage
By Chris Demorro
Staff Writer

The Toyota Prius has become the flagship car for those in our society so environmentally conscious that they are willing to spend a premium to show the world how much they care. Unfortunately for them, their ultimate ‘green car’ is the source of some of the worst pollution in North America; it takes more combined energy per Prius to produce than a Hummer.

Before we delve into the seedy underworld of hybrids, you must first understand how a hybrid works. For this, we will use the most popular hybrid on the market, the Toyota Prius.

The Prius is powered by not one, but two engines: a standard 76 horsepower, 1.5-liter gas engine found in most cars today and a battery- powered engine that deals out 67 horsepower and a whooping 295ft/lbs of torque, below 2000 revolutions per minute. Essentially, the Toyota Synergy Drive system, as it is so called, propels the car from a dead stop to up to 30mph. This is where the largest percent of gas is consumed. As any physics major can tell you, it takes more energy to get an object moving than to keep it moving. The battery is recharged through the braking system, as well as when the gasoline engine takes over anywhere north of 30mph. It seems like a great energy efficient and environmentally sound car, right?

You would be right if you went by the old government EPA estimates, which netted the Prius an incredible 60 miles per gallon in the city and 51 miles per gallon on the highway. Unfortunately for Toyota, the government realized how unrealistic their EPA tests were, which consisted of highway speeds limited to 55mph and acceleration of only 3.3 mph per second. The new tests which affect all 2008 models give a much more realistic rating with highway speeds of 80mph and acceleration of 8mph per second. This has dropped the Prius’s EPA down by 25 percent to an average of 45mpg. This now puts the Toyota within spitting distance of cars like the Chevy Aveo, which costs less then half what the Prius costs.

However, if that was the only issue with the Prius, I wouldn’t be writing this article. It gets much worse.

Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.

The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius’ battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist’s nightmare.

“The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside,” said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin during an interview with Mail, a British-based newspaper.

All of this would be bad enough in and of itself; however, the journey to make a hybrid doesn’t end there. The nickel produced by this disastrous plant is shipped via massive container ship to the largest nickel refinery in Europe. From there, the nickel hops over to China to produce ‘nickel foam.’ From there, it goes to Japan. Finally, the completed batteries are shipped to the United States, finalizing the around-the-world trip required to produce a single Prius battery. Are these not sounding less and less like environmentally sound cars and more like a farce?

Wait, I haven’t even got to the best part yet.

When you pool together all the combined energy it takes to drive and build a Toyota Prius, the flagship car of energy fanatics, it takes almost 50 percent more energy than a Hummer - the Prius’s arch nemesis.

Through a study by CNW Marketing called “Dust to Dust,” the total combined energy is taken from all the electrical, fuel, transportation, materials (metal, plastic, etc) and hundreds of other factors over the expected lifetime of a vehicle. The Prius costs an average of $3.25 per mile driven over a lifetime of 100,000 miles - the expected lifespan of the Hybrid.

The Hummer, on the other hand, costs a more fiscal $1.95 per mile to put on the road over an expected lifetime of 300,000 miles. That means the Hummer will last three times longer than a Prius and use less combined energy doing it.

So, if you are really an environmentalist - ditch the Prius. Instead, buy one of the most economical cars available - a Toyota Scion xB. The Scion only costs a paltry $0.48 per mile to put on the road. If you are still obsessed over gas mileage - buy a Chevy Aveo and fix that lead foot.

One last fun fact for you: it takes five years to offset the premium price of a Prius. Meaning, you have to wait 60 months to save any money over a non-hybrid car because of lower gas expenses.

 

The point you pro-gas guzzlers are missing is the Prius and other hybrid vehicle will help spur the development of better technology to build more fuel efficient cars in the future...remember, the first cars were not as efficient as a horse and buggy...

 

I got the following from a fellow F-chatter a while ago (forgot who it was that sent it to me):
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Have no love for em

 

They exist. They're called small displacement diesels. What Toyota doesn't want Americans to realize is that diesels have more than 50% of the new market share already in Europe...

 

It's not the lack of technology, but a lack of profit margins.

The government won't force manufacturers to make and sell an alotted number of hybrids or force the consumer to buy these products by a certain date.

GM comes to mind as one manufacturer doing joint development of hybrid technology with other manufacturers and sharing information. When faced with a bail out (GM) or higher emissions, no question who holds the winning hand right now.

I would say lucky for us, but I'm sure there are some nut jobs that hold office that want to slag our favorite cars.

Sunny

 

Behold! The royalty free "MCFV" emblem!

http://s10.picshome.com/296/mcfv_sticker.jpg

 

THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT YOUR FRIEND...the government should never be allowed to interfere with the capitalist market. Gas prices need to continue to rise which will spur development of more economical engine designs and we all win...our biggest enemy is low fuel prices which keep car manufacturers making big V8s in SUVs that such gas like crazy...

 

I believe Toyota as well as most other companies are in fact planning to bring diesels into the USA soon...the hurdle has been high sulfur diesel fuel which would not allow diesels to meet USA emission standards...new low sulfur diesel has changed that.

 

Nothing new to add other than I hate the looks of the stupid thing.

 

Hahahaha I'd have killed myself laughing if i saw that one! Wounder what kinda look the service station guy gave her!

 

Ohhwell, it annoyed me at the time. Who puts 50 dollars worth of premium into a prius?? Also, who orders such a car chock full of leather and other gadgetry, i bet you she's just trying to keep up with her yuppie friends and the mentality 'it's cool to be green'

 

Holy ****!! I agree with Frank!!!

Dom

 

+1!

 

Toyota is now creating a Whole New LINE out of Prius

So soon we will have several Priuses (Priusi ?) to deal with

 

You have that one pegged, my friend! I want to see 5-10/gallon so the roads are less congested and people treat transportation more as a necessity and less as a luxury.

 

Didn't a majority of gasoline suppliers eliminate high sulfur content and make refinery changes in the late 90's and finish these changes by 2001? Why weren't diesel fuels affecetd by these changes? I can research this at some point later this afternoon unless you already know the answer!

 

The low sulfur diesel requirement was only made effective in 2006... http://epa.gov/otaq/regs/fuels/diesel/diesel.htm ...that's why diesels are just now making a comeback in the USA including a new Jeep diesel ... http://mydrive.roadfly.com/blog/ExJxZ3/

 

Are you suggesting the gubment wants to subsidize our gasoline? That's funny. It's actually the other way around. You see, they're using your logic to support the idea of even more taxes per gallon of gasoline you pump, creating artificially higher prices circumventing the traditional capitalist economic pricing method of supply and demand. Some of the left-wingers actually do want to tax it up to five or six dollars per gallon, no joke.

 

Yep.

That's what drives most of the Prius sales. It's all about the image, not the actual "saving of the planet." One reason a couple articles said that Honda's hybrid Civic hasn't sold well was because it doesn't look "weird enough."

It's all about the image.