Help me compose a rebuttal

well how many pre 2003 cars have a five star NCAP crash rating? answer none
I'll save myself before enviroment thanks, but enviroment does come second.
I think toyota ensured EVERY part of prius is usefully recycleble
It looks like current gen pruis will have a life span of over 15 years plus the way things are going

 

He does have a point however. My wife's early 90's Accord got way better milage than the current Civic. It irks me that for a decade or two of cheap fuel we have give up mileage for the sake of HP. HP that we don't need and seldom use. I drove a ~90hp Vanagon Syncro Westfailia, 4wd for years. I was able to get 20mpg out of that car driving it carefully, as opposed to 10mpg for an american camping van with 200+hp.

I think you have to state the argument that WHEN people buy new cars, and they will, they should get the highest mileage, lowest emission vehicle they can get that will do what they NEED done. I can't be convinced that with proper recycling and re-use, that a Prius can be anything but net/net the most efficient use of resource over it's lifetime.

Icarus

PS You could also make the argument that, "they aint making them anymore"!, hence it is a academic argument. There are fewer and fewer 15+ year old cars on the road every day just through attrition, and those that remain tend toward the "beater" status eventualy and ergo begin to blow smoke, have bad cats etc. I drive my 82 VW rabbit pick up to haul stuff. I know it uses a quart of oil per 500 or so. It's not leaking, so I'm guessing that it is going out the tail pipe as a case in point.

 

Hi Evan,

Buying a pre-2000 car, and keeping it running is nothing but a pyramid sheme. Sooner or later the body rusts, and you need to buy something newer. WithAnd your left with a load of parts that will never be used to their ultimate lifetimes, that will never give service again. Eventually, something newer will be a post 2000 car.

Clearly, some people can go out and buy the pre-2000 car, but car makers are in the buisness of coming up with new cars to replace the ones that will never roll again. These new cars have to meet the present societal norms - like side, and offset impact performance. There wont be allot of cars on the roads, if nobody can afford the gas, so its just common sense cars have to be more efficient now and in the future.

Oh, and my year 2000, made pre 2000 Saturn SL2 used the same load rating tires as my Prius. And weighed nearly as much!

 

That's the problem with the argument. All new cars require carbon emissions in their manufacture. It also depends on whose "dust-to-dust" report you put your trust in. If we stop making new cars, then old cars will end up requiring more and more of their own additional carbon to stay in operational shape. As strange as it may sound, the year 2000 isn't getting any closer!

My own personal trump card in those type of arguments is: If nobody expresses an interest in new technology by putting their money on the table, then no new technology will be built, and there will be no improvement from the cars built pre-2000, or the seemingly more offensive cars built since then.

I'm not really convinced about that argument right now though, considering such "new technology" as the Chevy Tahoe Hybrid. It makes me sad seeing the label used as a buzz word, rather than a real tool for positive change. Still, I'm optimistic that most people don't fall for that ploy, and the Prius sales seem to back that optimism up somewhat.

 

our cars:
1985 mbz 300d turbo 5cyl 3.0l diesel
curb weight 3373 lbs, 21 mpg epa spec, no way it makes that anymore.
1990 lexus es250 6cyl 2.5l gas
curb weight 3163 lbs, ~17 mpg (yes, after engine work- $$$)
1996 toyota camry wagon 6cyl 3.0l
curb weight 3407 lbs, likely still makes epa spec of 21 mpg.
of course 2005 prius 4cyl 2.5l
curb weight 2932 real world 45 mpg

sooooo
prius is the lightest of our vehicles. it also gets more than 2x the mpg of any of our older cars. oops!

the big thing here is- we're not going to recycle those other cars- once we're done with the greaser it's going to someone else. and the camry is out the door very, very soon to another owner who will get plenty of use from it. just throwing a perfectly functional car away makes no sense, and is an invalid argument.

and comparing buying a new hybrid vs new other car can't be contrasted to buying a new hybrid vs keeping/buying an old car. why, i've just discovered the latter is cheaper- no shit, captain obvious! but new cars are going to be built to replace the ones that really don't work, and people will continue to buy them. since they're building them and people are buying them anyway, making hybrids continues to make sense in the long run until we find a more efficient solution.

ok, that's not the least snarky commentary i've ever made, but you see the points i have.

