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Last updated on August 9th, 2017 at 03:06 pm
It would be good for all of humankind if every environmentalist bought a Toyota Prius.
(Via Paul Bickford)
- I take it that these are the “defects that will destroy us”?Posted by PW on 2006 05 31 at 08:18 PM • permalink
- Jeez, Tim! I almost snorted soda all over my screen. Think of the cleaning bill I would have sent you.Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 05 31 at 08:24 PM • permalink
- It would be good for all of humankind if every environmentalist bought a Toyota Prius…
…and drove really really fast on the highway.
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2006 05 31 at 08:35 PM • permalink
- #3- unfortunately that is only possible in this vehicle if it’s secured to the back of a diesel car carrier, or being towed by a Dodge Ram Power Wagon– in either case steering failure woud not be disastrous, as the vehicle would continue to track straight while under tow.
Unfortunately these abominations are incabable of ever reaching a velocity that would produce a fatal impact under their own recycled steam.
- How dangerous can you be at twenty-six miles per hour?
Fourteen uphill.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 05 31 at 08:46 PM • permalink
- Even in the event that the recycled plantation timber steering rack fails on a long downhill grade and the death-trap reaches a decent pace, it’s still going to be less than spectacular when it ploughs into a concrete abutment, as these things carry so little actual fuel that it’s going to be more like flicking your bic than a full-on NASCAR into a refueling bay fireball.
And hippies have such a high density og filth on their emaciated carcasses, and so little body fat that they have a very high flash-point.
- I occasionally wonder (as I pass one on the freeway or in the country), with all their battery packs and electronic wizardy and gimcrackery, how much more resources (including energy from fossil fuels) are consumed in their construction compared to a “conventional” motor vehicle.
Do they hit the road with an energy/resource “deficit” that they have to make up before they can even start to be “greener” than a conventional car?
Mostly, though, I just wonder whether there’s enough red wine at home for the night, or whether Grant’s a better host than Daryl …
- One side-effect I haven’t previously considered in a Prius impact scenario is the presence of all those batteries- if there’s sufficient kintetic energy to crack the cases, the enclosed hippy passengers will be splashed with highly corrosive acid, which will remove the caked-on filth accumulated through years of detergent dodging and their skin, previously unexposed to the rigors of solar radiation would crisp like bacon on a too-hot grill.
Carrion birds, starved by food shortages caused by global warming would feast on the fresh cooked survivors. I’d like to see David Attenborough film that.
- #10
They are allowed on the freeway?
Well … sorta. There is a minimum speed requirement here of 80 km/h, which would preclude them … BUT, there’s an “out” for them in that a driver can travel at a slower pace if he/she feels the conditions make it unsafe to go faster.
And Prius owners always feel unsafe … at any speed.
(Hmmm … “Unsafe at any speed”—catchy title. I wonder if Ralph … nah)
- It requires 50 mineral to make one Space Marine.Posted by Crispytoast on 2006 05 31 at 10:52 PM • permalink
- Anyway, Car and Driver gives the top speed of a Prius as 104 mph. I can only imagine the reason you see hybrid drivers toddling along at tortoise velocities is that the faster they drive their marvels of self-righteousness, the lower their vaunted efficiency advantage over the rest of us troglodytes in our Stone Age Gaia Rapers becomes. And the payback period (if that even remotely enters their thoughts) quickly becomes measurable by geologists.Posted by Crispytoast on 2006 05 31 at 11:04 PM • permalink
Anyway, Car and Driver gives the top speed of a Prius as 104 mph.
Presumably with a semi on a deadline right behind them, and Fred and Barney Granola-stone picking up the Prissy and running as fast as their big fat cartoon feet will let them…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 05 31 at 11:14 PM • permalink
- We have a Prius for work, and it is actually quite a lot of fun to drive. Not too zippy when carrying four people, but with just me it is somewhere between my 96 commodore and a modern shitebox camry.
Also the fun gadgets and electronic displays keeps things interesting. Has a thing where it shows you where the energy is going, so when you brake, it shows ‘energy’ going to the battery, at low speeds the electric motor powers, and acceleration the fuel motor kicks in, and idling the fuel motor runs the car while charging the battery.
