“With even neocon hawks pushing hybrids, it seems like everyone’s a booster for the greener car technology.
“But how do House and Senate members’ own rides stack up?” asks Salon’s War Room (poll below):
Sounds like a fair qustion given rising fuel prices and GM’s decision to cut 25,000 jobs and close plants.
Of course, if these fuel-conscious members of Congress really wanted to do something to reduce dependence on foreign oil and fight global warming they could do a lot beyond making smart choices as consumers. For instance, they could pass legislation that would raise fuel-economy standards for cars and trucks around the country. Apparently, it’s a lot easier to buy a green car than get legislation through Congress taking on the car industry. (Salon’s War Room)
I have been wanting a Prius sooooo bad. It was going to be my next car until my Chevy Corsica totally died beyond any hope of life support – three years before the ‘game plan’ expected. So for now it’s a Toyota Corolla.
The American vs. Japanes debate is interesting. Both my dad and my husband are very car savvy. Back in ’92 one said buy Japanese, the other insisted it must be American. This time they reversed positions, with Dad pointing out there aren’t really any cars that are fully one or the other any more. (All this while the dirty dog was expending a chunk of my future inheritance on a Prius himself.)
In Arlington Cty, VA the county government fleet are almost all priuses (priiii?) Nice to see that. Probably saves them a boatload on gas and saves the environment at the same time.
I drive a Toyota Rav4. It’s not a gas guzzling SUV, more like a souped up car for schlepping stuff.
Similar to a RAV4; I refer to it as a “tall mini station wagon”.
My favorite Prius here in the neighborhood has a license plate that reads “GasNoMo”.
In that spirit, someone should get a license plate that reads BEAN-O!
Maybe they need a second car in that family? :^)
Honestly, I think of that license plate every time I’m at the gas station, wishing I could say gas no more!
it’s the mileage.
I was talking to one guy I know, pretty apathetic in terms of environment (I mean… not a litterer but not concerned per se)… he was getting excited because of the cost of gas.
And he’s only hoping to buy one used when the first adopters start selling their 3-4 year old cars.
I thought that was an interesting sign.
But it’s not the mileage, it’s the emissions. As good as 40-50mpg is (we’ve had a Prius two years now), the fact that its emissions are 1/30th that of a standard sedan is better.
I guess I’m a bit disappointed we have only a handful of federal Dems driving hybrids. I live in Boulder, CO, where I recently saw five Civic hybrids gang up and tear a squealing Hummer into little metal pieces. 🙂 I can see six new and two old Priuses just looking out the window right now.
When we purchased our hybrid, we claimed the ambiguous alternative fuel tax credit from the feds, and a similar one from the state, returning a total of $7200 to us. That made it a no-brainer–a loaded Prius became cheaper than a basic Echo or Prelude. It’s been a great car for my family.
I’ve wanted a hybrid forever, before they made them! and that was the driver… green tech, or at least more green.
And because the gas engine is off in stand still traffic I expect fumes off the highways to noticably reduce if/when hybrids are more common.
But it’s the mileage that seems to have the ability to sell hybrids considering gas prices.
Hybrids are great. I bought a Prius myself over the winter and have loved the thing every day (for more than just the 52MPG I’ve been getting, but that’s a good start).
Now the real trick will be to move from hybrids to plug-in hybrids. Toyota and Honda have done the world a great service by making hybrids generally acceptable. But they’re both frightened of pushing plug-in hybrids because they fear undoing the PR investment spent in convincing people that you don’t have to plug in a hybrid.
This is the golden opportunity for American car companies to vault ahead and control the market. Plug in hybrid + biofuels means an end to the conventional petroleum fuel market.
Someone on the Yahoo! Prius group posted plans for an AC converter, and apparently installed the same on their own Prius as proof it’s possible.
The folks over at calcars are showing off their plug-in Prius. The company behind it is supposed to start offering conversion kits soon, but hasn’t set pricing.
I suspect I won’t make the switch until I exhaust my warranty.
Yep… a plug-in hybrid can get 150mpg! How kick ass is that?
There is no reason every car sold couldn’t be getting 60mpg or better with technology available right now.
Unfortunately, some new hybrids are looking to boost performance rather than save gas.
We need higher CAFE standards, period. That’s the only way plug-ins will happen.
This is a very interesting topic. The fact is that ALL hybrid designs are based on boosting performance. If you look in the hypermileage forum for the Honda Insight, where people routinely get into the 80-90 MPG range, the primary rule is STAY OUT OF THE HYBRID SYSTEM.
http://www.insightcentral.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=294
The way these cars all work is that they have small gasoline engines, with electric motors to boost performance. Converting energy from gasoline chemical potential energy to kinetic energy to electrical potential energy and then back to kinetic again is EXTREMELY inefficient. The way to get good mileage in a hybrid is to drive slowly, and this rule applies to comparable traditional cars also.
