Too funny. Went to the barber shop and the guy getting a cut overheard me talking of my hybrid Prius and commented "I'm a truck driver, and those things should be banned from the highway, they're city cars". Huh? I told him my Prius does just fine on the highway, and pointed to it out the window. Oh, he said, "I was talking about the Smart car". I then pointed out the Smart car was not a hybrid, but instead, was a three cylinder diesel (in Canada), something he should be supporting, being a diesel jock. He was a little embarrassed, and laughed. Then he said "I have no problem with cars like yours, but those Smart cars are too hard to see, and if I run over one I'd never know". Good to see him learn. Too bad there's so much mis-information out there!
A co-worker went car shopping at a Toyota dealership recently. She was interested in the Prius. The salesman asked how much city driving she did. When she said "about 50%", he guided her away from the Prius, stating "the Hybrid part only kicks in below 30 mph, it wouldn't do you any good." I'm amazed how little some of these folks (the exceptions, I'm sure) know about their product!
A guy at work, who should have known better says about my Prius, "You get good city mpg's, but on the highway, you only get 25 mpg." Huh? I told him I easily get twice that on the highway. I have no idea where these people are getting this kind of misinformation about the Prius. Harry
This may be more "huh?" than "funny".... I gave an upper-middle-aged man a ride in my Prius today and he asked about "the little screen." I explained a bit and showed him that I was currently averaging 60.8 mpg on this tank of 558 miles, although we needed to fill soon since the last pip was blinking. His response was "No way!" He was completely taken back by the whole gas and electric combination, claims he had never heard of it and wondered "why they don't write about or advertise these things." PA P
A woman came by at a car show in upstate NY. After I explained what the Prius was, she said, "But this isn't available to the general public, is it?"
Last night, on the comedy channel (we are at a hotel, and we do indulge in TV when we stay at hotels), one of the comedians (Jeff Durnham, a ventriquist), had a line: You know what the Prius sounds like when it goes by? iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiIIIIIIIII'MMMMMMMMMMMMggggaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy It made us laugh
Yesterday, I was heading to NJ during the rush hour. It took 1 hour and 15 mins to get the entrance of Holland tunnel from 1.3 miles away (Grand St and Bowery). Drivers were fuming (pun intended) and honking. I could see fumes / exhuasts coming out from all the cars around me and not moving an inch. Right before the entrance while merging, a man in Mercedes left of me rolled down the window and was gesturing me to roll down as well. When I did, he asked me "where did you get it?" I was wondering if he was asking for me GPS or the doggie (on my fiancee's lap). I asked him "Get what?" and he said, "your car. Where did you get it". I told him "Long Island". He paused for awhile and then asked "Which dealer?" I told him "Millenium" long pause and then I said "Millenium Toyota". He said "Thank you". That was it, I guess the answer he was looking for is Toyota. It makes me wonder how many people don't know that Toyota makes very high tech ultra fuel efficient gas electric hybrids.... My vinyl stickers must be making people wonder.
MIT runs a program where college students run 10 week courses for high schoolers, and I was signed up for one which claimed to teach you how things work in a session where you could raise your hand and ask how anything worked (The teacher was an engineering major, so he'd know). The first thing he explained was that he was from UMass, not MIT, and the sole reason he didn't get into MIT was that he slacked up didn't do enough homework... But I beg to differ, because the students had many questions about how relatively basic things worked, and he did not have the knowlege to answer any of them, yet he answered about 50% of them. About halfway through the class, he announced that he'd share one of the topics he'd prepared, because he didn't really know how anything worked, and the first topic was hybrid cars. He explained about the engine and the motors and the planetary gears blablabla, but continued to explain that the way the hybrid system saves energy is it has a device on the brake pads that converts the heat of the brakes back into electricity and drew a clever diagram of this happening. When asked how this ingenious process worked, he said "I don't know, it's some chemical thing". I was talking about hybrids with a bunch of other kids around 15-17 years old, and I commented on how noisy and harsh my friend's Ford Escape is. One of the kids said "It wasn't a hybrid". I assured him it was, and he replied "If it was a hybrid, there'd be no noise."
I had a job interview last week and the interviewer expressed concern about my commute. I told her I had a Prius with carpool stickers. Her face lit up and said her husband had a Prius with the stickers as well. We ended up talking for 10 minutes about the Prius. Oh, I was offered the job. Go Prius!
was asked once why i was putting gas into my car. my buddy expressed concern about rain and deep water.
