I am trying to work my way through the implications of this article from Slate, on the environmental merits of buying a Prius v. a used car.
In order to do an apples-to-apples comparison, let's pit the Prius against a car that's frequently cited as its closest nonhybrid equivalent in terms of weight, size, and other specs: the Toyota Corolla. Would it be more energy-efficient to buy a brand-new Prius or someone else's old Corolla? Since certified, pre-owned cars tend to be less than five years old and are refurbished before going on sale, let's generously assume that your used Corolla will last exactly as long as your new Prius: 11.5 years, or 172,500 miles. (The average American discards a car every eight years, but that's more often than necessary: A well-made vehicle will typically last 15 years.)According to the federal government's 2008 fuel economy guide (PDF), a Prius averages 46.5 miles per gallon (assuming half of a driver's time is spent on city streets and half on the highway). Beyond 172,500 miles, then, the Prius will consume 3,710 gallons of gas. Each gallon contains approximately 124,000 BTUs of energy, so that translates into 460 million BTUs' worth of burned fuel. Add in the production energy, and the new Prius is responsible for a grand total of 573 million BTUs over its lifetime (not including disposal costs).
A Corolla with an automatic transmission, by contrast, averages 30.5 mpg—more than eight miles per gallon better than the average car on America's roads. Over the vehicle's lifetime, that translates into 5,656 gallons of gas containing more than 701 million BTUs of energy. Since the Corolla we're considering is used, we won't add to that total by factoring in production energy.
This ignores, of course, your impact on the market. As good environmentalists know, we are all part of the vast, interconnected web of the ecosystem. You cannot calculate your impact simply by estimating how much carbon you emit in your own commute.
The supply of used cars is pretty well fixed--they have to be in pretty horrible condition before they're junked rather than resold for a pittance. So the correct calculation is not how much you will emit by driving one, but how much you will emit compared to the person who would have bought the car.
But then, that person would probably have bought another car. If they would have bought a Prius, you've simply swapped places. If they would have bought another car, you've increased demand for a less fuel-efficient option.
On the third hand, as far as I know most industry analysts still believe that Toyota breaks even, or loses money, on the Prius, and so the normal price signal sent by buying a car--"increase supply of that model"--may not operate. If the person who would have bought a used Corolla instead buys a new Corolla--or someone far down the purchase chain does--you've probably done more for the environment than you would by buying a Prius, because you've actually increased the supply of fuel-efficient cars.
In fact, it seems to me that the best option is to buy a used SUV and drive it very little. But I have a feeling that this would not give a potential Prius owner everything they are looking for in a car.
Me, I'm buying a used, little car and driving it very little, mostly because it saves gas and makes parking easier. But that's just the kind of selfish rat I am.
I wonder if it always makes sense to buy a used car. I know some people swear by it, but is it always the best choice.
For example. A new 2008 Honda Accord LX is 18,458. A 2006 Honda Accord LX is 13,774. So, buying used would save you 4,684. Now, an extended warranty to match the lost 2 years of the Honda Warranty could cost upwards of $1,500. Taking the savings down to 3,184. Also, with the new car you can get 4,99% financing from Honda for 60 months. That would save you $1800. That takes the savings down to $1384.
Now, obviously a 08 Accord has two more years of life in it than a 06 Accord. Is that savings of 1384 really enough to warrant giving up 2 years of vehicle life?
It doesn't seem that way to me...
People see the new price of 18,458 and the used price of 12,774 and say see I "saved" 4,684. But the reality is they saved far less...
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/new-cars/first-drives/2008-honda-civic-gx-cng-first-look-3-08/overview/honda-civic-gx-cng-first-look.htm
The Compressed Natural Gas Civic is I believe "world's cleanest car" but I don't think you have any CNG stations in the district and i doubt you could find one used. This can run off of methane produced by landfills or other biomass sources.
I'm thrilled beyond words. I've been wondering about the production energy of a Prius since they came out. If these numbers are correct, they cost about 1,000 gallons of gas to make, so the EROI ("Environmental Return On Investment") is negative unless you can expect to save at least that much over your ownership lifetime.
The best option for most people, financially and environmentally, probably remains to simply keep your old car until it dies. I'm keeping my 2000 Escort.
