Help! Prius trashed at son's school eco day!

Let's keep the facts stright, Fox News has nothing to do with the original false information of the report.

 

Just to expand on that: JD Powers & Assiciates rated Prius as the most reliable compact car for five years in a row. http://autos.jdpower.com/content/st...ehicle-dependability-study-results.htm?page=2

The Hummer H1, by comparison,
according to JD Powers, "was last among vehicle brands in 2004 with 173 problems per 100 vehicles."

So these guys didn't just get reliability wrong, they flat-out lied through their teeth. Obviously, it's preposterous to assert that the least reliable of all vehicles will out-last the most reliable by over twenty years.

 

The anti Prius crowd really needs to update their material, the Hummer is gone, dead, finished, kaput! Not even China wanted to build the thing! And now we have four variations of the Prius! Game over!

 

I'm confused about a few things
I read the title "Help! Prius trashed at son's school eco day!" here I thought, damn, someone toilet papered and spray painted your Prius in the parking lot.

Question about this eco expert.... Who is he and what's his name? Is he affiliated with the school? Or is he someone the school found on a budget? How did he become the school's person of interest as an eco expert? What's his qualifications? How much is GM paying him to act as an eco expert? Where did he get his source from? Where did he goto school? What eco organization is he affiliated with or works for? Who pays for his salary?

To the school.... What's the purpose of "Eco Day"? Which school faculty arranged for this speaker to speak at the school? Did s/he know what this eco expert was going to say? Do you still have the contact information for the eco expert?

Prius Vs Hummer.... Is CNW the only source that compares the Prius vs the Hummer where the Prius came out negative?The OP didn't mention anything about where the eco expert got his source from and automatically everybody jumped in and assume that it's CNW.

To the son, who are you going to trust more? someone you don't know and claimed to be an expert or someone who fed you, bathe you, changed your diapers, and took you to Disneyland? Did you ask the expert what's his qualifications or his source? There's gotta be a source. His opinion don't mean shit. If he said Prius is more damaging to the environment than a Hummer, I want scientific proof. I want scientific study by a reliable and trusted independent organization. One that's not funded by the oil company or pressured by any parties from any sides.

 

More analyses and rebuttals:
Environmental - Prius Wiki

 

Actually, I would call for calmer heads to prevail.

I would be upset, if my child returned from school to tell me that he was given flawed or incorrect information about hybrid vehicles.

But I would also take it as a chance to try to teach my child to question everything, and demonstrate the very real truth that not everything presented in the world of information exchange is absolutely true.

Better to learn it today, using Prius and Hybrids as a spring board.

I think the important thing is the school was trying to have an Eco Day. Even if one of the speakers had flawed or misinformation, while highly regrettable, there probably wasn't any malice involved. In other words, I doubt the agenda of the school, or even the "enviromental expert" was to mislead children into turning from hybrids to hummers.

I would probably raise my opinion, present my case to the administration, in hopes of not having a repeat performance of this the next Eco Day. The administration should be informed that their chosen "expert" was not up to date in his/her presentation of information.

But I wouldn't worry. I was taught things in grade school that were incorrect, that later in life I discovered were incorrect. Since even the best education system is operated by humans, error is inevitable.

The greater lesson to be taught, is to question all information and form your own opinion. This is an excellent opportunity to set that foundation personally with your child.

 

Just an easy scapegoat for some...

 

I hear a lot from people about how it takes more energy to make a Prius because of the battery etc.

People are digging way to deep to try and add up emissions from the vehicles that work the mines to produce Nickel, and every other vehicle used to transport materials every day.

It's really easy to simplify this argument to the point that it can't be argued.

Nickel mines do not supply only Toyota, The contractors and companies that run all the equipment from the smallest of hand tools, to the trains that move materials across great distances have nothing to do with the emissions of the Prius itself. The people responsible for trying to defame Hybrid vehicles in general for being less "green" were only out to create controversy. You can't dump all the emissions data from every company involved down the line on Toyota, as they were all busy producing and supplying materials to build other things before Hybrids were even an idea. This would be like placing blame any 1 human for every event going on in the world around them that is necessary to sustain their own life.

When you breathe, you are emitting carbon dioxide, a harmful bi-product of sustaining life itself. Emissions are a necessary evil in this world, and quite frankly there are a lot of people we all wish would produce a lot less hot air

As people have mentioned, take this time to properly inform your child about how the world really works and the benefits your family reaps from owning a hybrid vehicle. Explain to the child that misinformation runs rampant in this world and for every good thing, there will be skeptic and doubters even with factual evidence.

