Thursday, June 26, 2008

The Preposterous Toyota Prius

I'm not suggesting that every tree hugging hippy who drives a Toyota Prius is a smug idiot. But people who follow Hollywood actors in an effort to be green might just want to consider if this is the best role model they can find. They might also want to consider if the Prius is the only car owned by Cameron Diaz or Leonardo DiCaprio (hint: no). It is true that by driving a Prius you get cheap car tax. However, is it really as green as these Eco warriors would have us believe?

For an objective assessment, let's have a look at what conclusion Jeremy Clarkson and the Top Gear team came to.


And here is a slightly more sober story from the Sunday Times showing a video comparing the Prius with a BMW 520d on a trip from London to Geneva. Guess what - the 520d is more fuel efficient when driven over 500 real world miles.
Click here for the story

I guess we should leave the last word to Jeremy.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Yeah - I think the hybrid idea works really well in stop/go traffic -say in Central London, the south east of englanshire or some other horrible, concretety place where cars are hated.

I live in rural jockoland, where every journey is at least 10 miles, so less relevant for the hybrid. And yes - in terms of continent crossing journey, a motorway muncher will always get better fuel economy..

Dunno. Trading in the mini cooper, and getting something else.. Porsche, perhaps.. ;-)

---* Bill

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