Looks like the Honda Accord hybrid didn't meet expectations. I guess they didn't market it well enough, LOL. At least with the Crossfire I don't find myself thinking I should have bought the Prius.

http://www.comcast.net/news/finance/...cvqh=itn_honda

 

I don't understand the point of hybrids. What's worse carbon emissions or trying to dispose of 500 kg of heavy metals (battery) every few years?

In my opinion bad idea for the environment, great marketing by toyota.

 

That's true, Nickel metal batteries aren't exactly easy to recycle or worth much to a recycler. On top of that the Prius only get 40 mpg, I see no reason for the hype. Just a bunch of misguided yuppies.

 

I know what you are saying, these huge poison filled battery packs are a solid waste time bomb waiting to happen. Once these things go bad and wind up abandoned, dumped or in a junk yard leaking into the ground water supply we'll have some serious environmental health threats to deal with. Who's going to pay for that ? Toyota, Honda etc.?

Slim

 

good hybrids are bs either way... prius makes me laugh...

 

Hmm, lots of uninformed opinions around here. We have both a Crossfire and a 2005 Prius and I love them both. Our Prius gets about 45 mpg in day to day suburban traffic and that's a number directly from the fuel consumption gauge. On long highway trips at ~65 mph, we get about 50 mpg. It's got a lot of techno gadgets too, which is cool because I like that sort of thing. Also, the batteries don't need to be replaced "every few years". Our service manager told us just last Saturday that they have yet to replace one on any Prius.

Is it (or the current state of hybrid technology) perfect? No. It's a step in the right direction and the most innovative car to be mass produced in decades.

We bought it not because we thought we'd save in gas money, it was more because we like the idea of hybrid and alternate fuel cars. If you don't want one, don't buy one. Simple as that. I'm not going to tell anyone how to spend their money unless they ask for my opinion.

 

I read about a college study comparing the overall carbon "footprint" of a Prius when compared to a Hummer H3. The Prius has a larger carbon footprint due to the fact that more materials are used in its construction and come from around the world, whereas the Hummer is domestically built from many recycled materials. Even though the Hummer gets much worse fuel mileage, it is simply less polluting in the big picture than the Prius. The Prius battery starts it life at a nickel mine in Canada. The process of mining the nickel is not very efficient, and the equipment burns a lot of fuel. Its primary refining process also uses a ton of fossil fuels, and is not very "green". Then, the nickel is shipped by boat halfway around the word to India, where further refining and assembly takes place. The boat burns what? OIL! The energy needed to make the battery in India uses more energy. India is not known for its environmental friendliness. Then the parts are shipped again by boet to Japan, where the Pruis gets put together. Hmm, an oil burning internal combustion engine AND an electric motor get shoved into a golf cart. Again, energy is used to build the thing. Finally, it is shipped by boat to the US, loaded onto a truck or train, and driven across the continent to the North East, burning even MORE fuel! All those extra steps makes the Prius less environmentally friendly than a gas guzzling SUV. You are better off buying a small domestic car that gets reasonable gas mileage and the same size like a Chevy Cobalt or Ford Focus, saving a few thousand dollars, than paying a premium for the Prius. BTW, it will take you over 10 years to recoup the gas savings in your Prius as compared with another small car of the same size. That is, unless you have to replace the battery before then (which you will). The Hybrid is a waste of time and money.

 

It looks like this is the article you read:
http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/edito...asp?NewsID=188

Unfortunately, the study the college newspaper writer uses as his source is full of holes.

See these articles for counter-points:

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.../03/20/1858204
http://www.truedelta.com/blog/?p=48

This person does a really good job of refuting the claims of that article. Here's the source and this comments:
http://www.tamparacing.com/forums/ge...ml#post4051272


"The original article is an opinion piece (i.e., no fact-checking) for a college newspaper that publishes wild claims in a pathetic attempt to draw attention to itself. In February, The Recorder published "Rape only hurts if you fight it" and now in March, "Prius outdoes hummer." This newspaper and this article are garbage.

1. Regarding new EPA mileage estimates, Demorro claims the Chevy Aveo's mileage puts it within "spitting distance" of the Prius. The new EPA combined mileage put the Chevy Aveo at 26 mpg, the Toyota Prius at 46 mpg. So I guess 20 miles more per gallon is "spitting distance."

2. The "Dust-to-dust" study is from a marketing firm, not a science journal. It arrives at an artificially high cost for the Prius by assigning it an arbitrary lifespan of 100k miles, and a Hummer 300k miles. There's Prius being used as cabs that have 200k on them now: Taxi driver makes career out of hybrids - Grist Magazine - MSNBC.com

And, insofar as a car lasting, what car do you expect to repair less? A Toyota Prius or a GM Hummer? You can check Consumer Reports for the answer to that one. A good analysis of the flaws in dust-to-dust is available here.

3. The Sudbury info is seriously outdated, and the comment about moon buggies (like, when did Nasa test moon buggies — early 1970’s) ought to have given the author a clue. Sudbury was polluted by a century of mining (1870 on). In fact, some of Sudbury’s nickel went into making the Statue of Liberty. Currently, the mine is owned by INCO (not Toyota), and produces 100,000 tons of nickel a year, of which Toyota buys 1% (1000 tons). Blaming Toyota for the pollution at Sudbury is ludicrous. Nickel, by the way, is primarily used to make stainless steel. The Mail on Sunday newspaper, which ran the story the college article is a thin re-write of (visible here Toyota factory turns landscape to arid wilderness | the Mail on Sunday ), used a stock photo you can buy online taken in 1994 to illustrate the pollution (visible here PAUL SOUDERS | WORLDFOTO ). There were, of course, no Prius in existence or being manufactured in 1994.

Furthermore, Sudbury is no longer this polluted, as INCO and the city have planted over 8 million trees there since 1979. The best history online of the Sudbury devastation/reforestation comes from GM Canada -- that's GM, maker of the Hummer, ahem, writing about how Sudbury was polluted and how it has come back. Really, one should blame Chicago more than Toyota, as Sudbury's trees were all cut down in 1871 to help rebuild Chicago after the fire. GM provides telling photos of some of the reclamation from 1979 to present.


Canadian news recently broadcast a show on Sudbury's regreening (the acid rain problem David Martin of Greenpeace is talking about is the situation pre 1972):

The author of this article, Demorro, is so fact-challenged that in his follow-up piece he recommends people buy a Tesla Roadster for $30,000. The Tesla Roadster actually costs $92,000. "

I'll look for more credible articles on the true carbon footprint of the Prius manufacturing process. I know that manufacturing hybrids creates greenhouse gases, I just want to know the unbiased facts.