Interesting observation from a prius owner

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(momfortheenvironment @ Sep 16 2006, 07:46 PM) [snapback]320690[/snapback]</div>

Yep. Fairly regularly someone will ask me about the car. I've never encountered negativity towards it in face-to-face encounters. Sometimes I'll get questions, like "What about the battery?" that suggest the person has heard the anti-Prius myths but is skeptical of them and wants the real low-down from an owner. Often their attitude is summed up with "I sure wish I could afford one." Lots of folks cannot afford a new car, and there aren't many used ones on the market yet. Everyone I talk to, or who approaches me to ask about the Prius thinks it's great. Not everyone thinks it's the future. Some think that fuel cells are viable. One person I talked to actually believed that there's a car that runs on water. Others believe other technologies will emerge. But everyone I talk to thinks that here and now, the Prius is fantastic.

Yesterday someone made a comment that seemed on its face to be negative, though from the tone of voice I was not sure. I replied non-committally, and he said "Look at the car next to yours." It was a Prius. He had been joking. An odd sort of joke, but a joke nonetheless. He loved his Prius.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Sep 17 2006, 10:05 AM) [snapback]320814[/snapback]</div>

Fuel cells will work, but prasgmatic people that know something about the industry seem to have reached a consenus that fuel cells are a while off, at least for widespread use in the cars we drive. I used to work in a facility that used for power generation - but it was of course a fixed fuel cell power plant. The word is we are to 20 years from seeing fuel cells in cars in any number. The only two things that are really being deployed now are hybrids (which really work today) and ethanol.

You are seeing more and more ethanol capable cars on the road now, but in many areas it is still going to be a while before the fuel is available. And ethanol is just an alternative to petroleum. It isn't any cheaper, especially when you consider you need almost twice as much of it to get the same amount of energy as gasoline.

 

The battery question is the one I've gotten. Funny thing is I was under the same impression and would never have considered a hybrid because of it. I think this is becuase we are condition to expect our rechargable batteries to have a limited useful life. Most of probably have had to replace the Nicad battery pack in our cordless phones or the NiMH battery packs in our cell phones. We have also had to replace our 12 v car batteries more often than we like. So when someone tells the public, incorrectly, that the batteries of hybrids have to be replaced every few years for thousands of dollars it's easy for the battery buying public to accept it as truth.

Who's spreading these false rumors? The local news media, for one, as that is where I got my info a couple years ago. But interestingly enough, my daughter's high school physics teacher was spreading this to his class as well. So when one non-critical thinking teacher or one non-critical thinking, non-fact checking TV news reporter tells us something that we already know about rechargable batteries applies to hybrid batteries as well, we tend to believe it.

The other one is the MPG. People are really surprised that I am getting close to 50 (only 2+ tanks so far) becuase they've heard that Prius don't really do better than other economy cars.