Posted on 10/20/2010 5:19:04 AM PDT by Lockbox
The dirty side of Toyota Prius
The Toyota Prius is among the greenest cars to operate. But manufacturing the famous gasoline-electric hybrid can be a dirty business.
Toyota studied the car's total environmental impact from factory to junkyard.
Not surprisingly, the fuel-efficient Prius was better than average in its class of vehicles in lifetime emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxide, according to Toyota.
But it was slightly worse than average in emissions of nonmethane hydrocarbons and particulate matter. Toyota says this is because producing hybrid-only parts such as motors, inverters and nickel-metal hydride batteries consumes more energy and creates more emissions.
In fact, when looking at the "materials manufacturing" phase of the car's life cycle, the Prius was worse than the class average across all five emissions categories.
Toyota said it conducted life cycle emissions assessments on eight vehicle series last year and used the results to help redesign such models as the Prius, Lexus RX 450h and HS 250h and such Japan-market vehicles as the Wish minivan and Mark X sedan.
Read more: http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101018/OEM01/310189979#ixzz12trBMdoe
patriot wrote: Cobalt,much needed ingredient for EV batteries.Zambia and The Congo are two countries in Africa blessed with this element.Does toyota or any other EV or hybrid producing car company care that their vehicle purchase helps pay for murder and enviromental ruin in Africa.People who buy these things like to think they are GREEN,helping the environoment.Who's environment are they helping?Certainly not AFRICA'S
for th ecrowd that buys those things..it ain’t about “being green” as much as it is about “feeling good” about themselves.
These initiatives seem to do a lot of damage — all in a vast effort to limit carbon dioxide, which is a harmless (even beneficial) substance. Carbon is a boondoggle.
CO2 is not a pollutant.
These hybrid cars damage the environment more in pollution than a traditional gas powered vehicle. They are cost-inefficient and impractical.
Snobs don’t realize it.
- the production of the Hummer, does far less damage to the environment than the production of the Toyota Prius, such that driving it for 300,000 miles is far better for the environment than driving a Toyota Prius for 100,000 miles, due to the smelter pollution used to make the Nickel-Cadmium batteries.
- As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. 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. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.
- The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalists nightmare.
- The nickel produced by this disastrous plant is shipped via massive container ship to the largest nickel refinery in Europe. From there, the nickel hops over to China to produce nickel foam. From there, it goes to Japan. Finally, the completed batteries are shipped to the United States, finalizing the around-the-world trip required to produce a single Prius battery.
Maybe we should tag the car 'Blood Prius' like the libs tagged 'Blood Diamonds'.
Mining does help the economy of Zambia and the Congo, no doubt.
Of course, these Kleptocracies have such a screwed up economic system, it is hard to be confident that this business is helping the average Joe.
i bought the car because it has an above average record of reliability, ave-above average features, great gas mileage, and expect to keep it for 200,000 miles, like i have 2 of the last 3cars i bought. I really dont care about the “green aspect” at all.
The battery is warrantied for 8 years/100,000 miles, unless you are in California. No one knows how long the battery will last. If your Prius battery goes out after the warranty period, would you replace the battery?
--this is so much environmental hogwash. The Canadian mining industry has been under restrictive environmental rules for years , just as it is in the US--
there probably arent too many 200k priuses out there now, but battery failure has been quite rare >100k, conceding the technology has been around for 9-10 years so we dont know for sure if/when problems arise in significant number at 150k if not 100k. we will see, i believe there will be a relatively inexpensive secondary market for them in 7 years as more of them are on the road.
is the prius a sure fire thing to “come out ahead”? no, but imho there is a pretty good chance. obviously a lot will depend on price of gas, and like every good freeper i want to drill baby drill and “coal keeps the lights on”. still, betting against the common sense and competence of US govt seems like a reasonable bet. even if we start drilling, it will take years to reap benefits from some of these places.
My daughter bought one of the first Toyota Sienas off the assembly line about 7 years ago. She loves the car, but she will never buy a Toyota ANYTHING again because of poor, arrogant, overly-expensive service by the dealers (three different dealers in the upstate NY and Bergen County, NJ area).
In the beginning there was the constant pressure to buy stupid options from Toyota. The $90 First Aid Kit comes to mind — little more than a box of band aids with the Toyota logo on the box. She refused to buy the car on the lot because they insisted that she also purchase the band aids. (Do they honestly think that any mother of 3 active boys does not already travel with band aids in her purse?)
So, she ordered a different car from the dealer in the color she wanted WITHOUT the band aids and waited 3 months for it. As soon as it arrived, they tried to pressure her to take the dumb First Aid kit anyway. That experience was followed by repeated little recalls to fix this, or that, minor problem that should have been caught before the car was delivered to her.
Then there was the flap about the tires that seemed to wear out too quickly. The dealer was making her have them rotated (at high expense) every 10,000 miles. Ridiculous. I have another friend in Wisconsin who had the same problem with her Toyota dealer and Sienna van.
Now that my daughter’s van has 90,000 miles on it, the cable that operates the automatic sliding door suddenly snapped. It costs $1900 to have it repaired in NY. Plus they put the car up on the lift and told her she had another $2000 worth of repairs that had to be done immediately. She had just had this car inspected elsewhere, and it had been given the green light for another 10,000 miles before any further maintenance needed to be performed. My daughter told the dealer just to disconnect the cable and she would operate the door manually, and she had to fight with them to do that.
Then, she pointed out that a seat belt on the rear captain’s chair was worn and frayed and ready to break. She inquired about a new one and they gave her a price of $150 with another $150 to install it. She ordered the seat belt and paid in advance. When she went to the dealer to have it installed, they jacked her around on the installation price, changed the time of check in and check out and tried to charge her $300 labor for installation. To add insult to injury they told her that Toyota would probablly have provided the belt and installation for “free” since it was a safety issure, but they wouldn’t because she had taken the car to another garage for oil changes, etc. The reason she has her oil changed elsewhere is that Toyota charges 3 times as much as her more convenient local garage.
Furthermore, she has had 2 friends at 2 different deallerships whose husbands have been in charge of the repair department. They have confided to her privately that the dealerships are all like that — high pressure on the maintenance guys to sell add ons and unneeded repairs.
She loves that van, but she will never do business with Toyota again. This business with teh seat belt was the last straw.
So tell me, do you suffer from any other problems in addition to "Prius Envy"?
Re-reading my rant — her Toyota dealer was insisting that she rotate those tires every 5000 miles. That is, until her father talked sense into her.
You must be talking about the local Government Motors dealer in my town.
They have a very bad reputation for doing those things.
i dont like some of the dealers either ; thought the last one actually was pretty decent. Bought car over internet/email with about 9% disc off msrp and sale went down smoothly just as promised.
i am quite fortunate to have an independent toyota-certified mechanic whom i know personally. Will use him instead of dealer even for first 2 free maintenances that now i will pay for. Everyone should try to find an independent mechanic thru church, work or friend. Keeps the good mechanics busy with good cutomers.
I can go along with that. like all the bad press about the chevy volt, I wouldnt mind having one for a commuter car other than it having a high price tag and the fact that my tax dollars built it. from some real world tests it works pretty good.
I can go along with that. like all the bad press about the chevy volt, I wouldnt mind having one for a commuter car other than it having a high price tag and the fact that my tax dollars built it. from some real world tests it works pretty good.
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