Will you still be happy with your Prius if gas gets cheap?

I don't understand. Why would anyone want gas to cost MORE?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Silverlode @ Sep 7 2006, 11:56 AM) [snapback]315739[/snapback]</div>

Why? Because without social intervention (govt regulation), the only way to get people to stop driving so much and to start conserving is for the price inputs to rise. Unfortunately petrochemical inputs are very widespread including foods (transportation, packaging, fertilization, etc), transportation (major input), etc, etc.

Additionally gas prices are heavily subsidized. True costs of Gasoline.

 

There is another sometimes selfish reason to want gas to cost more. If you have spent lots of money on a fuel economical vehicle, then as the fuel price rises, your savings with respect to less economical vehicles increases. It also serves to justify the expense of said vehicle.

I see this hubris in myself when I sit quietly at a stop light while the big V8 truck next to me rumbles away. I realize that every increment in the gas prices and every minute we continue to drive, I am getting comparatively richer.

Its like that story about not having to outrun the bear, just the person next to you running from the same bear. I hate to admit it, but people need to live with the consequences of their choices and higher gas prices makes that evident.

Unfortunately I do see a time where resentment will turn into hatred and those people whose bad choices will resent those who made the good choices and vandalism against Hybrids will increase. I do not know how to deal with this as except try to remain humble. This is the hard thing - driving the old prius does bring a smile to the lips while I am surrounded by grumpy people in their war machines.

 

Yes!
I bought it as a low-emission vehicle. It was the global-warming thing. Saving money on gas really isn't an issue since I only drive about 6K miles per year. But it does feel good knowing I'm contributing less to oil dependency.

Plus it's a pretty cool vehicle, I like the features of a hybrid, and the Prius is comfortable to drive.

I agree that gas should cost more and public transportation should cost less. Also, I should be able to buy a plug-in hybrid and solar panels for my house. Let's put some subsidies there...

 

Rather than subsidizing transportation, maybe we should subsidize a distributed manufacturing infrastructure that requires less teansportation. We consume too much energy. We need to make changes that will allow us to run our economy on less energy.

 

Because the car is the car of the future as well as the fact you are contributing in a positive manner to the environment!

 

there is an economic rule that says if you spend a dollar towards a national store, that dollar is used in the local area once and then is invested elsewhere.

a dollar spent at a local business however, is invested and respent an average of 9 times before leaving the local area. another reason to consider buying local.

granted this does not work for locally owned stores that buy from national distributors, but its a great way to build your own community and *some* of most businesses involving groceries are usually local

 

As soon as gas drops below $2.00 I'm selling dammit!
NOT!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Frank Hudon @ Sep 6 2006, 08:48 PM) [snapback]315516[/snapback]</div>

The original Volkswagen Beetle was as popular a car as gas-guzzling musclecars during the sixties (the heyday of cheap gas), too. Frugality never really goes out of style.

Additionally, although gas might be 'cheap' now ($2.17/gal), it will still take quite a while for me to become unhappy with my Prius since it's a nice hedge against the exceptional volatility of gas prices, thanks largely to Katrina, Bush, and greedy oil companies.

Recent events have shown that although gas prices might be low (relatively speaking) one day, they can easily skyrocket within hours, let alone days or weeks. IIRC, this is exactly what happened days after Katrina went through New Orleans. I vividly recall checking the price of gas one morning as I went to work, and then seeing it $.60 more per gallon eight hours later when I went home. That dramatic of a change in gas prices had never happened before, even during the original US gas crisis in the seventies when the price of gas was much more heavily regulated. It was quite a shock and a hard-learned lesson. Imagine what would happen if bin Laden and his merry band of al-Qaeda lunatics somehow manage to pull something that cuts off the entire US-Saudi oil supply. The price of gas would double (or even triple) overnight, and that's the insurance that owning a Prius provides some comfort against.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(rudiger @ Sep 8 2006, 09:48 AM) [snapback]316414[/snapback]</div>

That would only kill the Chinese and Indian supply. al-Qaeda should really take out Venezula if they really want to take out the US. But still, the US will see crazy gas prices as it is global market price.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Sep 8 2006, 12:05 AM) [snapback]316174[/snapback]</div>

If we each had to pay the full costs of our transportation choices, we'd be travelling very differently than we do now, living in smaller houses, and changing our diets. If transportation subsidies were at least equal between modes, this would bring about some positive changes. City zoning is partly to blame: Ideally, we should be able to live, work, and play in the same neighbourhood.

