Why do people hate the Prius?

OH OH, this so sounds like my co-worker's summary of this show... he was gloating that they put a prius up against some kind of race car this week or last week, and well... the race car got better gas mileage around the track, WELL NO SH!T, the Prius is NOT designed for racing! He spent the rest of the time telling me in England they call it the Pry-us. I simply informed it was because they'd have to pry the keys out our cold dead hands.

 

How would you know what's genuine? I didn't come here to stir things up, but you if you want to dance, let's dance. I step on toes sometimes. I aplogize if it was unwarranted. But if you stick them out where people trip over them that's up to you.

I have a political opinion just like you do. It's probably not the same as yours. So what? Is it against the forum law to not be a tree hugger, a democrat, or a enviro-weenie? If it isn't then whats the point of your insult? I did not come here to suck up, I came here to be a part of the community. If you can't accept others who only have in common a car, then maybe this should call the Liberal Democrat Tree Hugger PriusChat Forum. If it shouldn't, then maybe you should accept views different from your own as valid and having worth and stop getting bent out of shape about it. Talk Prius, not politics.

The fact remains I told the OP one reason why the rest of the world has a problem with the Prius (it has some smug owners) and you and others got bent out of shape. It must have hit a nerve. I apologize, really. But if you got upset by that idea, maybe you need to step back and do a reality check.

And, I don't have a diesel and I have no bumper stickers.

 

In this we agree:

It is a shame that Top Gear hasn't figured that out but then they don't have to.

Bob Wilson

 

Read the thread title again: "Why do people hate the Prius?" Notice that it doesn't say "Prius owners?" You seem to have missed that and instead attacked the community here.

It was a stupid statement as you invalidated it with your own description of fans of all makes.

I was referring to education vs. lack thereof (or willful ignorance), not intelligence! If someone has a better education than me, good for them. If they don't that is fine too.

As for your Prius ownership, even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and again.

Let's review your first post on this:

You weren't just speaking in the abstract but clearly referring to people here in this forum as well. Now, if you somehow believe that is not intentionally insulting there is something wrong with your perception of reality.

Well, let's see, this is a Prius forum...you came in here and intentionally stomped on folks' toes. In essence you said, you are mostly smug snobs and that is the problem. If someone differs with you, they are considered a smug snob and YOU are somehow the exception who is unfairly maligned by the rest of us. What an donkey.

 

True, if you had insulted the car instead of its owners. Chew on that for awhile.

 

The Prius starts at £17,870 (choose your exchange rate) and the top spec is £20,710 excluding leather seats for an additional £1350. The interior quality is very good compared to the POS's from Ford, Vauxhall (GM) and is on a par with Audi and BMW, having owned an '05 Audi A4 previous to the Prius and a BMW 520 previous to that. Road handling is certainly a desirable element of any vehicle and yes the Prius is not in the BMW league for that, but then also the Audi FWD isn't that fantastic either despite the hype (the AWD/4WD versions like the S4 are something else mind you).

Diesels are popular but only because of their frugality at the pumps. That benefit has been eroded with the price premium of diesel over petrol so much so that the Prius is cheaper per mile than these small diesels. This fact has not gone unnoticed by canny buyers and the Prius star is rising and is catching on over here.

 

Shawn, the question, correctly, was, "Why do people hate the Prius?" I submit that those who know little about but dislike (or even hate) the Prius is due to something they heard from Prius Lovers that didn't sit right with them.

Since so many people know so little about it, their only connection would be what they hear/read from those that speak/write about it. Many of those people speak/write in smug tones about how wonderful it is and how much of a moron must be anyone not liking it or understanding how it will save the planet. What's hard to understand or blow up about? I am speaking from the point of view of many, as I was one of them so recently that the memory is still fresh. I'm not pointing a finger at each and every person that owns a Prius. If you don't agree with it, so be it.

I'm sure most Prius owners are regular people that aren't smug, condescending, or snobbish about it. I read their posts regularly. I also see a few that are just a little too self-satisfied with their purchase, and place an awful lot of meaning into it that others may not share. If none of them ever sound that way to you, you are either ignoring it or believe what they believe and it doesn't sound abby-normal to you. Whatever, and to each their own. But if you're all about tolerance and fair play, then you're coming up a bit short.

