1200 miles on 2 gals of gas!

Yeah, but 4 trips with PRIME to my nearest feed store would use less gas than a single trip with a full-size pickup truck. lol

 

Perhaps not. You at 50 mpg, new F-150 at 20? Plus the cost of your time...

 

Well, if you need 20 bales in a single day, then I concede. But as long as I can do it in 5 days, I can drive to and back from the closest feed store all in EV. Time factor, yeah, that's a different story. But my backyard mini-farm is for a hobby. I do it for leisure. Taking time is perfectly fine with me. But the truth is, you are right, it helps to have a bigger car sometimes. We use to own a minivan for all sorts of hauling. With no rear seats, our old AWD Sienna could haul 4x8 plywood flat on the floor. Then the minivan was gone. We had only one car PRIME for over a year and did all of the hauling stuff with it. But it got to the point that sharing a single car between myself and my wife and doing all the hauling just could not continue. We ended up buying used Pathfinder Hybrid. Smaller cargo space than Sienna, but better mileage and better off-road capability, and it came with towing package.

 

We kept an old minivan for the same reason. Pretty handy to have a pickup with a roof.

 

Yeah, my wife loved our minivans. She drove 4 different minivans since our first kid was born. Typical soccer Mom. When kids got older, we did not need to haul kids anymore. Our last minivan, we used it for dogs, cats, goats, chickens, ducks... and piglets until rust got the underside of it.

 

Lots of conservatives drive them. I'm one of them. But, actually, the US has been oil independent for several years. We export more than we import these days. That's why prices stay so low.

 

To jb in NE and jerrymildred--My comment was meant to be a bit tongue in cheek, not sure it came out that way.

On a more serious note, I feel that the Prime is a nearly perfect (long) commute car. Yet I see tons of folks driving to work by themselves in SUVs and other large vehicles. When I've talked to people about it, oftentimes I'm told that they need to haul things sometimes, or they go camping/vacationing sometimes and need the extra space of an SUV. It kind of boggles my mind that so many of us buy more expensive, much less efficient vehicles because we want to meet needs of 5% or less of our driving time. Especially in multi-vehicle households. Instead of driving an SUV to work every day, why not drive a Prime and rent an SUV for the two weeks per year that you go camping? Rant over.

On the oil trade balance, nope. According to the EIA we are still importing several million more barrels per day than we export. How much petroleum does the United States import and export? - FAQ - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

 

I wasn't sure, but I wasn't offended. A lot of people think conservatives are boneheads because they have a different opinion. (and the other way around, too) I was just making sure.

I agree!!

And I stand corrected. I looked it up and what I heard on the radio about a dozen times in the past couple months is apparently not true. We're improving, but not there yet by a long shot.

 

Renting might work for some, but there are some downsides. Most rental companies don't allow you to drive off road (not that they will find out unless you damage something). And lately some have started putting a tamper evident device on the trailer hitch so you can't tow. Rental SUVs are never equipped with appropriate snow tires or even tire chains in the winter. And they might not have a roof rack if you want to carry skis or a cargo box. Basically they don't let you take advantage of much of the practicality of an SUV.

Of course there's also the hassle of picking up the car during business hours, and a chance that they won't have the vehicle you want. And the cost to rent an SUV is usually far greater than renting a small car. Still probably cheaper than owning one if you only use it occasionally, but definitely not cheap.

 

Where did you hear that? That short a timeframe doesn't match up with anything I've understood about ethanol or anything else in the fuel blends.

Not that I would mean to push the mostly-EV drivers into keeping any more fuel in their Primes. Full tanks are for those of us who run long gas-required trips regularly enough to keep the tank fresh.



Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Within this link, I must note that petroleum products sent to U.S. territories are somehow counted as 'exports', despite not being sent to actual 'foreign' countries.



Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Agree with that. After my last long road trip in May, I came home with maybe 1/3 of a tank or so. That will last me until my next long road trip, then I fill up on the way out of town.

 

Ethanol-free gas stations in the U.S. and Canada

Ethanol Free Gas Stations

Find The Nearest Gas Stations & Cheapest Prices | Save On Gas

solves a lot of the issues with most current blends

offtopic
in another current thead members are discussing the pros and cons of UPS adding Natural Gas powered trucks to their fleet, One question put forth in that thread is "how long before they start calling gasoline and alternative fuel"
Well, how to they make synth lube oil?
Not really interested in blowing the lid off other peoples ideas of where we are headed as the years pass. Especially since I have my own "not so common ideas about where we're going and how we're gonna get there.
Gasoline will probably be synthesized after the RAPTURE, and most of us 8 or 9 or 10 billion humans will be gone and the Illuminati can start over again with a fresh slate.