Rob- Agreed. I have no problem with someone who is shopping for a new car buying a Prius. But because environmentalism has become a Hollywood endorsed style choice, there seems to be this undercurrent that the best idea is to get rid of your old car and buy a Prius or other hybrid. Unless your old car is a gas guzzler, this doesn't actually make good environmental sense. But of course, for many people, the goal is to look like a good environmentalist, not to actually be one.
And Megan -- I recommend the Toyota Xa if you're looking for a good subcompact. I drive a 2004, and the gas mileage is great (>30mpg last I checked) and it's easy to park in D.C. As an added bonus, it's roomier inside than the Mini or the Honda Fit, which I've found incredibly helpful when buying furniture and moving.
I'm buying a mini from a friend's father, which is getting me a good price and an insanely well-maintained car with only 7,000 miles on it. Otherwise, I agree--unless you're a mechanic, the new/used calculation isn't as clean cut as it looks. My family has always bought used because my grandfather did, in fact, own a gas station and garage, but since he died we've been rethinking that.
Solberg,
There was at least one CNG station on the Hill, though it may no longer be operating.
Landfill gas is not pure methane. The methane must either be separated from the other gases or the mixed landfill gas must be blended with higher BTU gases, such as refinery by-product gases, to make it interchangeable with natural gas for most applications (comparable Wobbe Index).
However, blending low BTU landfill gas with higher BTU refinery by-product gases is not suitable for use as motor fuel in spark ignition internal combustion engines, since the octane rating of the blended fuel is lower than the octane rating of methane. The engine will "knock" under normal operating conditions.
unless you're a mechanic, the new/used calculation isn't as clean cut as it looks.
So...why aren't you a mechanic? I do all my own work, it's worth a minimum of hundreds of dollars a year, thousands in some years.
Skullberg,
Sorry. Don't know where "Solberg" came from. I must be having a senior moment.
It's leaving out the other calculation: namely, the other people on the road don't know that you're better than they are because you bought your car used. But everyone who sees your Prius will instantly know how superior you are.
Rob Lyman - because I don't have anywhere to work on a car beyond the most trivial of activities, and because I never had a familial (i.e., free) education in how to fix cars. I don't have the tools. So yes, I could invest several thousand dollars right now, to get the necessary background to do a job poorly - or I could pay someone a few hundred dollars each time I need serious work done. I've needed two major repairs done that I could, theoretically, have done myself.
I suppose I could change my own oil, but it's such a small cost that it never seemed worth saving $20 to me.
-->So...why aren't you a mechanic? I do all my own work, it's worth a minimum of hundreds of dollars a year, thousands in some years.
-->So...why aren't you a mechanic? I do all my own work, it's worth a minimum of hundreds of dollars a year, thousands in some years.
So...why aren't you a mechanic? I do all my own work, it's worth a minimum of hundreds of dollars a year, thousands in some years.
That decision is not as clean as it seems, either. First, it's helpful to have a garage, and it needs to be clean enough to use. Second, there's the capital investment in tools and related supplies, often totaling at least several thousand over a period of years; plus the space to safely store those things, which is not so easy if one only has an apartment, condominium, or smaller townhome. Third, there's the competing uses of time. Nothing kills an evening or weekend like coming home from a long day at work and then having to spend another two hours (or six) delving into the guts of a greasy machine, unless that's really your thing, and therefore doubles as a hobby.
I maintain a good relationship and physical proximity with my folks, and my dad is a hardcore garage mechanic and a "two cars WILL fit in here by the end of the day or I will BURN the offending clutter" type of guy, so I can readily do my own maintenance using his garage, no small number of his tools, and education he gave me. If I had to work in the open lot of my apartment and store all of my own tools within said apartment, the calculus would quickly change, especially if (like Devilbunny notes) nobody had ever showed me how to do these things.
A lot of environmental degradation comes from parking – each spot is a piece of the earth that won't grow carbon-sucking life, a piece of the earth that others are going to have to traverse (or go around) to get somewhere, a piece of earth that's paved over and impermeable to water, etc. I say the most environmentally friendly car is a rented/shared car – one that is almost always in use.
A big reason that our cities and suburbs aren't very dense is because of minimum parking regulations – in the 'burbs, parking lots are almost always bigger than the buildings that they service.