It's nice to see that you would like to be proactive about this matter though, not just for the Prius community, but for the sake of humanity.

 

This is actually what I pictured when I read the title.

Right, I wouldn't be happen about it either. But it's really important that we teach our children to examine all sides of an argument, even if they have a bias, there's no harm in considering the other sides point of view.

 

OP didn't mention grade level of the students. Listening to all sides is great if age appropriate and presented in that light, but it seems these kids were younger and were hearing 'facts' brought by the school which only teaches them truth to this point.

Total screwup by the school to bring in someone with such a discredited 'study' and present as facts. Eco day needs eco people, not anti-eco people. Otherwise, have anti-eco day.

 

I thought someone took a baseball bat to destroy the Prius, and how ironic it was for eco-day.

You can give your son articles to read about the Prius, Hummer and other vehicles written by 'experts', and also perhaps show him some documentaries about how 'experts' can be paid for their 'opinion' by companies.

 

Good job That_Prius_Car in finding ...

Prius Life Cycle .... youtube ... google that.

Person her son and friends can begin to launch a campaign to get to the truth of the hybrid life cycle, Prius life cycle and present new findings at a school rally in early May. Find a top notch student to deliver the speech.

.... don't forget to focus on money savings at the gas pump ... it's what most Americans understand.

Just tell them ... I fill up my Prius for $35 while it used to cost $60 to fill up my other midsize sedan after same number of miles.

 

I'll be ready to trade for a hydrogen-powered Prius hybrid whenever they are available!

 

Just laughing that a 10 mpg Hummer is better than a Prius. The following pic was my best mpg's over a 11 mile journey - it works out at 75 mpg US.



I always find it amusing people complain about the 'rare' earths used in the Prius, yet forget about what is used to make the catalytic converter on their Hummer, or the batteries in the multitude of laptops, mobile phones and lcd/led tv's in their household.

Someone said that there are about 60 kgs of nickel in a Prius HV battery. How many stainless steel exhausts or Hummer side steps or Rolls Royce radiator grills could that make?

 

Actually from Mr. Green's Web-Only Mailbag - November/December 2007 - Sierra Magazine - Sierra Club (link to it at the URL below), there are 32 pounds of nickel (~14.5 kg) in a Prius HV battery, which weighs ~100 lbs.

Yeah, the junk science makes claims that a 6400+ lb. Hummer H2 is somehow more environmentally friendly than the <3000 lb. Prius (curb weight of the 2nd gens, when the CNW junk "science" came out).

Given that the vast majority (>70%, see links below) of the energy consumption of a car is in its operation, let's see. Assuming a Prius got 44 mpg overall (what CR rates it at) and a Hummer H2 gets 10 mpg (I've heard typical figure of 9-11 mpg, since it was exempt from EPA testing), over 150K miles, the Prius would've used 3409 gallons of gasoline vs. 15,000 gallons.

That translates into 21477 lbs. vs. 94500 lbs of gasoline. That comes from oil that must be explored for, drilled for, transported, refined and then the refined product must be trucked to a gas station and then carried in the vehicle as dead weight. The US currently imports ~50% of its oil.

Burning it would cause 68K pounds of CO2 to be emitted vs. 300K pounds. To top it off, the Prius has a far better EPA pollution score (nothing to do w/GHG) than the Hummer.

Yet, the junk science would let asserts that the Hummer is environmentally friendlier. As we've said, "wow, GM made a more environmentally friendly vehicle than the Prius? Congrats! Where are the press releases?"

 

Common sense is not too common.

 

I wouldn't take it too seriously. I remember being about 10 in a science class and we got onto the subject of oil and petrol (I think it was the late 70's oil crisis) and the respected teacher suggested that electric cars had some merit but, and this hit me as odd even back then, that electric cars are not viable as there isn't enough lead in the world for all the batteries required.

I remember thinking even then that surely there must be another way and questioned his short sighted view. 30 years on and we've moved from lead to NiMh to Li-ion.

Maybe give the kids some credit that they'll question this speakers old fashioned view?

 

I wonder what David Suzuki is going to say about this.

 

I remember a middle school teacher that wouldn't believe there were atoms without neutrons in them because of a poorly worded paragraph in one science book.

I casually mentioned it to my mother and it wasn't long after that she switched me to another school, in the process that teacher, another teacher, and the schools principal all apologized and acknowledged the existence of hydrogen.

No one can afford to switch schools every time they find an error in a text book or a teacher not knowledgeable enough to know when the student knows that the textbook is in error. In these days, the internet is full of more information and misinformation than the textbooks of old. Your kid(s) will have to become good at telling the difference between the two.