My Prius is ruining me!

That reminds me - why are there no hybrid minivans? You'd think that would be a natural market!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Washington1788 @ Dec 11 2006, 10:09 AM) [snapback]360418[/snapback]</div>

I hear your message. I really do. And I agree with some of it. Yet this part of it still bugs me. "By god they should" waste energy, increase pollution, and lower our national security... because they can afford to??? You are implying here that the cost of gas is the ONLY cost associated with owning/driving a hummer. If you can afford to crap in everybody else's air, then you have a right to do so? Are you familiar with the economics term of "tragedy of the commons?" Clean air and clean water are just some of our "commons." They are being stolen by those who can "afford" to steal them.

Do we not need to put a price on the health of our people and environment? On our security? On our commons?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Dec 11 2006, 04:10 PM) [snapback]360652[/snapback]</div>

Well put. I felt the same as washington1788 until I studied the subject and came away with a completely different viewpoint. Still, some people feel its perfectly ok to be a contributing cause to some inner-city childs asthma complications. Guess those kids parents should have taken advantage of the system and moved to the country like the rich folk did considering we all have equal opportunities right?

 

"Washington, you're taking my post a little more seriously than I intended. Although I personally think gas-only cars are "stupid" for me, I have no grudge against the Turbo driver. My post was intended to express my astonishment at how Al Gore and the Prius have affected me personally, and should not be interpreted as a screed against those who feel differently. I'm not saying it didn't come out that way, just that it was not my intention. Also, the Car & Driver and Speed Channel references were tongue-in-cheek. I'm not actually dumping them yet, but, my reaction to them is definitely changing and anyone who's known me for a while would be stunned to hear it.

I disagree with you about the Hummer, though. The image they represent seems aggressively, intentionally anti-environment and I actually feel angry when I see one. I feel like the driver is just telling the world, "I don't give a damn."



To be 100% honest, I wasn't exactly sure what the message was trying to get across, so I thought it might be an opportunity to express my frustration at the attitude that comes from some in the Prius community (not you specifically).

If Al Gore and the Prius have changed your attitude about the environment or hybrids in general, that's all good.

As for the Hummer, I just think its something that doesn't need to get worked up over since they are such a small percentage of the all the cars/SUV's on the road. Whether the driver of a Hummer intension is to tell the world they don't give a damn or whether they just have money and like the car (or whatever you want to call it) then they should have that freedom to do that.

We're starting to get into an area that I think starts bordering on totalitarian. Its the concept that if things are not deemed good for a person or good for the "common good" then they should be illegal or deemed stupid. A good example of this is the trans-fat ban in NYC. Trans-fats have been deemed by NYC to be bad for people, hence they are declared illegal. NYC could make a similar argument for Hummers, violent video games, salt, whatever they wanted really.

What I'm saying is that if you want people to change their behavior or what they do there is a right way to get them to change their habits. The tax credit for hybrids was an EXCELLENT example of how to impact people's decisions about hybrids. The wrong way (or maybe less effective way) to change people's behavior is through trying to shame them into action or jeers and intimidataion.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Dec 11 2006, 07:10 PM) [snapback]360652[/snapback]</div>

I can certainly understand where you're coming from. However, my latest post touches on this subject to a certain extent. I think you need incentives for people to change their behavior rather than penalties or making fun of people. If you've ever seen an old Stallone movie called "Demolition Man" its about Stallone being frozen in our time and unthawed in the future where anything that is deemed bad/immoral or unhealthy has been made illegal and that society has eliminated all real means of free choice and living.

I'm hoping that the Democrats up that hybrid tax incentive even higher, maybe $5,000-7,000. You want hybrids on the road, that's what's going to do it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Slow & Green @ Dec 10 2006, 04:18 PM) [snapback]360161[/snapback]</div>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We got our Prius in June of '06. You're right! If you get too close to one of these, it is almost assured that you'll be a 'goner!' Here is what I posted about a month later:

• "I live in a retirement community with about 9,000 residents. There are quite few Prius' here.
• My wife & I saw the Al Gore movie, "An Inconvenient Truth" on June 3. It really started us to thinking. On a whim, we stopped by our local Toyota dealer the next night! They told us there was a 30 day Prius waiting period. PERIOD! We did a little investigating, including going on the net. The morning of June 9, we decided this whole idea was crazy. We already had a '98 Honda in good shape. So that was that.
• About 2 hours later, the local internet salesman calls us & says they have one of those "rare?" cancellations. Would we like to come down & take a look? We figured, "What the heck?" It looked pretty good. It was white. Had a #7 pkg. We kinda wanted a #8. They said that they regularly upgrade some Prius' to a #8 by switching the seatcovers to leather, locally. To make a long story short, we signed on the dotted line that afternoon!
• It is awesome!! It has radically changed the way we drive! We love to see the MPG rise as high as we can make it! I don't race around anymore. I don't max out the A/C anymore. I start slowing down further from the red lights now-a-days. My wife feels much safer with me at the wheel lately! I would have never guessed that a car could have this effect! You can not begin to imagine what this is all about, until you go there yourself!
• AND, we had never experienced GPS assisted driving, before. Now let me tell you! This thing just keeps on amazing you with all of it's capabilities! We may never refer to a conventional paper map again. The first weekend, we drove into a strange town & were looking for a riverside restaurant. We asked a local to give us directions. That turned out to be a fiasco. Then it dawns on us that all we need to do is press that magic button on the steering wheel & say, "Restaurant." - - Piece of cake! I still shake my head over how fantastic GPS assisted driving is."

