July 29, 2008 at 5:33 pm
We're tough and loud, not necessarily smart 😉
Hard to get us to move away from those gallons, feet, pounds. Not sure if it will ever happen.
July 29, 2008 at 5:33 pm
We got rid of an imperialistic government? I think we went back 🙂
July 29, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Has anyone come to the point that they've needed to replace the batteries in a Prius yet?
I've never seen any dollar figure put to that. I know Prof Muller at Berkerly says he's almost
at the point where he needs to have the batteries in his Prius replaced but still can't get
an answer on how much that will cost him. If you talk to him about it he doesn't drive a Prius
for the cost savings but a smaller carbon footprint. He's expecting a big service bill when those
batteries do need to be replaced.
I'm from the US but live in Australia. I drive a 1.6l Nissan 4 door. At $1.50+ a litre petrol is
relatively high but since I don't drive to much I don't really notice it. I've always said we don't
pay enough for petrol but what I mean by that is that we should pay more in the form of a
carbon tax that goes straight to program to reduce carbon emissions not just pay more to the
oil companies.
July 29, 2008 at 9:14 pm
I found this: http://heyna.wordpress.com/2008/06/12/my-prius-battery/
Also, on Prius Chat I saw that depending on the generation of the car (1-3) it seems to be as low as $2500, as high as $5k. A couple recent posts show about $3000 to replace at nearly 200k miles.
July 29, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Thanks Steve. Lets see ... Prius saves about $2,500 a year for one driver...but compared to what? Don't get me wrong I think Prius's are a good idea. An even better idea, and I would not have listened to me when I was younger and had a 7.2l trans am, is to not have such large and inefficient cars. The energy loss in a typical car is what? Around 85%? At least with cars like the Prius they can utilize the breaks to recharge the batteries so all that kinetic energy isn't just wasted to heating the breaks up.
I was talking to my nephew and he was complaining about gas prices...I told him "Don't drive a pickup!". He doesn't need it. I'd think about getting rid of my car full stop if it wasn't for my son. I live 5 minutes from the city (bus/driving), same distance from my current contract. The times I want to go see friends a taxi would be overall cheaper. Just the need to pick up my son with short notice limits this option.
July 30, 2008 at 3:36 am
Steve, as someone who obviously likes cars, and even owns a 911 (and survived), do you actually enjoy driving the Prius?
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July 30, 2008 at 6:00 am
I can’t provide you a direct “plan” for telecommuting because there is no “one size fits all” plan. However, consider three primary goals:
Formulating what “Telecommuting” will be for your situation.
Selling the concept.
Managing the concept.
Formulating is fairly easy. Who can telecommute? How many days a week? What policies should we set around that? How do we track work with remote employees?
Selling the concept means offering telecommuting to the decision makers as a positive step. For that, do your homework with some resources...
Get a copy of “An Organizational Guide to Telecommuting” by George Piskurich. You can find George’s book on Amazon and though I won’t say I agree with everything he presents, it’s a great book and valuable resource. You may also want to check “The Underground Guide to Telecommuting” which is not quite so professional a resource as George’s book, but there is stuff there you might find helpful. Do a Google search on ‘Telecommuting Associations’. There are a few out there and though they seem mostly geared to provide such vital information as you need an office, a computer and a printer, they are actually getting better over time. You can find some links, and some good “grist” for generating a concept best suited to your goal.
Think about objections you might come up with if it were your company and someone was presenting this concept to you – and then also have a good policy document, a good concept of the schedule (how it will work), and a graph or two on possible productivity enhancements doesn’t hurt either.
Don’t be afraid to present telecommuting as a “pilot plan”. Years ago I did this in a large company I worked for when a major highway here in New England was undergoing major reconstruction work. Some of our people were taking 2,3,4 hours to drive what was normally a ½ hour drive! I presented the concept as a 6 month pilot plan and it wound up sticking for the rest of my time there (3+ more years).
With gas prices all over the globe going haywire, this is a very strong and timely argument especially when presented as a “benefit to our employees we don’t have to pay for”, and a potential big boost in productivity.
July 30, 2008 at 8:41 am
"Enjoy driving", OK to be fair it's not enjoyable. It's like a bus around here moving kids, but it's not really any different than a lot of cars. The 911, my old 914, those I enjoy driving. I really liked my Troopers, with 6 sq ft of sunroof open and a manual tranny, driving those around. Even the old station wagon and my suburban were fun. So big and felt like I was moving tons of metal around, and I was!:hehe:
The Prius is interesting to drive because of the mpg feedback you get in real time. I definitely promotes me to hypermile, but the "fun" piece is like most of the other cars, minivans, etc. Not really there. It's transport.
I wouldn't promote the Prius over another small car. Or another hybrid, especially now with the tax credit gone. I think you could do better with a Honda or Nissan hybrid, or a fuel efficient car like the Smart Car, Yaris, Jetta, etc.
It's an individual choice, and I think you have to make the decision what car you like, what fits your lifestyle, budget, etc. Just think about the gas $$ and the carbon footprint and try to balance it out. We try not to drive unnecessarily, watch our waste both financially and pollution wise.