 

I'd regret buying my Prius if Toyota came out with a flying hybrid in 2008...which is much more likely that gas ever being "cheap" again. I'd bet we'll be seeing $4 - $5 a gallon before 2010.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hyo silver @ Sep 8 2006, 01:45 PM) [snapback]316453[/snapback]</div>

Yep, because people want to live in the same neighborhood with a paper mill, iron mill or other similar facility.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Soylent @ Sep 5 2006, 01:07 PM) [snapback]314634[/snapback]</div>

That the Prius gets good gas milage is a plus but that's really not the reason I purchased it. I don't drive enough for work or play to benefit much from that advantage.

It's small (fits a petite person to a T), has high-tech features (even for the package I purchased), but most of all it is oh so much more maneuverable than my previous car. The turning radius of the Prius is reason enough to buy it!

If I save even more on gas, so much the better - tho' the even worse downside is that people will buy more SUVs & frankly, I think I'd rather pay more for gas. ::::sigh::: And truly, that's the downside to cheaper gas as others have already mentioned. As a nation, we need to realize that oil has its price & it's not always in money...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ken S @ Sep 8 2006, 04:06 PM) [snapback]316657[/snapback]</div>

Just today I passed a gas station advertising regular just over $3 per gallon. We're going to see $4 gas long before 2010. It would not surprise me if gas went up to $5 within a couple of years (assuming no world-shaking events to give them the excuse to do it sooner).

 

this spring when the gas cost was the highest $1.23 a liter that works out to $5.30 a US gallon for regular. At the current price of $1.02 a liter it's still $4.40 a US gallon with the exchange on the dollar, currently 14%. So will we ever get back to $2.00 a gallon? not till I'm long gone. So I don't ever see getting rid of my Prius because of cheap gas.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dipper @ Sep 8 2006, 01:26 PM) [snapback]316435[/snapback]</div>

True. Oil companies will seize upon any opportunity to ratchet up oil prices, regardless of the reality of the situation. What I couldn't understand was why oil prices didn't increase dramatically either during the Israel-Lebanon conflict or the BP-Alaska pipeline shutdown. I was sure the national average price of gas would have topped $4/gal by now. But instead of going up by nearly $1/gal, it's gone the other way and has dropped by almost $1/gal.

The only thing I can figure is that the reasons that kept big oil from jumping oil prices up to $85/barrel were: the revelations about the obscene levels of recent oil company profits which brought large amounts of negative public scrutiny; the political party in power wants gas prices to remain stable to improve their chances in the upcoming November elections; and, finally, the dire straits that domestic auto manufacturers are in, due to their reliance on the profits from sales of big, gas-guzzling full-size pickup trucks and SUVs. This all conspired to force the political party in power to come down hard on big oil to maintain (or lower) oil prices in the short term, regardless of the global political situation (at least until after the November elections). I would imagine that post-November, 2006, gas prices will immediately spiral back up to around $3/gal.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Soylent @ Sep 5 2006, 02:07 PM) [snapback]314634[/snapback]</div>

Soylent, were you really being serious with this post?

You will be saving even more money on gas if the prices go down. Even though you are not saving as much, relatively speaking, as your gas-guzzling neighbor might be, you are still spending a lot less to travel the same number of miles!

And btw, why DID you buy the car?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Soylent @ Sep 5 2006, 01:07 PM) [snapback]314634[/snapback]</div>

I just got asked this same question. I bought my Prius last month when gas was $3.00/gallon, and I traded in a Nissan Frontier for it. I didn't trade it in JUST because of the gas prices, but it was a contributing factor. I was spending close to $100 a week in gas betting 18mpg. Now I am no ultra-environmentalist, but that was a factor as well. Now that the gas is cheaper by about 50 cents a gallon, the question does have some merrit. But I figured out this....

Frontier: 20 gallons to fill up, avg distance of 350 miles. Price to fill up was $60, now would be $50
Prius: 10 gallons to fill up, avg distance of 480 miles, Price to fill up was $30, now is $25.

So I dropped from 60 to 25 and get an extra 130 miles.

Long story longer, no regrets about buying this car at all. GREAT car, great for the environment, and gas WILL be $4.00 by the end of next year. The only bad thing about gas prices going down, is that people will use more of it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(PriusRos @ Sep 9 2006, 07:05 AM) [snapback]316935[/snapback]</div>

It's the opposite of the “Buy More and Save More†[advertising misnomer] mentality. As long as you are using less, you are saving more, no matter the price.