Like others, I live in an apartment, and have nowhere to work on a car. Also, the newer the car, the less likely it is that you can even diagnose the problem--my last car issue turned out to be a deprogrammed key that was activating the anti-theft system every time I drove the car. I can change my own oil, but Jiffy Lube will do it for less than I could earn freelancing for the hour it takes.
I grant the garage (for brake jobs and above) and the need for knowledge, although the vast majority of my car knowledge came from just doing the work and getting experience at it. Tools, though? Thousands of dollars? What, are you buying the whole Snap-on catalog? You can pull together everything you need for oil changes, brakes, tune-ups (to the extent that they're even possible on your car), belts/hoses and both engine and chassis electrical for $150 or less. With that gear you can also probably pull off a clutch job or, as I did in one case, an engine/transmission swap out of a Karmann Ghia. My entire tool collection pays for itself every time I do a brake job, and that job involves only 5% of my tools.
You can buy oil change gear for less than the cost of an oil change; I do my oil and filter in 20 minutes (less time than it would take to get someone else to do it, unless I was lucky at the 10-minute place) for $6-7 (thanks, Walmart).
Now, I grant that the time/aggravation tradeoff doesn't pay for some people; that's their choice. But let's at least be realistic; simple maintenance is, as the name suggests, simple, the tools for it are cheap, and the money saved is quite significant. Advocates of home cooking as compared to eating out (ahem) ought to look into it.
It occurs to me that the post title has ying-yanged itself right around a tree. AFAIK, there is no correct answer to "What's the best car purchase to help the environment?". The best goal one can hope for is to minimize environmental impact relative to one's needs.
Rob,
Something tells me that "just doing the work and getting experience" on my 08 GTI is going to get real expensive real fast.
I work 2 miles from home. I only drive 5k a year. So I only need an oil change once a year and only need brakes every 6 years. So, it's really not worth the effort as my maintence requirements are so low.
aMouseforallSeasons ,
The answer is obvious - NONE. Walk, ride your bike, take subway or light rail, ride the bus, telecommute, etc.
What is the best meat purchase to help the environment? Also obvious - NONE. Eat more vegetables and grains.
What is the best kind of house purchase to help the environment? Also obvious - sub-terranean or cave.
What is the best number of children to have? Again, obvious - NONE. Global population is already too large.
It is all really simple, once you get your mind around the fundamental concept.
I don't think I helped the environment by buying a Prius in 2004, but I have used 1500 fewer gallons of gas than I would have in my old Saturn, which I gave to my mom. I now have 126,000 miles on my Prius, and it is running great.
Just some facts I know as a Prius owner: the Prius has more usable cargo space than a Corolla. For example, I can fit 2 bicycles in the hatch area if I fold down the seats. Also, I get 48-50 MPG even though most of my driving is at 70+ MPH on the highway.
Tools, though? Thousands of dollars? What, are you buying the whole Snap-on catalog? You can pull together everything you need for oil changes, brakes, tune-ups (to the extent that they're even possible on your car), belts/hoses and both engine and chassis electrical for $150 or less.
You do a brake job without a proper 3-ton jack and a solid pair of 3-ton jack stands? Maybe a guy can pick up that gear for less than $150 at Harbor Freight, but if you ever stop posting here, I guess we'll know what happened to you!
Plus a container of lithium grease, plus a can of rust-eater, plus a harmonic balance-puller kit, plus white gasoline for cleaning random parts, plus a tube of black RTV, plus a bench grinder...sure, a lot of basic work can nominally be done with one set of 1/4"-head metric sockets and a couple screwdrivers, with a can of WD-40 to assist, but that's under ideal circumstances where every part requires only the nominal tool, nothing breaks, nothing siezes, etc.
Used cars are rarely so forgiving on those points, and somewhere around the 10y/100k mark it all goes downhill on the tools and labor requirements side. If you plan to keep yours to EOL, expect that tool collection to grow.
Also, have you worked on foreign cars at all? American cars may be crap on the quality control side, but at least most of the commonly-replaced crap is installed in a reasonably accessible manner. Japanese cars, especially older ones, tend to focus more on space efficiency (apparently on the assumption that the mechanic would have a Japanese figure) and German cars are veritable masterpieces of what happens when high-quality engineering meets high-quality beer.
Once again, economics leads you to the precisely wrong conclusion.
