It is not every night that gas is added to the car. Why do you think that a 5,000 mile oil change interval is specified? So the 'bladder' that is claimed to be used for evaporative emission control can be refilled....
GM's Lutz is GLAD that Toyota keeps selling the Prius because each car sold makes Toyota loose $3,500. They're only a novelty ... it'll never catch on. Hummers are more environmentally friendly ... when you do the pump to grave analysis. SUV's are where the REAL money is. And they're safer ! That's what everyone REALLY wants. That's why the EV1 never sold. They all had to be leased because no one would even buy one. Even then, no one wanted them, so they took 'em all off the road ... for your safety and mine, so you wouldn't have to bare the huge expense of repairs. Thank you Mr Lutz.
I'm thinking of trading in my Prius for an Escalade. Any advice on lift kits? I hope everyone enjoys celebrating our Lord and Savior's birthday this Christmas!
Did you know that if you buy a Prius, you are supporting Al Gore, since he invented the car, and gets a percentage of all the sales, and he uses that money to pay for his three private jets that he uses to go around the globe, telling us all to stop polluting.
Enjoy! 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.
Holey smoke, who would have thunk it? One trusts the last poster knows that is all crap but hey, at least it's in the right thread. When was the last time NASA tested a MOON rover? When was the first Prius made? The last manned mission to the moon was in 1972 and the last unmanned was in 1976. The Prius was conceived after 1994, 18 years later. Now there is a fair bit of nickel in stainless steel. I know Wiki isn't a perfect source of information but that's what you get. Oh I forgot, is there just enough nickel in each ship for one battery or do they carry other freight at the same time?
I looked into buying one because my friend gets such great MPG (45 MPG!). But then I found out that the MPG on the highway isn't so great, and since I do so much more driving on the highway than my friend (he drives about 3 or 4 miles a day in the city, I have commute 40 miles each way on the highway everyday) I decided it wasn't a good idea. Also since I spend so much time on the road driving at highway speeds I wanted a safer vehicle, so I bought a SUV. I figure the money I'll save in MPG (vs. the Prius) will offset the extra cost for the added safety.
You know, I'd buy a Prius, but if I'm spending 24K for a car, it needs to have automatic headlights, underbody neons, lights at my feet, a built-in phone holder, and an integrated espresso machine, and the carpet needs to be plusher, and the stereo... omg, the stereo needs to have a kick-nice person subwoofer. Oh, and I shouldn't hear any road noise whatsoever, at any time. Why should I have to listen to people honking at me? That's just unacceptable in a car that is costing me this much. Oh, and the seats? well, I HAVE to have heated 8-way adjustable seats with an entire COW covering each one, because, you know, cloth seats are just too CHEAP for my spoiled nice person. Oh, and I want satellite radio that NEVER has lousy reception. And why doesn't the door open up for me, when I have the fob with me? Oh, and shouldn't the car just KNOW ME, so I don't have to worry about carrying the fob? I mean... I might forget where I put it, sometime, and then what will I do? After all, I AM paying 24K for this car.
Prius drivers find out early on that they would never obtain the promised 60 MPG EPA rating, so they came here to PriusChat to find out what they are doing wrong or what is wrong with their car. Now that the EPA has revised the rating down to 45 MPG, they stick around PriusChat to complain and console one another.
That's why I would never even THINK about buying a Prius! Don't these tree-hugging idiots realize if someone gets ahold of their fob, they can steal their Prius?
The electromagnetic field exposure from driving a Prius causes cancer, impotence, genital shrinkage, and reduces the gravitational pull of the earth. Also, I heard that someone died while trying to drive one with a pacemaker.
I saw on the Discovery Channel that the orbit of the moon is increasing in diameter by approximately 3.8 meters per year. This increase in being caused exclusively by Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive system.
The HSD is also responsible for collapsing the Earth's magnetic field which means we will all eventually be fried by cosmic rays.
The Prius doesn't exist. I don't know what you are talking about. http://www.conservapedia.com/Special:Search?search=prius&go=Go
However, when the Chevy Volt comes it, it will have the ability to cure cancer and bring about permanent world peace.