Toyota Prius: Prius vs. Hummer

On Mar 21, 9:03 am, "Jean B." <com> wrote: 

It's been refuted on most of the main Prius discussion groups since it
came out a while ago. The most recent public thread is here:
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/toyota-prius/message/100720

(the "lifetime" of each vehicle is vastly out of proportion to make
the hummer look better, the story uses very old information on a
Canadian nickel mine that has been working hard to clean itself up
(and is currently much cleaner than the story asserts), the story came
from a source known to do reports favorable to whomever paid for the
report, etc.)

net wrote: 

Thanks, I'll go take a look. I did wonder about that 100,000
mile lifetime they assigned to the Prius.

--
Jean B.

If you are not part of the solution, you are not dissolved in
the solvent.

On 21 Mar, 14:03, "Jean B." <com> wrote: 

It is quite true what is said in the article, there is only one
paramount thing to talk about: the nickel they are talking about is
used for every nickel based battery: Ni-MH and Ni-Cd, i.e. cell
phones, toys, digital cameras, laptop etc... The part of them used for
the Prius is only a very small percentage and in any case is used by
Toyota only because already developed and used in big quantity. I do
not believe that, without the development of Prius, the use of Ni for
the batteries would have been significantly lower to be perceived.
In addition I do believe that the production of the Hummer, since it
is heaviest in every part of it, requires much more energy to melt and
work the steel.
Claudio

"Jean B." <com> wrote in message
news:individual.net... 

why would any GM product outlive a toyota? that's not the norm for sure..if
they're assuming you throw the prius away after the batteries go, that's
just bad logic.

bob

Jean B. <com> wrote:
 

NOTE: After I sent this letter to the editor, I got an e-mail reply from
the student:

". . .
In all honesty, I threw the paper together in thirty minutes, checked my
attribution, and sent it into my editor because I had nothing better to
do. I can tell you put some effort into writing and researching this,
and I would like to return the effort by delving into the information
you provided me. "

My point is it does no good to bring the facts and data to a Prius
friendly forum (nor a an anti-hybrid forum.) However, the editors of
writers have vested interest in credibility. It behoves us to take the
time and send an ORIGINAL letter to the editor. That is the only way we
can get the lazy and incompetent journalists to go into advertising,
where they belong.

- - - - -

After checking with the editor, I understand they will review but may
or may not elect to publish this rebuttal:

Dear Editor,

Chris Demorro's opinion piece, "Prius Outdoes Hummer in Environmental
Damage" suffers from a lack of fact checking. He claims ". . . their
ultimate 'green car' is the source of some of the worst pollution in
North America" copied from a flawed _Daily_ _Mail_ article without at
least fact checking the environmental record of the Inco Sudbury
Canadian plant, http://wwww.inco-sudbury-airquality.com/.

Frank Javor, Superintendent, Health and Environment, CVRD Inco Smelting
Operations e-mailed their annual emissions data going back to 1974, 23
years before Toyota sold their first Prius. Since then, INCO has made a
90% reduction in SO(2) and INCO emissions continue to go down.

Chris failed to check the amount of nickel used in hybrid batteries,
about 200 pounds per vehicle or 30 million pounds for 150,000 existing
Prius versus the annual Canadian nickel output, over 380 million pounds.
Nickel production is driven by the vastly larger market for stainless
steel and other high temperature metals.

Failure to fact check is compounded when the flawed CNW Marketing report
is cited while the "Institute for Lifecycle Environmental Assessment",
http://www.ilea.org/lcas/macleanlave1998.html, from Carnegie Mellon
University, reports 73% of the energy used comes from operation, not
manufacturing. Only CNW Marketing makes this false claim and compounds
the error by using dollars instead of Joules, an energy unit.

Those who have read the CNW Marketing report can confirm a large number
of false claims including assignment of shorter vehicle lifetimes to
hybrids, excessively development costs, false recycling claims, and a
claim that hybrids are "a style.' This last lie suggests that if someone
had a gas-only Camry and a hybrid Camry, they would drive the gas Camry
even with $3/gal gas because the hybrid is "a style."

An opinion piece that states the opposite of the facts and data is
deliberately misleading to the point of propaganda. Hybrids aren't for
everyone but in this case, Chris failed to fact check and at best, his
piece was misleading.

Robert J. Wilson
Sr. Network Engineer

"Jean B." <com> wrote in message
news:individual.net... 
Me too - my 2002 had 103K miles when I bought it!

Mike

On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 19:00:05 -0400, "bob" <net> wrote:
 

Why wouldn't it? Or a ford product? How many Chevies and Fords have
served one career as a police car and a second as a taxi? I've never
seen a Toyota do so.

"Ashton Crusher" <net> wrote in message
news:com... 

Fords and GMs almost seem tailored for fleet service. They typically have
lower initial purchase costs and are reliable enough during the warranty
period. After that they have a period of moderate cost failures before they
descend into "beater" status. The first phase is attractive to police and
utility service, while the second phase is attractive to taxi service.

I've hung around Ford and GM fora (among others) recently, looking for ideas
for a car for my new-driver son-in-law. As a DIYer the second phase doesn't
worry me, assuming the car doesn't have common expensive "gotchas." Would he
and I prefer a Honda or Toyota or Hyundai? Sure... but the price of a decent
one is out of his range.

Mike