You can always tell an economist just by looking; they're the ones who climb up escalators and stand motionless on staircases.
"In fact, it seems to me that the best option is to buy a used SUV and drive it very little." Well quite. You can also throw parties in them.
"You can pull together everything you need for oil changes, brakes, tune-ups (to the extent that they're even possible on your car), belts/hoses and both engine and chassis electrical for $150 or less."
Seems Sears sells a 3-ton jack pack for $164.95...
$150 or less you say? Hum... I have my doubts...
Why wouldn't the production energy be considered in buying a used car? Seems like a bit of a cheap trick to make it seem so much better.
A prorated production cost would be more appropriate, and anyway SOMEONE had to buy that used car at some point, so acting like buying used is so much better is really just a lame trick to make people feel better anyways.
And then you have to consider that older cars are the ones mostly responsible for air pollution; like vastly more responsible. Partially b/c of older emissions tech, but also because as they age they start burning oil and whatnot.
So it might be better for the enviroment to buy NEW in that respect.
Also, where are we going to park all these Prius batteries when the cars start getting junked? I can just see fields of hybrids slowly leaking battery acid in whatever 3rd world country they get shipped too to avoid properly cleaning them up.
You do a brake job without a proper 3-ton jack and a solid pair of 3-ton jack stands?
Good grief, what car do you drive that weighs 3 tons per axle? Anyway, a brake job doesn't require you to be under the car much; I get farther under pulling the oil drain plug (not jacked up, of course). My tools are mostly cheap foreign-made chrome with a couple of Craftsman sockets and breaker bars for the hard jobs. I'm not saying I wouldn't like to own thousands of dollars of top-quality stuff, I'm saying I don't need to.
Foreign cars? I put a clutch in an Acura in about '94; we had to pull the power steering pump to do it, just like Chilton's said to. I did almost everything you could do to the aforementioned Karmann Ghia; you don't know the meaning of "tight" until you try to fasten the starter/main bolt to a nut which has to be slipped between the fan housing and the firewall between your fingers. Entertaining.
Rob: if you can suggest where on 15th street I can safely get under my car, much less stay there, I will change my own oil. But IMHO it is not practical to talk about working on a car when you don't even have a driveway.
Toxic, seeing as the price of Nickel has gone up dramatically over the past few years (from a low of $5/lb to a high of $24/lb) I'd assume the battery would be recycled.
But IMHO it is not practical to talk about working on a car when you don't even have a driveway.
That is plainly true; I'm not advocating anybody get run over.
Indeed, I'm not advocating anything nearly as strongly as some people seem to think; I'm advocating for the notion that being a shadetree mechanic is both easier and cheaper than many people believe. Not only can you cut the cost of basic work by 75% or more, but you can--as you yourself brought up--leverage the savings by buying used. Added savings-multiplier: not getting ripped off by professional mechanics. Or, in my case, the satisfaction and delight of sending the state patrol to hassle inspection stations who lie to you.
If anyone here doesn't feel the tradeoff is worth it, that's really quite OK by me. You needn't bother justifying yourself.
Jmo, I have a 1.5 ton jack that I think I paid $30 for. Admittedly, it was some years ago, and on sale to boot. It gets the Escort up for brake jobs, but isn't tall enough for the CR-V.
Rob, I checked online 3-tons seems to be the standard for jack stands.
For the average person who drives 12k a year and buys a new Camry and keeps it for 10 years - I don't think you will find it worth while to do your own maintence.
Also, what do you do with your used oil? Doesn't it require two trips. One to buy the oil and one to have it properly disposed of? If I just go the jiffy lube I only have to make one trip.
I'm not sure I buy this particular way of looking at what happens when you buy a new car. As Megan rightly points out, a car has to be pretty bad before it is scrapped completely. If that is the case, doesn't buying a new car (be it a Prius or whatnot) increase the supply of used cars by 1?
I would imagine that this increase in the supply of used cars drives the price down ever so slightly such that a whole chain of people can upgrade their vehicle by realizing that a new(er) vehicle is now within their means, and that somewhere near the bottom some high school kid is able to plunk down $100 and trade in his/her bike for a sweet sweet 1986 honda civic.
Unless that last car is removed from the road entirely, doesn't buying any new car result in 1 more car on the road? When we make this calculation, isn't that the environmental impact we should be looking at? The 2-3000 miles per year that gets driven in that 1986 Civic?
