the new Honda Prius...er I mean Insight
 

Don't even get me started on Hybrids today!!!! My battery on wheels had a dead battery this morning!

I could buy a honda fit for $10K less. I'm not going to save $10K is gas in 5-6 years I'd own it so then where it the return on investment? There isn't. Hybrids are dumb. When they make them the same price as an equivalent gas guzzler, Then I will buy one. The Chevy Volt is another good example of overpriced crap. $40K for a sub compact car that has a range of 40 miles..? Come on... Get real.

The Priu.....I mean Insight is supposed to start under 20K.
The Fit starts at 14.5.

If the Honda Priu...I mean Insight is in the same class as the Prius then the Honda Priu...I mean Insight is in a different class (larger...car. Interior Volume close to a Camry vs a Fit...which can be "tight" for some.



I hate hybrids with the best of em but they are good for the performance metric they are designed for. Interior volume of a large car with the fuel economy of wee mobile.

$20K gets me a new FZR6 to commute and a new R1 for pimpin!

Perhaps the benefits of a hybrid also have to do with the low emissions? Which is good for the environment (ie - all of us), rather than saving money for just yourself

meh. Even driving my truck all winter (which is hungry as hell) I average 35mpg between my vehicles. If I had the $20k or whatever, I'd rather get a new truck or add to the two wheeled stable. The bike is a lot more fun in the summer, and the Prius/Hybrid ugliness wouldn't do jack in the snow. Basically, I'm reducing emissions in the summer when everybody starts bitching and reducing the demand for fuel :zowned:

Yeah, but the smug factor is well worth wasting the extra money. One of the best South Park's EVER.

I looked at a Prius and if you don't mind the smallish trunk, it's not a bad deal if you need to lug 4 adults around (commuter car pooling car).
On top of that around town it has some grunt that you won't get in a tiny shitbox.
Sure you can pick up Malibu for a little less but 40+ mpg and a car that seems a little more well put together is an attractive option.

If it fits your needs

It is the best south park ever. The drag of charging heavy ass batteries is not efficient at all. Hell my wifes car gets better miliage than any hybrid on the market but its not particularly trendy though. Hybrids are an idiotic fad that a certain type of asshole eats up meanwhile the marketing execs for toyota and honda are laughing all the way to the bank. Hell keeping a old pick up from the seventies that 5 miles to gallon saves way more energy than hybrid since nobody has to build you a new car and ship it to you for you to buy.

Former co worker Paid 22K and averaged 48MPG with mainly around town driving for her Prius. There's room for 4 adults...normally her husband and 2 teenagers.

What car does your wife drive that gets better gas mileage and does it fit 4 full size adults comfortably.

(Another guy I work with has a diesel Passat which offers a comparable amount of room, nicer interior, but was more expensive and get's mid 30's )

i drive an 05 dodge neon and im getting 33 mpg. bike on the other hand im getting about 48 mpg. if i baby it i can get about 52 but wheres then fun in that.

Don't know the year or trim of your Neon but if you are getting 400+ miles out of every tank then that's pretty impressive.

I think the normal average for that car is about 340 per tank. Unless all you do is 55mph on the highway.

Hybrids really are not that expensive. Yes, theya re more expensive than the regular model of the same car (Civic vs. Civic Hybrid, etc). The Prius is a bit weird looking, but it's built for effiency in the aerodynamics...which is why the new Honda Insight will have the same funny looking hatchback and short nose. But the civic looks exactly the same as the regular model. It starts at about 8k more than the regular model but it depends on what's more important to you.

For those of you that are more into horsepower and an impressive car than high gas mileage...if you knew you could get a significant amount more power out of a car that was 8k more (say its turbocharged or whatever)...I think you would pay it..because being able to go fast is important to you.

But if you're worried about gas mileage and the environment...than the 8k is worth paying to get 10 extra miles to the gallon.

If my Blazer got 31mpg vs. the 21mpg I get now...I'd be all over it. It's a significant difference.

Exactly.
Not everyone chases the same performance metric.
For some it's HP, for others it's MPG.

Sure the hippies driving hybrids can get annoying, but so were the asshats driving Suburbans and tahoes just to cart around two kids back and forth to the mall.

the thing about Hibrids is that there is no proof they actually reduce the impact on the enviroment. yes their emissions are lower... but they require batteries that create a lot of harmfull bi products when they're created.

I'd say the majority of people who buy Hibrids are after the savings at the pump... not because they actually care about the environment... if they did... they'd be riding the bus... they'd move closer to their work... they'd bike walk or find another sort of 0 emission transport.

the people who drive hibrids and say it's because they care about the environment are posers... if they really cared they'd change their lifestyle to make as little impact as possible... but no... they care only as long as it's not gonna impact their lives... :bs:

if you were at all concerned about the envioronment you would buy a conventional small displacement car and not something that will have such an ugly impact when you eventually send it to the breakers. you might learn how to drive stick too

Believe me I'd love to do both of those. Unfortunately, I'm a poor college kid at the moment without any money to get a new car. But my boyfriend can vouch for me that I am car shopping online pretty much every day and a regular sized car will be my first big purchase once I graduate and DO have a full time job. When I bought the Blazer, my boyfriend and I needed something with space because we've been moving just about every year, and something with the capability to tow the bike. But since it's mine and I pay for the gas and insurance (as well as the car of course), I've made it clear that next time, I'm buying something that I want.

