<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Apr 6 2007, 11:49 AM) [snapback]418828[/snapback]</div> Looks like the production shortage is over. I know there are Prii at our local Toyota dealer waiting to be sold, but the turn around is half of the regular cars. So far the only people I know who don't like the Prius are the ones who have not driven it. Even my wife now wants her own.
Great news! By what percentage does the average hybrid put out less pollution than the average ICE car? If we could find this out it would be really easy to relate it to the ammount of pollution kept out of the air each year, and then compare that to something (for example.. "thanks to all the hybrids on the roads today it saves the equivalent ammount of pollution as shutting down 2 coal power plants".. etc etc)
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(pewd @ Apr 6 2007, 12:40 PM) [snapback]418890[/snapback]</div> I'll get back to you on that. I was thinking pretty much the same thing so I'll go ahead and try to make that a reality.
I guess more people are realizing that gas isn't going to be $2.00 a gallon or less anymore. Or they are so disgusted with the war they are looking to break our dependence on foreign oil. Or the Prius has been out so long they figure the kinks are all worked out and it's okay to try it now. Having plenty of them so there's no ordering and waiting for months helps a lot too. I am not one of those order and wait months people. If it's not on the lot, I'm not buying it. I got lucky. Mine was on the lot and not spoken for.
I don't think that hybrids necessarily need high gas prices though to remain popular (though no doubt it helps). I would have bought the Prius if gas was 80 cents a gallon because it is a great car at a decent price, has lots of technology, all of the options I wanted, and emits little pollution compared to other cars. The fact that I can save so much gas money is a huge bonus, but not the only reason, and really, if you are spending over 20,000 dollars on a car and do an average amout of driving, the amount of gas it costs to fuel the prius compared to a camry isn't going to be enough to dominate your car choice.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Apr 6 2007, 01:56 PM) [snapback]418938[/snapback]</div> What I did was to pull up a historic graph of the US Average Gasoline Price via GasBuddy.com and used those numbers in conjunction with the numbers in the OP's graph. The gas prices were best-guesses and I created the graph only after entering all numbers. Except for the part in the middle where there appears to be a disconnect, I would say that there is a very direct correlation.
Wow. And it looks like losing the tax incentives didn't have much of an impact on sales either. 2006, April to Sept. Was that when there were less Prius in number because the Camry was coming out?
>Wow. yeah, wow. look at the slope of both lines - they almost always go in the same direction. thanks for taking the time to do that graph, very interesting.