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Dec 11 2006, 05:38 PM) [snapback]360613[/snapback]</div>

Absolutely, many people here have expressed that sentiment, and if there had been one here, I'd have bought it.

In Japan, but not here, Toyota sells exactly what I wanted, the Estima. A smallish, 40mpg minvan, seating seven. It's even (heresy!) more technologically advanced than the Prius, with HDS driving the front wheels and individual motors on the rear wheels. (It's certainly more complex, in any case.)

But the rumor for American seems to be that Toyota's eventually going to transplant the Highlander Hybrid drivetrain into a large minvan body, yielding, I guess, a hybrid minvan that gets mileage like a HiHy, or EPA average 30 MPG. Whic is great for a minivan. Best you can do now is a Dodge caravan getting EPA 22. But I'd say that's relatively mediocre in the grand scheme of things.

That's why I settled for a Mazda5 "microvan", hoping I can get 30 mpg from it with the manual transmission. It's almost exactly the same footprint as the Prius, has slightly smaller turning radius, is significantly taller, has much better visibility, and is set up to seat 6 in 2-2-2 formation. The shape of the body very similar -- it looks like the big brother or big sister of the Prius.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Slow & Green @ Dec 11 2006, 11:18 AM) [snapback]360161[/snapback]</div>

Hi there, I'm a first-time poster, and a Prius owner for a total of a week. My previous car was an SS Commodore (5.7 litre V8). It did 0-100km/h in 5.8 seconds. You could throw the back end out around a corner, and you knew that with a slight flick of the steering and a good dose of throttle it'd just kick back under control. Full braking would suck your eyeballs out of your head.
I love that car. I started looking around for something else since the lease on it was coming to an end, and I looked at all sorts of things including the latest model of the same car, and the VW 4Motion Passat. I also looked at buying the car from the lease company, and putting it on LPG.
Then I started getting cold sweats at night.
I've always been a bit of a greenie, but just one that happened to be addicted to speed. And the greenie in me was apparently rebelling.

Now in Australia, we don't have the 'luxury' of tax credits for hybrid cars, or the ability to use them in express lanes, or for that matter, any other form of incentive. Nope, in a country that's one of the worst greenhouse gas generators on the planet (something like 72KG per person per day; mainly because of using coal for power), we get absolutely ZERO incentive to be ecologically friendly.

So, I'm now the proud owner of a black (with tinted windows) Prius I-tech.

I didn't buy it because it can get X MPG, or save me Y dollars, though these are bonuses.
I bought it because I genuinely believe we've created a bad situation on this planet, and its our *obligation* to go above and beyond to fix it. This may well involve making sacrifices, but then, the resources we're consuming aren't really *ours*, so it's not a sacrifice, it's simply being more responsible for our actions.

I'm well aware of the hypocrisy of someone who's spent years driving a gas-guzzler suddenly preaching about resource consumption, so I won't. One of the reasons I bought a Prius is BECAUSE it's seen as an 'extreme' environmental car (at least over here it is since it's about the only sort of hybrid you can get). I don't expect others to rush out and buy one (although that'd be nice), but if I can change people's buying habits through passive means, so that maybe they change to at least a smaller car, then at least that's a start.

I'm not going to sit here and say I think it's an attractive car.... there's a loooong line of cars in front of it in that respect. But damn, it's an addictive car to drive. I never thought I could go 'cold turkey' and enjoy driving the Prius as much as I am. I've only done 620km, but I'm already finding myself seeing how long I can stretch it before the ICE kicks in.

And why is it that after years and years of driving, the 'simple' act of having the engine turn off at a set of lights can come as such a revelation?

Anyway, sorry for the incoherent dribble, but I've never had a car that made me want to register with a chat forum and tell people about it before

 

Imagine your Prius is in the shop and you are driving a rental (as I am this week )

Nissian Sentra or KIA Rio - better than average cars, but no mpg readouts at all or anything like that. It's kind of like an evening at home before there was TV, radio, internet, and hardly any books around.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Washington1788 @ Dec 11 2006, 01:09 PM) [snapback]360418[/snapback]</div>

:blink: OK I'm confused. Environmental issues are a political topic but reducing dependancy on foreign oil isn't?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Whitestar @ Dec 14 2006, 11:46 AM) [snapback]362191[/snapback]</div>

Moving towards a reduction in foreign oil dependency was one of my stated reasons for purchasing a Prius. As it is one of my reasons, I don't think it gets into a political topic/discussion. It would start to move into a political topic if we start talking about drilling in Alaska or off-shore drilling which would potentially increase domestic supply, thus limiting the amount we would need from foreign sources.

Most of the other post I was responding to was talking about the environmental impact of regular cars vs. hybrids. Once we start talking about those impacts or lack there of, we start moving into a long conversation about the environment and politcs (in my view).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Washington1788 @ Dec 14 2006, 01:26 PM) [snapback]362320[/snapback]</div>

Hmm, that didn't help explain it for me. It's not political because it's your reason for buying a Prius, but another person's reason is political?

Reducing foreign oil dependency is smack in the middle of politics. Some claim it's the reason we're in Iraq, and I'm sure it's a good part of it. Foreign oil is our single largest source of our trade imbalance. It's why we're friendly with a country (Saudi Arabia) that allows public statements to financially support the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, and had more people involved with 9/11 than any other country. It's why we had the president of an OPEC country (Hugo Chavez) repeatedly calling our president "the devil" at the main podium of the UN in New York.

And if you think we haven't already had long conversations about all this, then you haven't spent much time in the Fred's House of Pancakes forum!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nerfer @ Dec 14 2006, 03:02 PM) [snapback]362353[/snapback]</div>

The original point was not to get into a big political discussion on topics that tend to be on the controversial side, thus turning this into a political forum rather than a Prius forum.

I was trying to dissude people talking down to people because of their own political beliefs that can be associated with a hybrid because I don't think that gets anyone very far in the long run. I think my first message in this topic covers my intent fairly well.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Washington1788 @ Dec 14 2006, 12:34 PM) [snapback]362390[/snapback]</div>

We have two forums devoted to political and opinionated (wolrdview) topics. Sometimes the opinions overflow to other areas of the forum. You are correct in that, this is not the area for it because not everyone cares to hear other's thoughts, opinions, and views on such subjects.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Washington1788 @ Dec 14 2006, 02:34 PM) [snapback]362390[/snapback]</div>

Okay, I understand that. Point taken.

 

I liked this post. It was hilarious! I sorta wish all cars had the real-time MPG display now.

Well, that's actually more philosophy than politics. Politics, or government, is more of a method of attempting to implement philosophy. Incentivizing good behavior is more liberal humanist than using negative feedback. However, negative feedback is typically more efficient in terms of reaching the desired result in a shorter period of time. Damn, I'm off topic already...sorry.

Oh and btw, you picked a really bad movie example....

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fphinney @ Dec 12 2006, 11:02 PM) [snapback]361374[/snapback]</div>

I went through the same thing - the movie was very powerful. It took me a little while to think it through, and then part with a perfectly good car. Along with all the cool features, it's very comfortable. I like that it has a distinctive look - slightly geeky. I feel like I joined a club.

I agree about the "better life through sane driving". Now that the goal is high MPG, and not "winning the race on the freeway", driving is a less stressful experience. Except when a red light kills my nice long glide...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Dec 11 2006, 01:27 AM) [snapback]360268[/snapback]</div>

Well, right now a pure EV isn't cost effectively available to me. I anticipate that someday there will be. But in the meantime I'll never go from my Prius back to a 100% fossil fuel car. I imagine when the majority of Americans are driving hybrids, I'll have been in an EV for some time. I'll also have those photovoltaic panels on my roof.
Do I *want* to burn fossil fuel to get across town? No. But the Prius is as good as it gets for me right now.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(RonH @ Dec 11 2006, 04:29 PM) [snapback]360582[/snapback]</div>

In what way does this make NASCAR not-stupid?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(AussiePrius @ Dec 14 2006, 02:29 AM) [snapback]362081[/snapback]</div>

Welcome to PriusChat, AussiePrius! Congratulations, and be sure to check out the International forum where you'll see some posts from fellow Aussies.

Unlike you, I was never a "car person". Sure, I liked driving nice cars, but I didn't really care as long as it was reliable. Like you, though, the Prius is the first car I've ever had that got me interested in joining a chat forum, even organizing a local meet up group to meet with other Prius drivers. It's not a perfect car, just the best that's available on any number of axes.

Keep posting!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(zeorai @ Dec 15 2006, 02:34 PM) [snapback]362882[/snapback]</div>

Bad movie or bad movie example? lol Classic movie..up there with Point Break!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Michgal007 @ Dec 10 2006, 05:43 PM) [snapback]360166[/snapback]</div>

An Inconvenient Truth doesn't talk about hybrid vehicles much, if at all, but it's the sort of movie that makes you stop and think about what you can do to help lessen the problem on a personal level. After we watched it, my wife said to me, "Good thing you already drive a hybrid." I told her that there was a lot more I could think of that I should be doing, such as reducing waste, like Styrofoam usage. For example, instead of using and throwing away a Styrofoam cup every time I get a cup of coffee at work, I could just bring a mug from home. Instead of getting my lunch in a "to go" container when I go to the company cafeteria, I could eat there on a real plate. That sort of thing.