RedWhiteandRed

That Prius is very nice. Nice also to hear you are balancing the car and biking life.

The new diesels are fabulous - and make a lot of sense if most of your driving is highway: I get 5l/100kms in my Jetta. Diesel tends to cost less than gasoline and the maintenance is much less.

Cars are like bikes - people tend to buy the one they like.

I have worked in every car plant in North America and several in Europe - prefer bikes and tend to shy away from GM, Ford and Chrysler.

electrik

I think small diesel would be a good choice for a climate conscious cycle commuter. For one if the cyclist is sitting/creeping in traffic they are on a bicycle seat not in a car. This negates the hybrid's bizarre niche, sitting parked in crawling city traffic for short trips. The cyclist needs a car for the really long trips... 30km and up at highway speeds which is where diesel makes more sense.

Having said this...car selection for many people is a mostly irrational choice.

agarose2000

Yes, unfortunately here in LA, and most of the US, most people would drive their car 2 blocks to run an errand rather than (gasp) walk or even bike. I know people who drive their car down their 200ft driveway to get the mail around here, and then drive back up to the house.

wunderkind

^ I guess if and when Obama's public health plan goes through, the first to line up at the medical centres are the fat <ahem> I mean obese <ahem> weight-challenged Americans then?

TrekFix

Buy American People!!!!!!!!!!

BarracksSi

More like "weight-advantaged".

BarracksSi

That's protectionism. Capitalism means buying the best product, and if it happens to be made elsewhere, then that's too bad. Tell the Americans to build better stuff. "May the best product win", right?

Grim

Buy American what? The Toyota built in America by Americans or the Chevy built in Canada or Mexico or on the rare chance it was assemble in America it was a assembled with parts made in Canada or Mexico. Here is a little tidbit. ALL cars first first digit in the VIN is where it was assembled. "1" is USA. go start looking at some "American cars" and see how many you find assembled in the US. About 50% of the Toyota and Nissan's sold in the US were assembled in the US.

Rollfast

If you don't need the Toyota, sell it and send me a blue Camaro SS.

AND PUHLEEEEZE! Don't sell or buy American people!

ItsJustMe

It's illegal to sell or buy people.

Rollfast

Even foreign ones.

TrekFix

...this says it all

EKW in DC

+1

wunderkind

What good timing! I was just out shopping for people. Any reviews on American People? I heard Swedish People are cheerful and happy. But what with the Euros these days...

BarracksSi

Maybe, unless it's ethanol from other cellulose sources (like, say, yard waste, expired Christmas trees, etc) and can be produced much closer to town.

BarracksSi

If you've still got a K-Mart nearby, go for a blue light special. Almost as good, and a lot cheaper.

TFS Jake

The women are AMAZING!

ItsJustMe

That's true. The problem is, nobody does that except in demonstration plants. The process is only really doable with enzymes that are very slow-acting, and nobody's figured out how to do it in industrial quantities yet.

If we can get cellulose ethanol production working, it'll be a huge step forward. It's not happening yet though.

ejbarnes

At least Mexico and Canada try to trade fairly. Japan, Korea, etc. go out of their way to make it hard to sell imported product in their country.
Huge import taxes and tariffs.

If you came to my house to put on siding or fix the roof on my house and were driving a Toyota or Datsun or Mazda truck/vehicle. I gues I would send you away and hire some off shore person to do the job. Obviously you believe they would have better quality or are cheaper. I will now shop that way. Who gives a crap about our schools or hospitals or roads or even our own people.

Thanks now I have an excuse to save that extra $5 every week.

Juha

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I've read, the US actually subsidizes gasoline instead of taxing it. So maybe they just subsidize diesel less? Compared to our prices: for the consumer, one litre of unleaded gasoline around here costs EUR 1,3. Via google that converts to over USD 7 per US gallon. More than half of that price is various taxes (not just VAT but all kinds of usage taxes).

I think taxing fuel is a good principle because it puts the burden on those who use the product most. As to what exactly is the appropriate level of taxation - that discussion is very much open here, repeatedly and sometimes heatedly.

--J

tarwheel 

I don't know why some people get so worked up about Priuses. A lot of pseudo-facts get thrown around every time they are mentioned. Folks, even if you are anti-environment and think global warming is a hoax, it is GOOD to conserve petroleum. The Earth has limited supplies and sooner or later we are going to run out, or it will get so expensive that few will be able to afford it. Also, the US is shipping billions of dollars overseas, mostly to Middle Eastern countries run by dictators, to support our oil addiction. Anything we can do to reduce our dependence on foreign oil is GOOD.

The canard about Prius batteries is just that. Their batteries last a long time, and they can be recycled. Guess what? A regular car probably goes through at least two batteries in the time a Prius uses one. The engines on conventional cars also wear out and have to be replaced or rebuilt eventually.