And I haven't heard or read anything about hybrids possibly being bad for the environment because of the batteries. Does anyone have an article or source for this information?

http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/edito...asp?NewsID=188

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...0003334AA1xn5K

http://www.motorauthority.com/hybrid...hnologies.html

those are just a few I've found... I don't know if I believe they're worse than normal gas or diesel motorvehicles... but they're not what they're cracked up to be IMO.

Those were all interesting reads. Thanks for them. I agree that I'm not sure I'm convinced that hybrids are really worse than normal gas vehicles. They may nto be the end-all solution but they are definitely a step in the right direction IMO. That last article talked about how the clever marketing of hybrids is holding back the development of other alternatively fueled vehicles. Before reading that article I was thinking that I was giong to respond saying that soon enough the technology will be improved and concepts like the hydrogen fuel cell honda fcx will be the next step. But after reading that article, people shuold definitely do more research before running out to be a hybrid. I've had my eye on the fcx for a while but it hans;t been released to the masses yet. I've considered holding onto my guzzler attempting to save the money to buy one when they do but am still debating if it'll be more worth it to wait, or get something liek an older civic that gets better mileage than what i have now in the mean time and see where the technology road takes us.

to be honest... for me the only reason I'd ever drive a hybrid is for the MPG. but I love my truck... and can deal with the 17-20mpg... and I'll drive it till it dies... then probably rebuild it... and by then... I'll either be dead or we'll be out of fuel. :lol:

if they can come up with a VIABLE 0 emissions vehicle, that doesn't require me spending 80k and has a range equal to that of my tank of gas... THEN I'll think about it... but until then... fuck that. they're obviously not THAT worried themselves or we'd have the technology right now.

Screw these hybrids...I only drive stick.

ahh yes... forgot about that... must be manual transmission too

why does it have to be a new car? poor college kid and craigslist special go hand in hand. and any old stick shift four banger under 2.5 litres ought to be capable of 30+ in the right hands

That's exactly what I look for. I look on craigslist everyday. Not necessarily a new car. Maybe a new car..maybe not. But NOT buying a car costs a lot less than buying a car. And even though I'm sick of the Blazer and filling it up, it's given me next to no problems and is way under the average miles for an 8 year old car. Until I can afford to buy a car, I won't buy a car. Does that not make sense? I've gone back and forth in my head trying to decide if it would make more sense to drive this into the ground while saving because I obviously won't be spending money on a car if I'm not buying one...or if it would be more worth it to trade-in or sell the Blazer and use the money as a down payment on something else. And what it comes down to at the moment is that if I traded in the Blazer as a down payment, I do not make enough money to add another bill (ie-car payments..even on something used) into my life. So again, until I can afford to buy another car, I won't.

It is a honda civic a special california model with a hell of an expensive oxygen censor. That particular car doesn't seat foru aduls comfortably which is not really a requirement for us it would be awkward fo a baby seat, but it could do all these things and it does average 45 or so around town and 50 on highway trips. My dads festiv gets gas milaege in this range as well and can fit for adults comfortably but not any of their shit. Hybrids still suck wait till the warranty runs out and you need to find an independent mechanic to work on it.

I agree with Pauldun.

The Insight looks just like a Prius.

If you are looking strictly at the economic component, the hybrids are not yielding viable savings over their working lifetime.

Why they aren't producing diesel hybrids is beyond me. THAT might make some economic sense.

You'd have to keep the car 10 years to make it pay off. That's about 6-7 years beyond the life expectancy of the batteries.

If you were going to keep a car that long, the savings would be in keeping a car that long.

What is the cost savings of keeping a car for 10 years instead of 5?

What are the PRODUCTION savings of keeping a car for 10 years instead of 5?


If someone is serious about being green, don't just buy something that LOOKS green. Think through the entire process of production for cost effectiveness and energy savings.

VERY good point...
I wonder... if you take someone who owns a 1975 Chevy pickup (we'll pretend it's running :lol:) with a big gas guzzler motor... and could some how measure the amount of polution and harm done to the enviroment by him... and compare it to someone who's purchased a new vehicle every 4 or 5 years.

Accounting for all the emissions of the plants that created the new vehicles... I think the 75 Chevy might be alot greener than one might normally think.

Zactly! NOT buying a new car saves more than buying one that gets better mileage, but there is no money in it for the auto manufacturers.

Think of all the mining for the metals, the smelting of those metals into the alloys used, the machining, the molding, the production of the chemicals that make up all the plastics and synthetics, the chemicals in the batteries, the electricity used in all those processes, the gas burned by all those employees getting to and from work, the ecological cost of all the tooling, the ecological cost of all the travel to all the auto shows, the ecological cost of all the paper for all the marketing materials.


It's staggering. If you bought a car and drove it for 10 years instead of 5, you would do more good for the environment than just about anything else you could do.


Even more than keeping your tires inflated.:whistle:

:rofl: