Prius is not a green car

[zenMachine]

Sunday, June 21, 2009

The June 9 Business article "Toyota Wants New Prius to Be America's Next Top Model" called the Prius an "eco-icon" and said that it has allowed Americans to "advertise their eco-correctness." A Toyota spokesman was quoted as saying that many Prius buyers want to "make an environmental statement."

The Prius's reputation as a "green" car is completely undeserved. The culprit is its nickel metal hydride battery.

The nickel is mined in Sudbury, Ontario, and smelted nearby, doing damage to the local environment. The smelted nickel is shipped to Wales, where it is refined. Then it is sent to China to be made into nickel foam. Then it goes to Japan, where it is made into a battery. Then it goes into cars, some of which are shipped to the United States and some of which go to Europe. All of that seaborne transport consumes a lot of fossil fuel.

CNW Marketing rates cars on the combined energy needed "to plan, build, sell, drive and dispose of a vehicle from initial concept to scrappage." A Prius costs $2.87 per lifetime mile. By comparison, an H3 Hummer costs $2.07 per lifetime mile. Then there will be the problem of disposing of the used batteries.

This is not a "green" car; it is a "brown" one.

JAMES CLIVIE GOODWIN

Fairfax

washingtonpost.com

Good grief, already...

[quillsinister]

Originally Posted by zenMachine

Good grief, already...

Now, now. We all know that no nickel is mined anywhere for any reason other than putting it into Prii. We simply can't have people like you spreading the lie that other people in the world use nickel. Nope, it all goes into the Prius, all the time.

[David Beale]

Not only that, but the refinery etc. in Canada is now the cleanest in the world. Most of the damage was caused during the early years, when the nickle was used in sinks, trim on cars, etc. in stainless steel.

BUT I do agree that the Prius is NOT a "green car" (unless yours is that colour). NO CAR is "green". They are all hard on the environment, the Prius is just less so. The sooner people get that -FACT- into their heads, the better off we all will be. But it looks like it will never happen, and we are dooming ourselves to a polluted hot world.

[REDWIND88]

Yes I hear they are coming out with another report that the Hummer is better for the environment than a vespa scooter, because the lifespan of the scooter is 35 miles, so if you compare that to the 300,000 miles the hummer would last, you would throw away 8,751 scooters!!!!

[Chuck.]

I thought The Washington Post was a respected professional newspaper.

[Philosophe]

Originally Posted by Delta Flyer

I thought The Washington Post was a respected professional newspaper.

This is not from the Washington Post but rather in a letter to the Post.

[zenMachine]

Originally Posted by Philosophe

This is not from the Washington Post but rather in a letter to the Post.

But the fact that they still post this letter, long after this crapola has been debunked, says a lot.

[Chuck.]

If you read the comments to the comment in the Washington Post, you will see evidence of an epidemic disorder. People with obsessive and irrational hatred of the Prius that think it was invented in Japan as part of a vast leftist conspiracy.

Did the Wright Brothers read stuff like this?

[TonyPSchaefer]

You think that's bad?
The letter was picked up by MotorTrend. You should read the comments over there praising this gentleman's clear thinking and insight: The Not-Quite-Green Toyota Prius - Motor Trend The General Forum Forum

[zenMachine]

Here we go again. The story is being picked up and making its round...

The Not-Quite-Green Toyota Prius | iSafe Technologies - Syracuse, NY

GayandRight: The Not-so-Green Prius...

How green is a Prius? Green Hell Blog

The Not-Quite-Green Toyota Prius - Minnesotans For Global Warming

this could've been funny it it weren't so sad...