That said, I am holding out until Honda or Toyota or Ford start making some nice diesel sedans or small SUVs. The new diesels are just as clean-burning as gas-powered cars, and get mileage roughly equivalent to hybrids. Eventually diesel prices should come down as manufacturers make more of them.

ItsJustMe

Driving something that gets great mileage is a good thing. I just don't think that hybrids are always the best way to go. Back in the 80s we had small, light cars with tiny diesel engines that got 50+ MPG. The government forced automakers to stop making light cars because there were so many idiots on the roads driving 2 ton trucks like maniacs, and apparently we're all babies that can't decide what level of safety we want for ourselves, and for a long time nobody sold diesel engines in the US because we have such crappy diesel fuel here (due to lack of governmental willpower to enact and enforce clean fuel standards).

So what I don't like about hybrids in general is that they use a huge pile of technology to allow us to drive tanks around and still get decent mileage, when I would prefer instead to drive something like the old 80s econoboxes with a 1.3 liter diesel engine and get 55 MPG that way.

I've seen a few estimates of the amount of energy that goes into producing a Prius, and it is significant, if you count everything from mining to showroom.

agarose2000

Those points by ItsJustMe are valid about the small cars - even the Geo Metro was known to get 50mpgish range, and current-gen European/Japanese underpowered cars pull these kind of efficiencies today.

The unfortunate reality in the US though, is that unless you want to face driving on a highway at 55mpw MAX, you're not going to be able to get away with a car that can crank out that good mileage without a hybrid. I'm a slow bike commuter and I'd be very comfortable with slower highway speeds in general, thus allowing those hi-efficiency standard cars to get great mileage, but it's simply unsafe to drive on a highway where the avg speed is 65-75mpw, and you're puttering along at 55. You also won't be able to accelerate into lane transitions safely at highway speeds with such an underpowered vehicle.

You "could" drive a Geo Metro or those Euro-Japanese cars on US highway at the high speeds seen on US highways, but you'd definitely lose all the vaunted fuel efficiency that made you get that car in the first place. Those cars only get great mileage at much lower speeds than 60-70mph.

Also - don't neglect the undeniable effect on technology that the commercial success of the Prius has made. Even if it was (or is) actually WORSE for the environment in the overall manufacture & use, its success has demonstrated to car companies that a significant and growing population of the US is willing to pay a reasonable premium to support new gas-efficient technologies. This has led to a literal explosion in new green car engine technology - at the latest auto show this week, green engines dominated the new models. If it wasn't "green", it wasn't good enough. This is a huge, fantastatic improvement over car shows from even 4-5 years ago where larger and larger SUVs or shockingly low fuel efficiency in favor of unnecessary horsepower for regular road driving were the "in" thing. Even if only one out of the hundred technologies demonstrated pan out, it could have enormous environmental consequences. And there's no denying that this step in the right direction by carmarkers was greatly advanced by the success of the Prius, regardless of its actual current environmental impact. I believe that as long as consumers continue to choose "green" features over luxury or overpowered vehicles, carmakers will eventually produce a product that will convincingly outperform standard engines of today, at a lower cost, and lower environmental cost. We already have various technologies to do it - but need necessary distribution and infrastructure.

Electric plug-ins, anyone?

andrelam

I'll chime in with a harty congrats to the new car to the OP. I've only once bought a new car... even picket it up at the factory. It is something special. Just like the OP I go largely car free for work, but for practical reasons my wife and I need two cars often enough that having one car is just not practical. Right now we are driving her '98 Volvo sedan just about excusively during the winter and I try to drive my '03 Volvo wagon as little as possible during the winter. During the summer we reverse it and use the "nicer" car mainly and use her car only when needed. This keeps the mileage somewhat more even for Insurance reasons. By not driving my car to work regularly I was able to change my insurance catagory and save about $125 per year. On a $750 policy (now about $620) that was a sizable percentrage savings. By not driving the cars much I am getting many more years out of the Summer and Winter tires, and I don't hit my major maintenance milestones as fast either. The irony now is that I was driving so much that my '03 was starting to catch up quickly to the '98. I now have 106,000 on the new car and 129,00 on the old car. I used to drive 20 to 25K miles per year, now I drive about 7,000 and that would include 1,500 to 3,000 miles yearly for driving for family vacations.

As others pointed out. Not driving does not = no maintenance, but certainly seriously you will drastically reduced yearly maintenance. Good luck with your nice new car and enjoy the cycling.

André

bkrownd

That's pretty irrelevant. All cars lose efficiency at higher speeds, regardless of the engine type. If you care so much about fuel efficiency you won't be driving 60+ anyway. I like to cruise at 45 myself. However, my corolla still gets at least 40MPG at 60MPH.