Here, here!

I am not an environmentalist (tree hugger) either. I am politically conservative. I believe that people need to be responsible for their actions and activities, that our choices in life lead to our successes and failures. It is patriotic to embrace technologies that will lessen our dependence on foreign oil, such as hybrids, but I also support further exploration and development of fossil fuel resources in U.S. states and territories and further expansion of refining capacity with the overall goal of a 20% reserve refining capacity at all times. I firmly believe that we need to start taking a serious look at making petroleum products go further. We must be proactive about this in order to ensure that other petroleum uses, such as plastics and chemicals, and the uses by other modes of transportation, specifically aviation, do not get squandered along with the burning of oil.

Electricity should be generated using renewable and economical domestic sources, such as hydro, nuclear, coal (all resources that are in abundance right now, we have mastery over the technology, and economical to operate). Wind power is a nice idea, but cannot generate enough power per generator or land mass to be economical. The same goes for geo-thermal, solar-thermal and photovoltaic, just not enough energy is generated for the cost of establishing and running these systems, at least today. Keep researching!

The Prius was the least expensive overall, and most comfortable car that I had been looking at before I made my purchase. I was highly attracted to the technology set and how it was all integrated into the vehicle. I suppose it is the armchair engineer in me which wanted this vehicle, but it is the cheapskate in me that said fuel economy rules. Anyway, how many cars in the 20,000-25,000 price range have auto climate and digital dash standard. None!

I made my purchase just before the gas prices spiked. People at my work continue to comment that I bit the bullet on that one. Of course, I’m not clairvoyant and didn’t know that the prices were going to spike, but it is nice knowing that my overall monthly fuel cost hasn’t changed much, and I still drive my old car around in the evenings to keep it functional. A 20 year old car doesn’t have a lot of trade in value. It is worth more in my garage than as a trade.

At the end of the day you may value my purchase because of low emissions, however I value it for low fuel consumption and technological advancement and competitive price.

It has been said:
Hybrid drivers come in 3 flavors, greenie, techie and cheapie. Pick any 2.
2005 Prius, Melinium Silver over gray, package 5 (AI)