Modern Vespa

I just shrug my shoulder and say "what evs" then I lane split to happines.

sounds like they might just be trying to get a rise out of you or Mr. Prius. the best defence is a good offence. you could pretend that you don't care ignore them and hope they go away. but that won't work.

Find something that gets under their skin, something that really grinds their bones and then tease the living crap out of them. any chance you get niggle away until they get the shits, then niggle some more. if they change the subject, change it back. until finaly they won't harass you for fear of a reprimand.

worked with my brothers and they are real bastards

I'm very much a social conservative, and I'd drive a new Prius in a heartbeat...screw stereotypes. I don't have any desire to burn more gas than I need to either, besides, it's a very nice-looking car IMO.

I might have the only Prius around with an NRA sticker in the window, but wouldn't that be delicious?

I'm also a fan of the Civic, Yaris coupe, and Smartcar.


But then.....I used to have a Renault Dauphine..and liked the thing.

I'm sure that's the case. In keeping in line with the topic, I believe those guys require their trucks to maintain their manhood because if you really think about it, the guy who got a Prius, they said his balls went away along with his mustang. They don't want to lose their balls so they're keeping their trucks. Puh-leeze.

At 6.15 over here it's too early for a rant but the Mustang will probably do less damage to the enviroment than the Prius in the long term.

The Mustang is built in the US I'm guessing ? The stuff Toyota put in the Prius battery gets mined in Canada then shipped to Northern Europe then down to China and finally on to Japan where it goes in the car then it gets shipped to the US.
Go figure just how good that is for the planet.
I think you have just wiped out any benefit to the enviroment in one swoop.
Where does all of the acid go when the Prius gets scrapped ?
And why you want one when the VW Blue Motion Polo will do exactly the same mpg and doesn't have a huge battery to drag around ?
Oh yeah and it costs less.

I'd have the Mustang not because it's man's car but because it doesn't have acid in it and because of where it's built.

On a final note my little VW Fox gets regular trips into Europe at doesn't get much below 80 mph and it returns 45mpg all day long.

Buy a smaller car ?

Bill X

The days of the Hybrid are numbered once Hydrogen becomes the fuel of choice. You'll have to thank Honda for that.

+1 on the Hydrogen can't wait, I want it now.

all cars have a lead acid battery if I am not mistaken including the mustang.

prius batteries are nickel-based, less toxic than lead acid batteris, and can be recycled.

better not use your mobile phone, car, ipod, or anything else with a battery to be safe

The problem with non-conventional means of fuel is currently there isn't enough infrastructure for it. Case in point. The electric cars from the late 90s when the EV1s came out by GM. Yeah, people have garages where they can park and recharge them. But what about people in condo or apartment complexes? We have a couple of large shopping malls here in San Diego that have parking reserved for electric cars. Not too many of them. Not too many electric stations were built so that played (maybe small, but still) a part of why electric cars went away (and other reasons too. See "Who Killed The Electric Car").

Okay, build a car that doesn't require a power line. You have the standard Hybrid. No plugging required. The brakes and the generator recharges the batteries. I like this.

Next up, a Plug-in Hybrid. Okay, great improvement in MPG, but that takes us back to the consumers with no access to a power station to able to take advantage of that.

Okay, try Hydrogen. You run into a problem where there won't be enough stations to provide Hydrogen fuel. Case in point. E85 fueled vehicles. They're huge in Brazil and other countries, but not in the U.S. In San Diego, I can name only one fuel station that provides E85 fuels. And even then, according to a friend, the cost is slightly more to fuel an E85 vehicle that will get just a tad bit better MPG compared to their auto counterpart (he owned a Ranger regular and is now driving a Ranger E85 truck). One E85 fuel station to a couple thousand of gas stations. People will buy autos that require fuels that is provided in abundance.

Okay, my account. I used to drive a Ford Escape XLT SUV that got 19MPG on average. I now drive a Ford Escape Hybrid SUV that gets 33MPG on average. With all being relative, that's a great improvement. How much was the price difference between the two? Don't ask. It was a gift to myself which I had purchased on my birthday 5 years ago hehehe

But bottom line is, unfortunately, people will continue to buy autos that can operate on fuels that are easily accessible.

plus I think we strayed away from Rex's OP, sorry mate.

I'm gonna get a beer or 3

Guilty

Anyway, back to balls and manhood...

Same....shoulder shrug but say nothing!

Kind of which reminds me of a dinner I was invited to and I had my Manager and the VP of Sales get into a heated discussions about an inconsequential matter...after several minutes of bantering back and forth they looked at me and asked, "Don't you have an opinion?"

I said, "Sometimes silence is an opinion...now, can we order dinner?"

Buy that Prius a set of trucknutz.
Then tell the scoffers their trucks don't have any balls...



Harvey

+1

I guess what I'd really like to have is a Prius turbo diesel. Or maybe even a Prius with a small V-8.

I'd like a hybrid AWD - small like a Honda Civic. Or a hydrogen AWD. Toyota makes the Highlander in a hybrid, but it's gotten very big. The RAV4 is now the size of the old smaller Highlanders, but doesn't come in a hybrid! And the Prius doesn't come in AWD. As I've said before, I don't really want a Prius because it's too ostentatious, and I'm not sure a hybrid is all that green anyway.

E85 fuel mixtures are horrible. Ethanol attracts water, and if you leave that stuff in your tank it can screw up your carb much quicker than regular gasoline.

Ethanol also freezes in winter, so all of that fuel must be trucked to it's location instead of being piped. It actually uses more oil t create E85 than the E85 replaces, when you count transportation, fuel used for growing, etc.

The corn that is being used to make it is food taken from hungry mouths, and the extra nitrates used create run-off that has killed most of the life at the mouth of the Mississippi.


Dead Zone caused by fertilizer runoff.

A far better alternative is coal gasification using the Fischer-Tropsch Process.

http://www.greencar.com/articles/5-things-need-fischer-tropsch-process.php

A nice by-product of this process is........ HYDROGEN.