Prius Outdoes Hummer in Environmental Damage

The Recorder-Central Connecticut State University ^ | March 7, 2007 | Chris Demorro

[luckystarmom]

They have excellent acceleration. The gearing is different, but I don't remember how they do it. It's some sort of electronic gearing so it can go from 0-60 more quickly than most cars. My husband drives our Prius, and I drive a mini-van. The Prius is certainly better than our mini-van, but that isn't much of a comparison.

The Prius handles very nicely. My mom has a Lexus Sedan that I have driven regularly, and the Prius handles comparably to it. Both cars are very quiet, heavy, and maneuver well. The Lexus just looks much better both inside and out.

The Prius is a Toyota, and Toyota makes great cars.

[Antoninus]

The batteries don't cost thousands of dollars and the warranty is for 10 years.

That's not what I heard....

[luckystarmom]

My husband didn't get our Prius for environmental reasons either. He was originally in the market for a new SUV after he was in a crash with our old Explorer.

Since he was test driving cars, he decided to test drive the Prius.

He thought it was more fun to drive than the other cars he was test driving. He was sold. He loved how the gas engine turned off at lights, he loved the acceleration. He also liked the technology of it.

[voltaires_zit]

The author's expected life numbers for both the Prius and the Hummer are ridiculous.

Toyota warrants the batteries in a Prius for 8 years/100,000 miles.

The powertrain warranty on a Hummer is 5 years/100,000 miles.

Assuming that the engineers at Toyota are not substantially dumber than the engineers at GM (a VERY safe assumption), the batteries on the Prius will give out about the same time as the engine needs to be rebuilt on the Hummer.

(Note: new batteries cost MUCH less than the engine rebuild, less than $2000)

[luckystarmom]

Actually, I made a mistake, they don't cost $25,000. The cars don't even cost that much.

The estimate is somewhere between 3000-5000. However, with a 10 year warranty I don't think we'll be replacing ours. We'll probably trade ours in at that point. We've never gotten much on cars we trade in, so I doubt we'll get much on this one.

I'll be happy if we get $2000 after 10 years.

[cyberaxe]

.....if they were talking about an H2.....

.....it has the same engine as a 3500 Chevy.....

.....I got 7 of them, and some of them have well over 200k miles on them with only oil changes.....

.....(but all of them more than a couple of years old have had to have the battery replaced, same with my H2).....

[voltaires_zit]

If you want to know how long a thing will last, and if you can assume the person specifying the warranty was an engineer and not a marketer or other species of homo moronicus, a safe bet is about twice the warranty length.

Some will last much longer, but that should be about average.

[cyberaxe]

.....HA! not in my world!.....

.....with the exceptions of our vehicles.....

.....99.99% of every thing I ever bought lasted exactly one day longer than the warranty!!!!!.....

.....(my cynicism may be showing!;).....

[Stultis]

Since when did an "environmentalist" care about the facts? (I think that would have been sometime around the early 70's, if then.)

[Publius6961]

My husband didn't get our Prius for environmental reasons either... ... Since he was test driving cars, he decided to test drive the Prius. He thought it was more fun to drive than the other cars he was test driving. He was sold. He loved how the gas engine turned off at lights, he loved the acceleration. He also liked the technology of it.

This possibility seems to escape the hysterical crowd here.
As an engineer, I was fascinated by the technology, the implementation and the actual experience of driving one for an extended period.

I commuted almost 4 years in my 2003 Prius. Loved it, was never bored.

Whenever I am dumped on, I simply switch the subject to my 4-Runner...

[Publius6961]

Well... thanks, good points. I don't get your "rednecks" reference, though.

I misspoke; I should have said redneck-wannabes. Read the posts. They're either from early teens or early-teen mentality...

Thanks for the thoughtful and useful post. As I suspected, that mine was there long before the Prius was even a concept, and to blame any environmental degradation, as was done in the original article, is puerile, absurd and misleading to the point of irrelevance.

Sudbury's been there a long time (mining, I mean). It's actually an high-metal-content asteroid. I apologize if you knew that already.

I learn at least one useful thing daily, here at FR.
No, I was not aware of the importance of this site, although I was aware that Canada is home to some of the largest impact craters on earth, discovered so far.
Those links are fascinating, and no apology is necessary.

Best regards.

[Coleus]

great article!

they should go back to making an olds 98 and an electra 225.

[luckystarmom]

I'm pretty sure we'll be getting another Prius. I figure it's getting about time, but right now it's running great. I hate getting rid of a great running car. We'll probably just wait until we need some major work on it or it looks horrible.

The only car we ever had to get rid of "early" was my old Toyota Celica. After our son, we had twins, and we wanted 2 cars that could hold all 5 of us comfortably. The Celica didn't fit that bill.

[Publius6961]

Ever try to dispose of Ni-Cad batteries properly? That is where the primary costs come in. Batteries die. When they do, they will have to be replaced. The replacement batteries are approx $25k if I remember correctly. And good luck disposing of the old battery without having to sell your home.

Wow.

Sometimes ignorance can be breathtaking...

I suppose you're not old enough to know that "a little learning is a dangerous thing"...
You really should do homework, sometime before you die of old age.

RECYCLING
Thanks to ogitator for that link.

Of course, chemicals are not all equally toxic. The three worst "baddies" in batteryland are:

lead, cadmium, and mercury.
Other battery compounds like silver, zinc, and nickel can also be problems, but less so.

Guess what your cool car battery is made of?

[SFC Chromey]

You've responded to my single post twice. I happen to ride a motorcycle and drive a car. I know what my batteries are made of and I know that they ARE recycleable and have been doing that for years.

As for my reply about costs, I was going off of a discussion I had heard a couple of years ago, but as the site linked here shows, these are still more expensive than many people realize.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060821171200AATHDAZ

"For the Prius, new the hybrid battery is running about US$1100 (as of spring 2006), but if you were to buy one off of eBay from a wrecked vehicle it is usually less than US$1000, closer to the US$500 range..."

In addition, there appear to be other problems in operating this type of car. See the Consumer Affairs link below.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/automotive/toyota_prius_battery.html

As for me, I understand that the most efficient mass produced powerplant is the gasoline piston engine. If there was something else out there as efficient, there would be a market for it. For your enjoyment:

http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/search/label/Michael%20Wang

[Publius6961]

The replacement batteries are approx $25k if I remember correctly. And good luck disposing of the old battery without having to sell your home.

I am sorry if I overreacted to your "memory lapse".
This original overestimate of 2300% (which you failed to subsequently address) was the sole reason for my attention.

"For the Prius, new the hybrid battery is running about US$1100 (as of spring 2006_...

My mistake...

[Squawk 8888]

The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers.

Having visited Sudbury frequently and lived there briefly, I can categorically state that the author has wildly overstated the environmental impact of the INCO smelter. NASA used the region to train the Apollo astronauts because the terrain has always been rocky, but there's still plenty of greenery in and around the city.

[diogenes ghost]

20/30 mpg with a Hemi? BS. I have '69 Charger 500 & '06 Ram 1500, both with Hemi's. Neither one of them remotely approaches 20 mpg hwy, let alone city. Luckily, mpg was not what I purchased them for.

[Squawk 8888]

Mine is a Yamaha Vino 125, 100mpg :-D

[flynmudd]

That will change when I change the air filtration and exhaust systems. Temporary.