Also, Priuses aren't sitting around on car lots unsold - if you don't buy one someone else will. If you do trade in your car for one, maybe that someone else won't be able to buy a Prius, and will be forced to buy a less efficient car.
And finally - even if buying a Prius doesn't signal Toyota to make any more of them (I think that signal is already strong enough), its quite clear that _not_ buying some other, less efficient vehicle sends a clear signal to not make any more of them.
To me, it feels like your best option is to hold on to your car for as long as possible and then upgrade to a very fuel efficient model.
"In fact, it seems to me that the best option is to buy a used SUV and drive it very little."
Wouldn't this drive up the resale price of SUVs? I would think the demand for new SUVs is more likely to shrink if there was no market for used SUVs. Who would by a vehicle with a resale value of $0 once it's driven off the lot?
My dad, being mechanically minded and always broke, would buy near-junkers and repair them himself. This meant that we always had at least two cars that weren't running and frequently had neighbors complain about the dead cars that sat in front of the house for years. We even had two cars of the same model so he could cannibalize one to keep the other running. My dad also liked to joke that he had three copies of every tool, because us kids never put things back where they belonged. Even in retirement the guy was always running behind, because there was always some car that needed fixing.
When he audited an Intro to Microeconomics class at George Mason as an 80 year-old and learned about David Ricardo and comparative advantage it was like the greatest revelation of his life. He realized how much TIME and effort he wasted over his lifetime on doing repairs himself (especially the more complicated ones) when he could have been doing what he did best and traded for the rest.
As you might imagine, I've learned from his mistakes. I don't do crap to my own car but change the windshield wiper blades.
To bump in on the off-topic side, one other thing to consider in maintenance hassle-factor is the make of the car and the type of service department you will get along with it:
I own a $29K (used) Jeep. When I take it in, I stand around for a while until someone comes to write up the order. Then I either have to have my wife or someone else come and pick me up (and take me back again later) or wait in a small room filled with surplus 1940s office furniture, stale doughnuts, and twelve other customers who will all squeeze into the twice-daily "shuttle" (minivan) with me and be dropped off somewhere an hour or so later.
I also own a $19K (used) Lexus. When I show up at the Lexus service department, I am greeted immediately by name. Before I can check my e-mail with their free wireless and down my free Starbucks coffee, they are handing me the keys to a complementary late-model Lexus that I will drive until my car is ready.
The labor rates for both dealerships are essentially the same.
Thanks, I guess, to whoever bought my car new and paid the premiums for the service I now enjoy!
Rob, I checked online 3-tons seems to be the standard for jack stands.
Jacks and jack stands are two different things. I don't recall what I paid for mine; I was 16 and they were mixed in with a big parts order for my dad's 84 Mazda.
I keep my used oil and run it to the parts store the next time I'm there.
In a similar vein as to the thought above, regarding:
"So...why aren't you a mechanic? I do all my own work, it's worth a minimum of hundreds of dollars a year, thousands in some years."
COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE. There are much better ways I can spend my time specializing in things I am comparatively better at. I'll leave the mechanics to their specialization and I'll stick to mine. Then, through the magic of the market, we will "trade" our services.
There are a lot of things I COULD do, but its not worth my time. Examine the opportunity costs. What are you NOT purchasing because you purchased those tools. What are you NOT doing because you're working on the car. Is what you're giving up really worth less than the money you're "saving"?
PS. Anyone else notice that American cars NEVER once factored into any of these discussions.
We're number 1!
Is what you're giving up really worth less than the money you're "saving"?
I don't have (and most people don't have) the ability to miraculously work at their nominal hourly wage whenever they want. Fewer still can work at their nominal hourly wage while sitting in a cramped waiting room or discussing convenient appointment times with a mechanic. Doing routine maintenance saves me time AND money.
Serious repairs definitely cut into leisure time; they're no fun.
BTW, with that generous helping of comparative advantage, you're also take a dose of asymmetrical information, aren't you?
Lest anyone fear I've been crushed under my car thanks to my substandard jack stands, I'll be in a CLE for the rest of the week. Hope you all have a good time even without me threadjacking.
Good grief, what car do you drive that weighs 3 tons per axle?
