Letter: Prius, Hummer or Chevy?

Is the Toyota Prius environmentally friendly or not? Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than building a Hummer.

[Skwyre7]

If you would have bothered to do even a little research, you would have found that your entire article is bunk. You are basically rehashing the "Dust to Dust" article from CNW Marketing. This article has yet to be peer reviewed and contains many assumptions. There are many other publications that come to the opposite conclusion (a simple internet search will lead you to many). As far as the Sudbury nickel mine, you were close to correct. It was a wasteland, but well before the Prius was produced.

By the way, if a hybrid will only last 100,000 miles, why is the warranty (in some states) 150,000 miles? And how is it possible that there are numerous reports of hybrid vehicles topping the 200,000 or even 300,000 mile marks?

Remember, as little research goes a long way to your credibility.

[PDK]

http://www.thecarconnection.com/Auto_News/Gre...

[really]

My Prius averages 50mpg so I am less reliant on fossil fuel. That works for me.

[LGT]

Where did you come up with those figures? Will a Hummer actually last an average of 300K miles? As has been mentioned earlier, there are numerous actual instances of hybrids going several hundred thousand miles. New York(your own hometown for goodness sakes!) taxi fleet and a Prius that went 350,000 miles and would still be going if it hadn't been destroyed by someone turning left in front of it. By the way, it still had the original battery and engine. I am surprised that an organization associated with the New York Times would stoop to such shoddy research practices.

[Archer]

That's IF the Hummer lasts well over 300,000 miles. I sincerely doubt that. And that's IF the Prius only lasts a *little* over 100,000 miles. It's a TOYOTA - it's going to last far more than 100,000 miles, thanks so much.

I call shenanigans.

[Archer]

May I also add that Toyota is trying to switch to Lithium Ion batteries? Kiss nickel goodbye!

[Bob]

I WANT MY FUEL SUCKING PIG!!!!!

I WANT MY FSP!!!!

I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU SAY< I WANT MY FSP!!!

Wake up, Tom, and smell the coffee. Can you figure out something else to do with your life other than make excuses for driving FSP's??

[cfj]

Seriously, research does go a long way in securing your credibility. I'm not even a journalist and I know that. Then again, I was always taught to cite my sources when making any statement that could be viewed as an opinion or that wasn't common, general knowledge (e.g. "Columbus discovered America in 1492).
1) The Prius has a lifespan of only 100,000K miles? That's an arbitrary number thought up by the marketing company you probably based your story on. There are plenty of taxis with over 200,000K miles on them (URL: "http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8839690/" ;) and there are a few people at CleanMPG that have way more than 100,000K miles on their vehicles (URL:"http://www.cleanmpg.com ").
2) The data you cite about the Sudbury is extremely out of date. Nickel is used for numerous things other than just being used for the Prius battery. Toyota only buys about 1% of the total production of nickel from the facility each year (an estimated 100,000 tons). News articles have used the picture visible in the link after this sentence to show the environmental damage of nickel mining, but this picture was taking in 1994; the Prius wasn't introduced until 1997.(URL: "http://www.photoboy.com/bin/Cklb... ;).
I took the liberty of researching a college near you that you can take a writing class at in order to learn the correct way to write journalistic articles. WSCU seems to have a great program.(URL: "http://www.wcsu.ctstateu.edu/academics/progra... ;)
I hope this helps you.:]

[Delta Flyer]

A couple of questions:

Don't only less than 1% of all vehicles last 300,000 miles? That's the assertion according to the study this article uses for the H2 Hummer.

A million Prius have been built worldwide - many of them have over 100,000 miles on them. Is it reasonable to assume if battery failure and other troubles were more than a rare occurance, dozens of headline stories would cover this and Toyota in a serious damage control mode?

[hummer]

HUMMER

waste gas

gas is here for you to waste

waste gas

no one cares about you

waste gas

[Jesse Rudavsky]

100k mile lifespan for a prius??? My 2002 gen one model went 349,531 miles on the same batteries, engine and driveline until it was totalled in a car accident.

[Average Joe]

Shame on you for basically re-posting an old story (Dust to Dust) created by a marketing team hired by General Motors to re-direct attention away from the Hummer's non green image.

This is a simple cut and paste job of untruths. Maybe next time you should do some actual research.

[Maflagulator]

When MOST people talk about a Hummer, they're talking about the H2.

When this article and the one that it is a copy of talk about the Hummer, they are talking about the H3, which is a re-bodied Chevy Colorado. A guy I worked with said 3 of his neighbors bought the H3 when it first came out. 2 of them gave it back within 3 days of buying them.

I'll be shocked the day I see ANY Hummer with all 6-digits of itself being consumed.

EVEN if the figures used in this joke of an article were true, a Honda or Toyota Hybrid (let alone a non-hybrid) will easily see 200,000 miles. This would balance out the supposed 60% more energy cost that the Hummer has over the Prius. But we ALL know that isn't even true.

[Prius Owner]

The Prius will live way past the piece of JUNK Hummer made by the extraordinary engineers at GM. I have every reason to expect my Prius to last 200,000 miles as every Toyota product does. It has been entirely trouble free for the first 40k to date.

The Hummer, with it's 5 mpg economy hurts our national security by pushing us into deeper dependence on the Oil Sheiks and Hugo Chavez, among others. Our strategic options are severely constrained by our need to import all that large ocaen of oil every day.

The money you spend on gasoline is used to support terrorism in a way that your purchase of a Japanese car is not. Neither do I have problems supporting the Canadian economy but there should be more responsible practices in the word of nickel mining.

Putting the 6,000 pound Hummer on the road was the most arrogant and dangerous thing American Industry has done in a generation. The Hummers are now sitting on dealers lots and owners driveways collecting dust.

Finally, the cars are dangerous to people around them! Imagine the macho man in the Hummer who runs a red light and smashes into you. Or skids on an icy day, wiping our another car or three. They are a hazard to our roads for the sake of boys and toys.

Still, with all their drawbacks, if I had an extremely small male member between my legs, the Hummer is exactly what I'd drive.

[Harry]

Dear Tom Falconieri,

You sir, are an idiot.

Who paid you to parrot this drivel, which has been debunked over and over for many months now?

A second-grader could spot the errors in logic and faulty assumptions you have repeated from previous articles of this type.

Harry

[George Bush]

I would be ashamed if this were my work product. The assertions in your article have been shown to be false numerous times but authors (term used lightly) such as yourself continue to reproduce them without any research at all.
Good Job.

[Brian]

I'll take my Hummer all day, I'm not going to cry about paying for gas.

[Nemesys]

While the 100k vs. 300k numbers cited here are suspect, it's true that hybrids do not have the same life expectancies of other cars, to quoting your old Toyota miliage in comparison doesn't make any sense.

The letter does highlight that the manufacture of many "green" products, such as batteries, solar cells, etc. can cause more environmental damage than they save. "Feeling good" about driving a hybrid isn't quite the same as "doing good", which is a lesson that can be transferred to many things that people want to "feel good" about.

[Gas Saver]

OK, so let's do an easy, back-of-the envelope correction on the most basic, indisputable fact about your article - the hummer having a 3x lifespan of a prius:

The hummer's $1.95 per mile, multiplied by 3 (100Kmi versus 300Kmi) now yields a cost of $5.85 per mile. This does not include the other gross misrepresentations in the CNW "Study", just evens out the projected lifespan. I and many others here would argue that the toyota will actually outlast the hummer, yielding a nearly 2:1 advantage for the toyota.

[Delta Flyer]

"...it's true that hybrids do not have the same life expectancies of other cars, to quoting your old Toyota miliage in comparison doesn't make any sense." - Nemesys

Source? I mean a source other than CNW's Dust to Dust "study"

I have a source in Prius longetivty > http://www.greentaxi.org/testimonials.php

BTW, I saw with my own eyes that 350,000-mile 2002 Prius