If we were driving 500 to 850 cc cars like people were in Europe in the 1950s, and were willing to put up with the limited performance, and had the advantage of modern engine technology, there wouldn’t be any need for hybrids. Hybrids are all about performance.
my wife’s replaced a 1993 Accord, in which her overall mgp was around 30-32. She does a lot of driving between DC and Phila/s Jersey (family or NC (doing research for a book). She uses AC, drives aggressively, and averages around 46-47 mpg overall.
Me? During the school year I have a roundtrip commute of just under 50 miles. Almost all is on limtied access roads. I rarely use a/c, and do not push it as far as speed. I do far better. My overall mpg is around 53-54MPG. For the last two days I have done 110 miles (including some local driving) and my MPGs have be 62 .
OF equal importance — the engine shutting off when stopped, and then restarting electronically. No polluting with the engine idle.
We got good deals on ours, both as to puchase price — we bought last may when they were not quite so much in demand — and interest — 1.9%. Even so, we woluld not be recovering our additional purchase costs unless gas went to at least $4/gallon. Still, we are glad we made the purchases.
I’m getting about 50mpg average.
As for being disappointed about Dems not driving more hybrids, I was disappointed in 1993 when Clinton and Gore didn’t immediately call for hiking the CAFE standard up and removing the exemption for trucks/SUVs. I’d argue the biggest environmental legacy of the Clinton years is (basically) an Escalade and its kin.
IMO, was 9/11. There we all were, wound up with patriotic fervor, about to go to war! What a grand time for a nice fat gas tax to share in the sacrifice and ‘support our troops’ AND reduce our dependence on the commodity those bad guys were profiting from.
No, no! Don’t you see? Increasing taxes after 9/11 would have been ‘profiteering’ and ‘taking advantage’, while starting unnecessary wars is simple patriotism. /snark
9/11 was a great excuse for the right to push thru a lot of nasty stuff, but it didn’t change the basic direction the country was headed – eg toward a lot of nasty stuff. Even if Gore had been allowed to be president, he couldn’t have used the collective goodwill of the country the same way Bush has. The fact is, there wouldn’t have been much collective goodwill, because that very same day the right would have started impeachment proceedings and ripped the country apart.
You had your patriotic opportunity post-9/11. Dim Son himself told you to go shopping.
In 2002 solar power returned to the White House grounds, after being absent since 1986. That’s another failure of the Clinton years, on the environmental front. During the 1990s solar power use grew quite a bit worldwide, but Clinton didn’t make the gesture of having solar power at the White House (like Carter had done).
So Bush gets to take credit for bringing solar back to the White House.
A dKos diary I wrote about this (with some meta-comments about the Democratic Party and its mythology…)
Did Spotted Owl Lovers take Bush hostage?
Solar panels on the White House
I will go from 19 mpg in the current VW wagon around town to 30 with the Toyota, and about 2/3 or less the emissions. I, too, am waiting for the plug-in kit when it’s available. I figure I’ll drive this a long time, and with on-grid capabilites, cqan further reduce my emissions. And when we replace the Toyota Camry in a couple of years, I figure the hybrid version will be available (or we’ll wait till it is). Can’t beat the reliability of the Toyota.
Plan to get a block heater option, also. It’s cheaper to warm up the engine with grid electrical power than by burning gas to churn the oil around in the sump.
What can I say, I drive a ’68 Camaro, you know it has to be a gas guzzler. I wouldn’t mind a hybrid but I can’t afford one, and fortunately I don’t drive very often.
-HK
the prices come down a bit – or I can get a f/t teaching job. We were going to get one in November – it was coming in the second week of Dec and we were the only name on the list. Then – we found out that rather than the $250/month payment State Farm’s loan people said we’d have, we’d have a $650/month payment. Ouch.
We were heartbroken. The only thing that took the sting out was when the loan officer told us about an ’04 Camry that had been a program car. We can get almost 40MPG in it – even going I40 through the mountains to Boone, NC. (Hopefully our new home one day soon…)
I have two cars, right now I’m driving an old Subaru stationwagon that will belong to my son, if he can wrench it out of my grubby paws when he gets his driver’s license. It gets around 25-30 mpg. The other car is a 1995 Windstar van that I bought for business purposes, I would never buy another Ford after having this car, even a hybrid. I would love to have another brand hybrid, it just isn’t economically feasible for me being a single parent and having a son soon to be heading for college. The good news is I work at home so I have zero commuting per day. A tank of gas will usually last me several weeks or longer.