None. But I wouldn't trust my life, fingers, or hands to a ball jack, a small lift jack, or any jack for that matter, plus jacks and jackstand gear at the 3-ton capacity are very well built and will pretty much last forever in light and medium-duty use.
Look at it this way: If your compact car fell even once with the wheel off, the cost of replacing the brake rotor, the wheel hub, and the lug bolts would be about $150-200 in parts and shop supplies, and $140-210 in labor (that's assuming an honest private mechanic). At that point, you might just as well have bought the expensive lift gear.
Megan,
I call shenanigans. Can you verify your claim that "as far as I know most industry analysts still believe that Toyota breaks even, or loses money, on the Prius"? I have not seen any report showing the Prius as a loss leader. Do you have any proof of this?
Christina wrote: When he audited an Intro to Microeconomics class at George Mason as an 80 year-old and learned about David Ricardo and comparative advantage it was like the greatest revelation of his life. He realized how much TIME and effort he wasted over his lifetime on doing repairs himself (especially the more complicated ones) when he could have been doing what he did best and traded for the rest.
Hold the phone -- he spent his long lifetime doing something that he apparently enjoyed and was very good at, then at age 80 he audited Macro and concluded therefrom that his life was a waste?
Dismal science, indeed!
Google "prius loses money". It's not clear whether it still does, because Toyota won't release the figures. But it's widely believed that the Prius is, at best, not a significant profit center.
When all personal vehicles are PHEVs, as they are likely to be before the new CAFE standards take full effect, Toyota will be in a position to do just fine, both from operating profits and from royalties. Japanese companies tend to take a very long view of revolutionary technology.
It is unlikely that anyone will take much interest in miles per unit of primary energy consumed, rather than mpg, until PHEVs are the norm.
As for the cost of maintenance, I certainly wish I could do many jobs myself. I can do them, but I need to at least have a level driveway first and would prefer a garage. I did have a decent car education from my Dad, so I'd feel comfortable doing quite a few jobs.
$150 for tools is extremely low, but several thousand is extremely high for home repair. I would guess about $500 would get you pretty well set-up for home repair.
As for a comparative advantage, I can't make enough money at a second job to cover it. The dealership in my area charges about $125 an hour at the book rate, not the time it actually took a skilled mechanic (less in most cases). Most shops in the area charge around $75 an hour for the book rate as well. Even if it took me double the book rate time, that's at least $37.50 an hour and I can't make that at a second job.
Look at $s.
NPV divided by the cost of energy.
$s roughly equate to the work required to find/extract a resource.
When you pay a premium, you are financing someone else's consumption.
The real problem is that this analysis approaches things from the wrong direction. A Prius may have slightly lower lifetime CO2 emissions than a Corolla, but even if it had dramatically lower emissions it wouldn't be all that worthwhile on its own. If you take a step back and look at the whole picture you'll see that CO2 emissions from compact cars are just one slice of a very big whole. And it happens to be a very small slice already. Making a small slice smaller is certainly not the smart way to reduce the size of the whole.
In actuality, applying even less effective measures to reduce emissions from the largest sources of emissions makes much more sense. A Prius may produce 2/3 of a Corolla's CO2 emissions per mile, but not everyone is going to drive a Prius, and not everyone can. Consider that for city driving switching from a Chevrolet Tahoe to a Hybrid Tahoe will, assuming equal driving distances, reduce CO2 emissions by more than twice as much as switching from a Corolla to a Prius. Indeed, it saves almost as much as not driving a Prius at all.
Also consider that there are other means to reduce per-capita emissions. A 3 person car-pool to and from work in a H2 actually produces less per-capita emissions than a single person driving a Prius alone. If that car-pool allows one of the riders to avoid having to own their own car, that completely swamps the benefits of driving a Prius.
Now consider all of the CO2 emissions made on your behalf, by folks building your houses, apartments, and roads, by folks delivering your foods and other goods, etc. Consider that if UPS switched to hybrid vehicles in their big trucks that reduction in emissions would swamp even a huge percentage of compact car drivers switching to the Prius.
Of course, there are many more complexities in there. And on the whole it actually does help to drive a Prius, as long as you understand exactly what it helps. It doesn't help reducing CO2 all that much, especially if you're selling a used car and buying a new Prius, but it does help fund and encourage R&D of hybrid and electric drive technology. Compact hybrids require better batteries and better motors, technology which is useful on other vehicles (SUVs, trucks, etc.) and technology which may, once improved enough, make pure electric drive vehicles feasible for general use.