If gas weren't $4, I'd probably like the Prius less. At $2.50 a gallon, I might have gotten a Jeep instead. Always liked those, and they are fun to drive.
July 30, 2008 at 9:21 am
Steve, thanks for the feedback. I only asked because I had a prius as a loan car for a month, and I hated it, there was no sense of 'involvement' when driving it. I felt really cheated, especially as there is a premium in the purchase price, and if something is costing you a lot of money, you should at least get some pleasure out of owning it.
with petrol costs so high perhaps people will put up with the car as just a means of transport, but why should they have to? when someone comes up with a truly eco-friendly car thats practical and enjoyable to drive, they are on to a winner.
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July 30, 2008 at 9:51 am
when someone comes up with a truly eco-friendly car thats practical and enjoyable to drive, they are on to a winner.
Unfortunately, this is the problem. There is no such thing as an eco-friendly car, and there never will be. A personal car will always be a luxury - a luxury that we cannot always afford. In the last 50 years or so, a car has become so ubiquitous in Western countries, that many people consider a car a necessity, not a luxury.
Yes, a personal car will become more efficient, but even at 100mpg the problem of limited fuel resources does not go away. It might at 1000mpg, although as human nature has shown, we will squander the available fuel somewhere. None of the "greener" fuels solve the in-escapable conclusion that personal transport is massively wasteful in terms of energy, and we will never have unlimited energy.
July 30, 2008 at 10:11 am
Andy, agreed, and I wish it wasn't so, but public transport has been made such a mess of through greed, incompetence, privatisation, and governments caving in to the car lobby, that personal transport is often the only alternative. people will always want some form of personal transport if at all possible, and we cannot now expect society to go back to the days of never travelling a few miles from home.
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July 30, 2008 at 11:26 am
This discussion about hybrids became our lunch time topic today and one my folks shared this link with me.
http://www.mainstreet.com/why-buying-hybrid-might-not-save-you-money
Indeed, I remember a few months ago PBS News Hour had a report that hybrids (due to cost, repairs, etc) are not really money savers at this time - but my guess is that was before gas prices spiked.
July 30, 2008 at 11:37 am
I live in second worst commuting hell hole in the nation, they call it the "Bay Area". Due to a new job location, there is no reasonable way of getting to work via mass transit, unless I want to spend the 6+ hours transferring around and biking. My solution has been to buy a new home in the city, but obviously this isn't an option for most people. I drive sports cars, so I don't complain about gas prices as much as the next person, but I do find Prius drivers offensive both visually and environmentally. The Prius creates more pollution than any other car on the road, before it has even driven a mile. This is partly because, Toyota has purchased parts of it from every corner of the world and shipping pollution for this car is tremendous. Then there is the issue that things like the batteries cannot be recycled or even disposed of, they must remain in hazardous storage. I can wax on about how, at the speeds that people around here drive those things, they get worse fuel economy than a 996.
I find it amusing how Brits complain about the cost of petrol, but disregard the benefits they get from the higher cost of petrol. I would willingly pay $6-7 a gallon if it would go straight into developing an effective mass transit system. Instead we drive on roads that within days of being built have pot holes in them, pay contractors with degrees from McDonalds U to design our roads and pay more for gas, that is refined down the street from us, than people who have the gas shipped to them hundreds of miles away.
July 30, 2008 at 11:44 am
If you monitored the mpg, was that not at least interesting?
I think that you have to make the choice about fun v economical and bear the costs. When I got 15mpg in my Trooper and gas was $0.89, I was still somewhat watching the people will Civics spending less than half of what I spent. Since I was poor, I struggled with gas at times. Couldn't afford a 2nd car, wanted the Trooper to go surfing/windsurfing.
Now I make the choice daily to go 911 or Prius. I often take the Prius for running errands, less gas, I can talk on the phone (Targa's off quite a bit), or I want AC. It's iffy in the Porsche.
However there are times I specifically take the 911 because I want to enjoy the drive. I'm lucky enough to be able to have 2 cars to make the choice. We have a spread with the RAM 2500 as well. That pretty much only gets used for heavy moving, Home Depot trips (almost weekly now 🙂 ), and pulling horses.
For most people that's not economical. Lots of people get to pick one car, so they have to get one that carries their family. An Insight might be the best economical choice, but it doesn't work with 2 or 3 kids. A minivan might fit better.
That's why I'd like to see the flat, low body some of the fuel cell cars have shown with replaceable tops. It's that out-of-the-box thinking that might help. Maybe I could get a low coupe for commuting/fun and a sedan body for moving people around.
The gas prices are encouraging a few things I like. Innovations in fuel economy, which are needed, and new ways to tackle personal transport. The "zip rentals" in SF and other places are long overdue and it's only been our laziness and low cost that has prevented it before. But it's a more efficient way to move around. More people are cycling, we might see more telecommuting, etc.
July 30, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Steve Jones - Editor (7/30/2008)
quote]
yes, the touch sensitive screen was the best bit of the car, I almost had a few accidents watching where the power was coming from\to, rather than where I was going!
Its a long sad story as to why I had the car which coloured my thinking. I'm all for cars that are leading the way (in terms of mass market sales) towards more efficient cars, it was just the wrong one for me at the wrong time.
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