This is an exciting community of knowledgeable folks. I'm not dissing the entire community, and I'm not even dissing the more fervent attendees of it. I'm merely calling it as I see it. If you don't agree or don't like me for it, that's up to you. I hope to be a productive member of the forum as I have tried to be in other forums and in real life with anything I have knowledge of (mechanics, welding, painting, tuckpointing, gardening, fruit tree pruning, composting, home brewing & dispensing beer, canning, etc.). So many of you here have a head start in the Prius, but I've been doing a lot of things for a long time, and I don't mind sharing what I've learned. Likewise, it's great to see the information flow from others that have had experience with things that can happen or that go wrong with the Prius that I have not yet encountered.

I don't have a political agenda to force upon anyone, but, sadly, that can't be said of everybody. I try to keep it to myself, since not everybody agrees...but some people read politics into everything.

I thank you all for your time, and have a great weekend.

 

Seriously...Mr. Incredible and Shawn Clark! Go to your rooms and you can come out when you both can play nice. For crying out loud you two, you're not five!

 

Oh boy... That was fun reading all those snide comments... not...

Back to topic.

Why do people hate the Prius?

1) They don't understand how it works. Ignorance nearly always breeds fear and then hate...

2) Jealousy. In the UK the Prius is still viewed as many by being an expensive elitist car. It is in some ways. Our new Prius cost £22,000. Our 4 year old Prius cost £8,500. Most people are either too ignorant to make a lifetime cost analysis of the running costs of a Prius vs a regular cheap 'eurobox' or geninely unable to stump up the cash. At that point people will always hate someone who has it better than they are having it.

3) People hate being told they're wrong. Driving a Prius is seen as many by an overt enviromentalistic statement that the person behind the wheel is somehow 'better' than than everyone else because they drive a car which gets better gas mileage. By that logic any of us who drive a prius because it's "green" as our primary reason for driving should probably ditch our gas-guzzing prius and drive around in a microcar... Those of use who drive the Prius for a multitude of reasons, gas mileage, enviormental benefit and financial savings should probably stick with the Prius

4) in the UK I believe that Top gear is viewd as gospel by a large sector of impressionable society. We have it shown on a Sunday evening between 8 and 9pm - just the time to get impressionable teenagers and people enjoying an evening in. I think perhaps Clarkson et all is viewed differently here than in the US. It is sometimes quite scary when you hear people discussing the show. And yes, I've had the "Well Top Gear Said...." when talking to people about my car.

Finally, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Clarkson hates anything which isn't fast, expensive and mechanically easy to understand. I don't think the prius qualifies...

 

Wake up, it's a comedy show.

People who have a Prius on the whole love Prius (92% customer satisfaction, more than any other car) so the answer to the question is 42, oh no wrong question, the answer to the question, "why do people hate Prius" is simple,
they don't own one!!

 

I hate the Cowboys!

 

I'm with patsparks on this one. To own one is to love one!

 

Mr. Incredible: You are hilarious - with brilliance!. Every reply you received basically proved your thesis. Amazing.

I've never figured out why people must insist that they need to defend their choice in cars with so much enthusiasm. Crazy. The Prius community is an amazing back slappy self-congratulating community. Then again, so is a lot of american politics. It's not about what is best, it's about proving your team is the best at all costs - even if it's a lie.

 

+1

 

We have similar problem people in Huntsville and I work with a bunch of engineers who sad to say have never applied their engineering skills to 'real life.' So they were full of opinions about the Prius when I showed up with one.

The first thing I did was to take the chief skeptics out to lunch and have them drive the car back. I explained how the systems worked and whenever they brought up some other second-hand piece of nonsense, I already knew what studies to cite with the facts and data. But the most effective technique was to have them drive the car. Once the other skeptics realized I was dead serious about this, their public criticisms substantially decreased ... and they avoided my invitations to lunch. <grins>

Now I simply have a vanity plate, "C52MPG," and let folks know I'm filing my expense account for business mileage in my Prius. They understand that when I make two buisness trips to work I pay for all of my gas for the week. <grins>

Bob Wilson

 

Top Gear thrives on making anti-American statements that would be considered racist if targeted at any other group. Typical British.

 

And this is so different than Corvette owners, Harley owners......?

 

I think you have that wrong, the French are way ahead number one, USA might only make it to number 7

 

I second that, and I hope everyone else on this thread does too. Your post#3 on this issue was spot on. Jeremy Clarkson is one of those insufferable, opinionated windbags whose sole object in life seems to be to piss other people off at every opportunity. He, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannitty and Bill O'Reilly should all be locked in a cage somewhere on a desert island. The outcome would be fun to watch.

 

Exactly Pat; what they truly hate is not having one!