"Google "prius loses money"."
I did. Not that I should have, because the onus on providing the evidence is in she who makes the claim, IE Megan. I found no evidence that it loses money on the Prius. And even if it did, so what? GM lost money on every single Chevy Cavalier they sold.
"If the person who would have bought a used Corolla instead buys a new Corolla--or someone far down the purchase chain does--you've probably done more for the environment than you would by buying a Prius, because you've actually increased the supply of fuel-efficient cars."
If you look at it as a supply and demand question, no question you should buy the Prius, because you will be increasing the long term supply of used Priuses (or is it Prii?). I think you are trying to rationalize your decision to look at your driving needs and fuel budget short term. An unsurprising blunder.
Hold the phone -- he spent his long lifetime doing something that he apparently enjoyed and was very good at, then at age 80 he audited Macro and concluded therefrom that his life was a waste?
She said Micro. Macro doesn't teach you anything actually useful.
In my experience people have to be educated to be willing to put the value of their time and aggravation into the equation. My Mexican-born wife will buy two onions a the supermarket rather than three in case she doesn't need the third. Then she spend an hour an a half on bus rides to get the third, rather than just having bought three in the first place just in case.
I put this down to having grown up in a culture that doesn't value time nearly as much as mine does. I suspect that the culture an 80 year old was raised in was not unlike this. I'm willing to bet that he actually learned that he genuinely would have been better off trading off the money for the time and aggravation, but, at the time, it had just never occurred to him.
This is all ignoring the real question. When you walk out of the door in the morning, will you see something like a mini and think "Cool!" or something like a corolla and think "It's ok, I can't afford anything better.".
When you are driving, will you look at other cars and think "I wish I had one of those?" When you show photos to your grandkids in 2088, will they say "Sweet car, why did you sell it?" or "Did you ever get a good car, before they were banned in 2049 to meet the CO2 laws?"
I'd get the mini in a heartbeat compared to corolla or a pious.
Having changed a fuel injection manifold in an open, public, carpark: my advice is to leave it alone unless you have a nice garage to work in.
Having said that, don't cars come with jacks as standard in the USA? They do in Australia. Pull the jack out of the boot (trunk), jack it up, support it on a couple of bricks and you're good to go. If you can't trust the jack to work in your clean, dry, level garage, then how can you trust it to work on the sloping, crumbling, side of the road? You need a new jack anyway in that case.
I'll go along with $150 for a bare bones car repair setup... provided you know what to buy in the first place. If you are a beginner, you won't know will you? You'll go to the shop and ask the salesman and walk out with $500 worth of stuff that still won't include somethings you'll need.
To bump in on the off-topic side, one other thing to consider in maintenance hassle-factor is the make of the car and the type of service department you will get along with it:
I own a $29K (used) Jeep. When I take it in, I stand around for a while until someone comes to write up the order. Then I either have to have my wife or someone else come and pick me up (and take me back again later) or wait in a small room filled with surplus 1940s office furniture, stale doughnuts, and twelve other customers who will all squeeze into the twice-daily "shuttle" (minivan) with me and be dropped off somewhere an hour or so later.
I also own a $19K (used) Lexus. When I show up at the Lexus service department, I am greeted immediately by name. Before I can check my e-mail with their free wireless and down my free Starbucks coffee, they are handing me the keys to a complementary late-model Lexus that I will drive until my car is ready.
The labor rates for both dealerships are essentially the same.
Thanks, I guess, to whoever bought my car new and paid the premiums for the service I now enjoy!
Posted by TakeFlight | July 8, 2008 2:50 PM
This is rather amazing, it seems that, re: the American Auto Industry, the POV that causes the least conflict with available facts, is that "They're crashing that thing on purpose".
I'd love to hear a believable vignette that plausibly delineates "They're doing the best they can.."
Also, it amazes me that Lyman's assertions are, so roundly, hooted at. This: "Added savings-multiplier: not getting ripped off by professional mechanics." is an incontravertible fact, and a result of Ricardo's insight taken to the extreme. Uni-faceted Supplicants are no Freer than Slaves..