Vacation season has arrived, and families are planning their summer trips. With gasoline prices high, alternative fuel vehicles like hybrids and diesels may look particularly attractive. FULL ARTICLE... http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006605300386 - - - The article seems harmless, until you take a close look. Then, when you notice who wrote it, you really get frustrated... knowing he has a reputation for being disingenuous when it comes to hybrids. Rather than the typical ownership cost analysis, he took a unique approach of judging value based on just a 1,190 mile road-trip vacation saying... "You'd save about $70 in fuel costs by taking a five-seat Toyota Prius hybrid rather than the seven-seat Town & Country. That's not quite enough to cover an overnight stay en route in the Days Inn in downtown Chattanooga, Tenn." Since when is $70 every 1,190 miles a small savings? It's just more spin from a Detroit publication. They try to get you to keep focused on just a single aspect of owning a hybrid rather than looking at the big picture. Since overall, a hybrid like Prius or Camry-Hybrid are winners. But don't want you to figure that out. So they never point out the significantly reduced smog-related emissions, the stop & slow efficiency of a daily commute, or long-term reliability. And of course, they now have ethanol as a hot topic... but avoid mentioning that all vehicles, including hybrids, are capable of using a 10% blend already.
Hmmmm. I think I know where this is going. . . So blindingly obvious. Oh oh, and I love this tidbit about reducing dependancy on foriegn oil:
E85 is good to those with corn for brains Greenhouse gas emissions per year per the epa: '07 Tahoe (smallest engine) = 10 tons '07 Tahoe (smallest engine, run exclusively on E85) = 8.5 tons '06 Prius = 3.5 tons
Fact at this time there are only two places in the state of Florida where E-85 is pumped. Tampa and the cape.Now guess what fleet only no private sales. How ya going to use E-85 in Fla. Just food for thought. :blink:
That's crazy, I can tell you exactly where 3 stations here that sell E-85 are, and according to the E-85 website there's a lot more stations that have it than I was aware of. Strange how there's more stations that sell E-85 in this city than there are in the whole state of Florida.
You'll never "save" money by buying a new car, compared to a good, recent-model used car. Hybrids are the only cars that are criticized for not "saving" more money on gas than the price of the car. Don't buy a new Prius if your only concern is to save money. On the other hand, nobody saved money by growing a victory garden in WW II. The monitary value of the food you could grow in a home garden was less than the money you could earn working a job for the same time. But people grew victory gardens to reduce their impact on the national food supply in a time of crisis. By burning half the gas, you are reducing your impact on the demand for petroleum and you are adding less carbon to the environment. And since the Prius is SULEV, it puts a tiny fraction as much other pollutants into the air compared to the typical American-made car. Choosing a Prius instead of a GM is doing your part to try to address the coming environmental catastrophe. Of course, an EV powered by solar cells reduces both carbon and pollutants to zero, But GM decided there was more profit to be made by pushing SUVs with the false claim of safety, and discontinued the EV-1. I'm crossing my fingers for the 2009 Prius to be plug-in with a reasonable range & EV speed.
