The Prius vs. the Hummer myth dissected.
You have probably heard the urban legend that Prius hybrids are worse for the environment than Hummers. Slate.com had an interesting piece refuting this canard, which originated from a report written by CNW Marketing Research, an automotive consulting company.
The main counter-points are as follows:
- The report amortizes the upfront costs of R&D in the Prius’ development across the relatively small fleet of existing Prius’. This method doesn’t make sense since every new technology has a big upfront cost that needs to be amortized across the life of the technology, not just the first product.
- The report claims that a Prius will last only 109,000 miles versus 379,000 for the Hummer. Anyone who has owned a GM car in the last decade can attest to the ridiculousness of the latter assumption.
- Additionally, the Slate piece notes that the CNW report shows its real lack of credibility when it misspells the traditional term for a unit of energy as “gigajeulles.”
With that said, there was one part of the Slate piece which rang untrue to us. The author, in comparing the Prius’ fuel standards to a Hummer, states (with a unique use of grammar), “The EPA estimates the Prius’ fuel efficiency at 48 miles per gallon in the city, 45 on the highway—estimates that Prius owners typically claim are far too low.)” [emphasis added.]
Unfortunately this piece of anecdotal evidence will likely contradict what most Prius owners have actually experienced—which is, although the Prius’ miles per gallon is much higher than traditional cars, it is still rare to achieve the levels claimed by the EPA.
(And yes, we do recognize the irony of using our own anecdotal evidence to refute the article’s anecdotal evidence.)
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