Of course, I’d never pay for one, but it isn’t that bad to drive…. until your steering gives way apparently.
- We could all be laying waste to pristine wilderness in one of these if it wasn’t for the worldwide drought, dangnabit.
Maybe it’ll be feasable when all that ice melts from global warming.
- All that now has to be done is add Audi brakes pedal, a Pinto gas tank and Corvair independent suspension and the Prius becomes Carzilla. The only thing in the world more dangerous than a Kennedy behind the wheel of a Ford.Posted by Pat Patterson on 2006 06 01 at 01:31 AM • permalink
- #25 – Pat,
Let’s not be too hard on Audi. All the real research came to the conclusion that somebody put their foot on the wrong pedal.
Audi analysis
And the media jumped in with both feet and a hidden hand behind the curtain, just like with the Chevy C/K truck fuel tank which was not sealed properly and used a rocket igniter to ensure that it caught fire for the cameras.
I remember looking at a new (then) Camira in the Experimental Department with a perfect shopping centre car park pillar indentation in the front. It had apparently accelerated off on its own, despite the driver pressing the brake to the floor (even though any brake system is much more powerful than the engine). Then the mechanic told me to look inside, and the throttle pedal had been mashed to the floor, bending it around the stop. So really, the problem was that Holden had not fitted two brake pedals to the car that someone with bad foot skills had bought!
- #12 – Not only that, but the high voltage is a concern to rescue services. Dealing with 500 volts when cutting the occupant out of the wreck worries them no end. I gather the main current carriers are colored bright yellow to make them obvious – but all the same…Posted by walterplinge on 2006 06 01 at 05:21 AM • permalink
- #33, I dont know how that helps if the chassis becomes live after an accident, unless they have some sort of impact sensitive (read air bag type sensors) circuit breakers at the power source. If not, it means that even if you survive the accident, you can probably expect to be dispatched from this mortal coil in your own mobile execution chamber – the Prius, oh the humanity!.
- Actually I didn’t reference the comment that PJ O’Rourke made concerning misapplication of the gas pedal by short, rich ladies of a particular age. But I can’t find it. Help!Posted by Pat Patterson on 2006 06 01 at 07:35 PM • permalink
- PJ O’Rourke was writing about the hatchet job done on a certain model of Audi that had become popular among the upper-middle-class sort in the early Eighties. Apparently there was a spate (or perhaps one or two) accidents involving the vehicles somehow smashing their way into homes, garages, etc., and the drivers claimed that the accidents happened because the Audi’s gas pedals suddenly went down to the floor all by themselves. One of the “news” programs did one of their “shocking expose” episodes based on these anecdotes, and sales of the Audi plunged. It turned out the accidents were actually the fault of the drivers, who PJ designated “Betty Dumbtoes and Joe Boatfoot,” because the counterclaim came back that the gas pedal and brake pedal were somehow “too close together.” PJ said something sarcastic about how maybe they should put the gas pedal outside the car, maybe on a telephone pole next to the road. (Or something. I have memorized most of his rant but I am sure I fail on some of the details. Of course I could get up and go to the bookcase and pull out which of his books the rant is in, but that would involve movement and reaching and all sorts of physical effort.)Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 06 01 at 09:44 PM • permalink
- Shoot, I was hoping someone else would save me the trip upstairs to the bookshelf. Darn conservatives, always expecting everyone else to be self-sufficient.Posted by Pat Patterson on 2006 06 01 at 10:00 PM • permalink
- Hydrogen isn’t a problem itself. It is a problem if you put it into a sack covered in aluminium lacquer and set fire to it. That was what caused the Hindelberg to burn to fiercely.
So do all the critics of the Prius actually drive them and if not, what are they doing to reduce their impact on the planet??
Walk?
So do all the critics of the Prius actually drive them and if not, what are they doing to reduce their impact on the planet??
Walk?Personally, I’m not doing dick to “reduce my impact on the planet.” And my not driving a Prius doesn’t negate my ability to make fun of those who do.
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 06 05 at 11:20 AM • permalink
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