 

You could just tell him that you refuse to argue with someone who
can't spell and is too dense to use a spell-checker.

 

Let me guess, did he mention the "moonscape" around Sudbury, Ontario?

You want I should pay him a visit? Have a little "chat" with him?

 

What about safety?
Those old cars had no safety cells and although they were crash tested it was hit and miss. Have an accident in one of those old cars and the best you can hope for was days in hospital, now after a check-up you can go home. Not everyone's needs fit a 2 door honda civic, some people need to move more than 1 or 2 persons in comfort and safety, Prius does this famously.
How many air-bags in a 1990 civic? What were their crash scores? How much carbon emissions does the death of a family cause? How many 1990 civics are there anyway? Are there enough to meet demand?

My 1990 2.0 Camry wagon which was about the same internal dimensions as the Prius or maybe a little smaller in the back seat, used twice as much fuel as my Prius with similar performance and no airbags or 5 star crash rating. That is, the Camry used it's own body weight in petrol more than the Prius uses every 18 months.

Fact is, if you traded a 1990 civic for a Prius then someone else less fortunate is driving the civic and getting great mileage, you have a new Prius also getting great mileage, double bonus!!

 

Evan, I assume you have access to the Toyota info on emissions associated with hybrid (and other new) vehicle manufacture, and the MIT lifecycle costs study. Those may be too dense and detailed for this sort of rebuttal however.

I don't think any car company (Toyota and Honda included) were manufacturing pre-1990 cars as 'cleanly' as they are today. I have no data on it.

Continuing to extract useful service from older, fuel-efficient vehicles is not an alternate to or a replacement for hybrids. Both paths are necessary, if only because hybrids (and EVs and PHEVs for that matter) will remain in short supply for the near and mid term. We need to use all these tools to reduce fuel import and combustion.

As far as individual choice, that is outside of 'arguments'. People will choose what seems to work best for them. Ideally they would consider safety, TCO, pollutants and CO2 in some rank order, but it is not for you or I do impose such rankings.

That was no help at all, I imagine.

 

It's a different market when you factor in what needs the car is to fulfill. He has a very valid argument if you are talking about somebody who simply needs a commuter car with decent mileage. For example our 2nd car is a '98 Subaru Wagon with 90k+ miles. It's nickel and dimed us with repairs as it's aged but has been fine for getting around town but I'm not about to pack up the family for a trip from Boston to NC in a 10 year old car with almost 100k. Even properly maintained reliability is a significant factor on long trips, not to mention safety as other point out.

BTW, I don't buy "new" cars. Never have. My Prius was purchased used. They will all be used cars at some point and we'll probably be smirking about how we thought we were so great getting a measly 50mpg.

 

Uh, I'm totally unconvinced that all pre-2k cars will ab initio weigh less than a Prius, which was designed to be lightweight for fuel efficiency. (What magically happened in 2000 to increase the weight of cars, anyway?) No argument that lightweight cars and not SUVs are the sensible choice for most drivers, though. But hybrids are not "heavy weight". He is outright incorrect in this "fact".

Not everyone can maintain an older car. I am not a professional mechanic and I have better things to do with my time than track down every mechanical widget an old car will need to keep it running. There's no telling what repairs an older car of unknown history may require. I also don't have a lot of choice in what older car I end up with. I don't want to end up stranded in BFE with an older car. One of the reasons for buying a new car: a nice big warranty, which one may extend if so inclined, and roadside assistance. No worries.

As for the "greenness" of buying used over new, no argument there. But ask him from whom he bought his last pair of used underwear or socks. There are many more reasons to buy a hybrid than just what Random Think Tank Inc. claims the carbon emissions for manufacturing a car are. I remain unconvinced from the data presented any time a "dust to dust" type analysis is attempted.

Yeah, that's the way they do it in Cuba, simply because they can't get the newer cars and they couldn't afford them if they could. Ask him if he wants America to be like Cuba, then ask him why he hates America. Seems to work for O'Reilly and Hannity and others of that ilk, ESPECIALLY IF YOU SHOUT IT.

Seriously, if this is his whole argument, he has thrown a whole lot of spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, a common pattern for those who want to argue without thinking or listening to a reasoned response. Why the heck are you worried about this loser?

 

Evan,

This is a key point. At some stage, those used cars were a "new" car. It doesn't matter how old a car is, at some stage it is a new car and then it becomes a used car as it is passed on. Eventually, those old cars will no longer be economical to run, they will need more and more repairs, using resources that will not always be environmentally acceptable. Then they will need to be replaced by a "new" car, or at least somewhere in the chain they will be replaced.

So for any individual, at a point in time, then the older 1980/1990 vintage cars may actually be more economical than a new Prius, but you cannot apply a dust to dust scenario on one car and not on the other, and, depending on the point of time, the dust to dust scenario actually is irrelevant, as the person looking at that point of time is neither at the start or the end of the scenario.

Note that I have said only economical in my statement above. At any point of time within the dust to dust scenario, there is an environmental cost, and as at that point of time, I believe that the Prius will always come out on top when compared to an older vehicle.

Another arguement here is that move 10 years into the future - hopefully, there will be another vehicle that will be more environmental friendly and more economical than the Prius, and then they will be saying it is better to run an old Prius than that new vehicle.

 

Actually, you need to go farther back than 2000, the weights have been creeping up since the oil shock faded in the mid 80's. My 1987 Nissan Sentra was a little under 2000 pounds (and got upper-30's mpg with reasonable driving). A 1993 Nissan has a curb weight of 2300 pounds, by 2000 that rises to 2600 pounds and today is 2900 pounds. Then there's stupid things to watch out for in the 90's like the roll-over problem with early Ford Explorers was partially solved by simply adding a heavy steel plate to the bottom.

Nissan Sentra over the years:
1987: 2000 pounds
1993: 2300 pounds (+15%)
2000: 2600 pounds (+13%)
2007: 2900 pounds (+11%)

And this argument does nothing to address the driver that doesn't want a decade-old car (or older) for safety, reliability, amenities or prestige reasons.

"Hydrid" owners are cheaper to buy? LOL Can't run old cars forever. Best replacement is an economical car, so we're buying today the cars he wants to have 10 years from now.

But he's partially right. I have no beef with someone driving an older economical car and keeping it alive. But if it's a gas hog, it's a gas hog and doesn't matter how long it's been paid off. Most studies show that well over 70% of the car's total energy cost comes from operating the vehicle, so having a vehicle with low operational costs is still carbon-beneficial. Plus I don't like handing money to terrorists, which a gas hog does in spades.

[rant]
If you only want to save money, my advice is still to buy a used small car, like a 3-year-old Corolla, and drive it for ten years. If you want to be green, or keep money away from terrorists, then absolute reduction of gas purchases is the main priority. And one of the best ways to do that is to get a job close to home (or vice versa), or car pool, use public transportation, bike etc. Commuting by yourself in any car, even a Prius, is not the best solution. I've gone from nearly 50 gallons/month to less than 15 gallons/month (I'll do better than that this year), and gpm (gallons per month) is the real number we need to watch, not mpg.

Electric cars will finally be on the marketplace in a couple years, if there's a decent battery supply, and I feel even a new electric car is the next best thing to no car.
[/rant]

 

Eventually all old cars need to be replaced. Obviously you take a hit when you toss out something and replace it with a newly manufactured item, but if you never make anything new you run out of old ones eventually. The concept of just driving old cars is self-limiting.

Tom