Originally posted by: ElFenix
i'm not a dashboard stroker by any stretch of the imagination, but i got in one for the first time the other day and was shocked by the cheapness of the interior. and in its price range its the only car with a cheap plastic interior. there is a difference between cheap hard plastic and high quality stuff. cheap plastic is what is found in ford focii and nissan sentras, higher quality stuff is in the VW jetta.Originally posted by: LandRover
Craptastic hard plastic? That just seems like a really ridiculous statement. I forgot that all other cars have interior panels that are covered in silk. ALL new cars have plastic panels, and the Prius is no worse.
you're off by $5,500 from the number i quoted. that's 25% more than what you're thinking. i dunno about you, but i don't keep $5,500 laying around.22K for a Prius with side air bags, ABS, traction control, etc., etc. That's just brutal. When compared with an equally equipped car, the price difference is not at all as large as many people seem to believe.
see, there is the rub: it isn't that environmentally friendly. again, you've fallen into the trap that thinking that consuming a NEW car can be environmentally friendly. especially one with two drive trains and a trunk full of batteries. oh boy it gets better mileage on the road! but so much extra energy is used when building the thing that it isn't as energy efficient, manufacturing to salvage, as other cars. and it certainly isn't as efficient as keeping the car you have running.a vehicle that gets excellent mileage and is extremely environmentally friendly
No, I'm not off. You can get exactly what I stated for $22,850. Side curtain air bags are now standard on all 2007 models.
I've noticed a new phrase that is becoming standard among those that like to complain about the Prius, and that is "a trunk full of batteries". To the uninformed, that actually makes it sound like the trunk space is limited due to it being full of batteries. They are actually in the rear floor and do not interfere with cargo space.
Reason.org? Umm... okay. A Prius is only good for 100k and a Hummer can pull off 300k? Wow! That's one of the most ridiculous things I've heard. Look around online at some of the first gen Prius for sale. You wouldn't have to look hard to see them with well over 100k miles on the clock. And they were most likely traded in for a 2nd generation Prius.
The batteries last for at least 10 years, and they are becoming less expensive and less time consuming to produce. Not to mention that the combustion engine in the Prius is said to have an extremely long life, due to its periods of inactivity, which over the long run, significantly add up.
How much extra energy goes into making any large SUV or truck over a regular mid-size car?
Comparing manufacturing energy costs and resources is like someone that had a horse comparing it to all the energy that was put into making a Model T Ford, and saying it was a dead end. I'm not surprised if initial energy costs to make a hybrid could exceed some regular cars. Is that not expected with new technology?
Your claim about current generation hybrids being a dead end is nothing more than a personal opinion. That doesn't make it a fact.