Big Green Lies

Bye Bye Gas Guzzlers

We sold our Jaguar XK8 and a Subaru Legacy, and got two second hand prius.

We went from 20 mpg to 50-60 mpg, and got a nice cash back as well. It was in the UK so we got £ 10,000 cash back 3 years ago about $ 15,000.

My prius has now done over 90,000 miles and is still going great.

We live in the country off the back of a dirt track. I got 60mpg going on a school run that was about 15 miles on the flat at 55, a 15 minute queue through a village on the battery and up and down a big hill. The Jag was a 2+2 so you could not get the kids, in and the Subaru did about 15 mpg on the journey because of the queue through town.

There is often a lot of rubbish talked about carbon footprints, and the junk about the cost of the Nickel for the Toyota battery is a classic. There is even a total myth running around that a hummer is more eco friendly. Personally, I like driving my Prius and have done the research and know that it is eco friendly.

PS I know a little bit about this since we have now carried out carbon footprinting for 3.6 million commonly purchased products.

See http://www.uk-plc.net/green-marketplace-launch-7th-october.htm

For details of the launch of our Green Marketplace by our Minster for the Natural Environment.

Hybrids can be nice, but....

They are not for everyone. The hybrid works best for slower in town driving when you can keep the ICE (internal combustion engine) from coming on. Living in a rural area live I do there is not a lot of low speed driving that would make the hybrid effective. Another problem is that hybrids are usually small cars, depending on the person/family too small. Also there is the added cost to the vehicle, what you pay for a hybrid version of a car you can have bought a regular gas version and a couple years worth of gas for it.

Also if you want to buy a more green car, buy one manufactured in the USA with the highest number of domestic parts. When you buy a foreign manufactured car you have the additional energy that goes into getting the car to the USA, this is on top of shipping it across the country to get it to you. There are many car manufactures that make cars in the USA with assembly plants as well as their suppliers located in various spots around the country. Buying one of these vehicles keeps the need for transporting down.