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The Pious Prius
A review of Toyota’s current pseudo-green trendymobile
The current Toyota Prius is in its official fourth generation, though in reality it’s actually a fifth-generation vehicle as the original petrol-electric hybrid in the line was first sold as a Japan-only model back at the end of 1997. Throughout its history the vehicle has been marketed to middle-class folk eager to do their part for the environment yet unwilling to forgo personal automotive transportation in order to do so. Thanks to misleading marketing and general consumer ignorance, such people have bought more than fifteen million Priuses to date, all under the impression that they are somehow less environmentally harmful than standard petrol or diesel powered vehicles.
Personally I don’t mind Toyota taking advantage of naïve consumers — after all, pretty much every corporation in existence does that on a daily basis. And I don’t mind that the Prius is actually a little worse for the environment than a standard small-displacement vehicle because it combines toxic (and non-recyclable) lithium batteries with the weight of a traditional engine, thus creating an overall heavier vehicle that requires more power to move its mass around than if it were either (i) purely electric, or (ii) purely fuel-powered. But who cares about Newton’s second law when Hollywood celebs were given free Priuses in order…
