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Prius is the lowest performing car on the American Market!

Hybrid Cars are a Fraud

Argument 1 These cars do NOT save the customer money (when compared to it’s sister).

Toyota says that customers are buying the Prius for it's improved gas mileage, NOT it's possible pollution reduction.

A Prius is a $10,000 Toyota Echo stretched 6" in the hood to contain the motor/generator package. Outfitting an Echo with all the nice options raises it’s cost to about $16k. The Prius model changes the name and adds a $5000 package that saves about 500 gallons of gas over 100,000 miles.

The extra $5,000 brings with it at least another $1.6k in sales tax, finance charges, insurance, and extra tire costs (low rolling resistance tires). Subtract the $600 you get for your $2000 tax rebate (ripped from my pocket) and the total cost to save 500 gallons of gas is $12 per gallon!

Surely these people are not doing the math!

Argument 2. Battery costs.

EDMUNDS recently explored the battery replacement costs for these vehicles. Honda quoted $6.5k for the Civic battery and Toyota said "about" $3k for the Prius battery. That's interesting because both batteries are made up of the same 6 amp hour "D" cells and the Honda battery is 144 volts while Toyotas is 274 volts. The Toyota battery should be the more expensive one. My own research shows the wholesale price of the Toyota battery should be about $4k based on industry sources.

Battery life is estimated to be 100,000 miles by both manufacturers (my battery manuals don't agree). The first battery is included in the purchase price but it is unlikely that any owner would be able to trade a car with a battery near, or at its end life. A lot of people are going to suffer sticker shock when they replace that battery. Battery cost will be about 4 cents per mile about the same as fuel at $2 a gallon and on top of fuel costs! I wonder what the recycle charge will be?

Battery costs are unlikely to go down much. The American manufacturer (Ovid) is currently suing Toyota and Panasonic for patent infringement. GM must not have thought that battery costs were going down either when they recently crushed (impacted?) their entire fleet of electric Impacts.

Argument 3. Extra Safety Concerns

Unlike current cars these cars have lethal battery voltages. Most manufactures plan to go to 36/42 volts in the near future, but the Civic uses 144 volts and the Prius 274 volts. Careless poking around in the wiring is likely to light up some do-it-your selfers! Even of more concern would be the exposed voltage due to a car wreck. Rescuers better be very careful where they use the jaws-of-life!

Probably even worse is high energy potential of these batteries; either contains the power of a large commercial welder. In an accident, a short could melt major hunks of steel around you and serve as an excellent ignition source for the gasoline they still carry.

I expect some every interesting crashes over the next few years.

Argument 4 NO nets gain to Mother Earth.

Any "Green" car is going to have to produce less pollution over it's entire life cycle to be taken seriously. That life cycle includes: mining the raw materials, processing them, forming them, assembly, operating costs, and recycle costs. Better gas mileage alone is NOT a reasonable criteria if more pollution is generated during production and recycle than is saved during operation.

GM has said it will charge about $3,000 extra for these cars and will sell them (at first) at cost. I take that to mean that their costs are much more than $3,000 (they must be making something on the ones they sell now). Many insiders also believe that Honda and Toyota are selling their cars well below cost (Honda quotes $4.5k for a replacement motor and $6.5k for a replacement battery, $11k, but only charges $3k).

These extra costs involve energy intensive materials in large quantities, such as nickel and copper. Battery manufacture and recycling are dirty chemical operations. Since the total fuel savings is about 500 gallons or $750 worth of energy, it is very likely that these cars have "burned" more energy than that in their many thousands of dollars of extra manufacturing costs. If not, recycling would certainly put them over the edge.

The net saving to the planet is likely negative not positive, the owner just doesn't know it, as he shows off his new "Green" vehicle!

One last bitch: It's one thing for consumers to make stupid choices in the market place, it's quite another to ask me to help pay for that bad decision in my taxes!

Good post. Thanks.

Argument 3. Extra Safety Concerns
Unlike current cars these cars have lethal battery voltages. Most manufactures plan to go to 36/42 volts in the near future, but the Civic uses 144 volts and the Prius 274 volts. Careless poking around in the wiring is likely to light up some do-it-your selfers! Even of more concern would be the exposed voltage due to a car wreck. Rescuers better be very careful where they use the jaws-of-life!
Probably even worse is high energy potential of these batteries; either contains the power of a large commercial welder. In an accident, a short could melt major hunks of steel around you and serve as an excellent ignition source for the gasoline they still carry.

I expect some every interesting crashes over the next few years.

Utterly false. "A fire involving a hybrid vehicle will be able to be handled by following normal vehicle firefighting procedures." University of Extrication.

You gas hog fans are sure worried about the availability of highly efficient vehicles, to put forth so much effort into trying to squash sales. Are y'all worried about not sending enough money to keep the Saudis in air conditioning? How's the buggy whip industry doing?

Re: Your #10: EXACTLY the kind of post that has kept me on this forum for over four years. Kudos and bump.

Good post and totally accurate.

"Unlike current cars these cars have lethal battery voltages. Most manufactures plan to go to 36/42 volts in the near future, but the Civic uses 144 volts and the Prius 274 volts. Careless poking around in the wiring is likely to light up some do-it-your selfers! Even of more concern would be the exposed voltage due to a car wreck. Rescuers better be very careful where they use the jaws-of-life!"

The Toyota has three cables underneath, open, in a track that run from the back to front. There are no fuses/breakers inline. I forget what the potential amperage available, but it is high. Looks to me like a foreign object off of the road or misplaced jack could prove to be interesting. They told us to open the trunk and pull the master disconnect before doing any forcible entry.