is the skyrocketing price of oil a good thing?

[mscalisi]

20-30 miles per gallon??!! Who came up with this? What metric did they use? Certainly not miles or, err...gallons. Not even the worse leadfooted driver who always drives with the windows down and the AC on could make a Prius get this low of gas milage. It really does get 50mpg.

Regarding pollution and the battery plant: What fraction of its output is for Toyota?

Regarding that article. It lives in a vaccum. It's a piece of propagana not supported by actual accurate information. It is total BS.

Originally Posted by unibikeling

haha, yeah gilby, you are right on that one. I heard somewhere, reputable, that NASA uses the zone around the plant where they make the batteries, as a moon lander testing area. THere is NO vegitation around the plant, in a 10 mile radius.

and yeah, THEY say the prius gets like 50mpg? or something else like that? Yeah, they totaly get like 20-30, they suck. Not to mention you'd need to replace the batteries, which would cost a few thousand.

edit: i'm not goign to argue either way on a hummer, but the H3, or whatever the newest one is, its actually pretty envireonmentally good. Plus, listen to arnold schwartzeneger. He drives on lol.

[johnfoss]

Yup, got to chime in on the B.S. from that article as well.

- The EPA does have new standards for measuring fuel economy. The old ones were unrealistic and always gave numbers that couldn't be duplicated in real-world driving. Not everybody drives 80 mph on the highway but if that's what the EPA is going to use, the important thing is that it's consistent for all cars tested. BTW, the faster you go, the worse your fuel economy. There's a huge difference between driving 55 and 75; something like 10mpg in a Toyota Camry (according to Consumer Reports).

- What bugged me most about the article was that all they ever mentioned about the "other" car was "Hummer." There are three versions of Hummer, and they are all very different. My guess is that they were referring to the "little" one, the H3. The Prius has more room inside. Part of why a Hummer is probably cheaper to produce is because it has less features. It's much closer to the big hunks of metal and plastic it's made from, while the Toyota is more refined.

- And what the hell are they talking about with a Prius having a 100,000 life span, and 300,000 for a (unnamed model of) Hummer? What a load of crap. There was probably supposed to be something in there about battery replacement, which causes another environmental hit, but it got left out. Though General Motors has designed many reliable cars that have lasted 300,000 miles and beyond, that is way above the average for any car model.

- I've heard about that nasty factory in Ontario that produces the nickel. So what if Toyota bought their nickel from someplace else? Surely it seems they should be able to lower expenses/ecological impact/ if the stuff didn't have to make a world tour to get turned into batteries...

Other advantages of the Prius over the Hummer:
- Better looking
- You can park it
- You can see out of it
- Better reliability (Consumer Reports again)
- A lot less wasteful on tires
- A lot less wasteful on dead weight that the Hummer has to lug around for its entire lifespan

[surfcolorado]

My guess is that after 200,000-250,000 miles most vehicles will need more and more maintanence and it would better to buy a new vehicle, than sink money into an older vehicle.

My '96 Jetta 171,000 miles, has lots of little things going wrong with it. transmision is slipping, driver lock doesn't work (no keyless entry), the driver door needs to be slammed to close, etc. it should last until 200K, but I could not imagine all the things that would be wrong at 300K.

80 mph is a little fast for the most highways (70-75 mph would be more realilistic), I drive my portion of the interstate at 80, but I would guess that most places that is not the norm, but it is much better than the 55 mph.

I'm with John Foss, I can't wait for the electric car. Then I can smile as I pass all the pumps. anything over 50 miles per charge is just icing on the cake for me.

[yoopers]

Originally Posted by hobo_chuck

no car is truly "green," some are just not as bad as others.
even a unicycle causes trace amounts of pollution with daily use.

My green car.

Well, okay. It's got some other colors, too.

(I'd much rather be driving my Avalanche (shown there in the street), but it's in storage for the time being)

[maestro8]

Originally Posted by johnfoss

Other advantages of the Prius over the Hummer:
- Better looking
- You can park it
- You can see out of it

Sounds like someone hasn't driven a Prius before. The rearwards visibility of this car is crap... even though there's a split rear window, it's still useless. The newer Priuses are shipped with a rear-facing video camera to make up for the lack of visibility.

Hummers have the same footprint as many other SUVs, all of which are parkable by a competent driver. The car doesn't park itself.

And looks, that's completely subjective. The Prius has all the "cool factor" of a scooter.

[yoopers]

Originally Posted by maestro8

Hummers have the same footprint as many other SUVs, all of which are parkable by a competent driver. The car doesn't park itself.

Hummers: same frame as my Avalanche. I can swing the Ave into most any parking spot.

[johnfoss]

Originally Posted by maestro8

The rearwards visibility of this car is crap... even though there's a split rear window, it's still useless. The newer Priuses are shipped with a rear-facing video camera to make up for the lack of visibility.

You only need to see behind you to un-park. Jacquie's Toyota Solara (convertible) probably has a worse view out the rear, but a Hummer's pretty bad as well. The H3, that is.

Hummers have the same footprint as many other SUVs, all of which are parkable by a competent driver.

Again, which Hummer are you referring to? H2 and H3 I guess, maybe H1. Competent drivers, of course, are never the problem. It gets ugly when large vehicle drivers just assume they should get two spaces because they can't figure things out...

And looks, that's completely subjective. The Prius has all the "cool factor" of a scooter.

Definitely subjective; I expected to get called out on that one. But the scooter label should apply to the original Prius, which was pretty boring/economy looking. Compared to that, the current Prius looks like a sports car. I think they're pretty good-looking for economy/functional cars.

[kington99]

Originally Posted by surfcolorado

My guess is that after 200,000-250,000 miles most vehicles will need more and more maintanence and it would better to buy a new vehicle, than sink money into an older vehicle.

When my father used to get company cars the calculated economic turning point was 100,000 miles

[surfcolorado]

Originally Posted by kington99

When my father used to get company cars the calculated economic turning point was 100,000 miles

How long ago was that. I would think a car would be economical longer than that.

I maybe put in $1,000 per year of maintenance into my Jetta, registration is $30, no car payment, liability only insurance (who cares if it is totaled at this point). A new car payment, new car registration, and full coverage insurance would be over that $1000 in a couple of months. I know my car is coming to the end of its life, but is puts a lot of money in my pocket that would be going to a car payment and this way we'll be able to pay mostly cash for the next car and save on interest.