Anyone catch Boston Legal last night?
Crane Poole and Schmidt were sued for not being "Green".
Shirley made some interesting points some of which pertained to Hybrids not being as "Green" as they appear.
Like:
Energy required, transportation, and polution produced to mine and process the Nickel in the batteries. The fact that Hybrids get better mileage means people drive more and actually use more gasoline than non-hybrids. More polution generated to produce a hybrid than a Hummer.
Not sure if GM is a sponsor of the show but it did make for an interesting listen.

 

GM is very aggressive in product placements, e.g., the Transformers movie. Ford and VW are as well. In fact, it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between the movie and the car commercial. This summer, ads for Bourne and the VW Toureg were shamelessly blended into one.

So, I wouldn't put it past GM but it could just be a rogue writer.

 

i don't have a direct link, but the BS about the hummer has been discussed and proven to be incorrect many times on this site and others.

 

Maybe the writers of the show will do some research about hybrids. They have all the time in the world now that they're on strike.

 

I really don't see where the claim "getting better gas mileage means you'll drive more and waste more gas" comes from. That sounds totally bogus to me. I drive exactly as much as I need to, no matter what I'm driving. The TCH just makes it much more enjoyable and fuel-economical.

 

I don't have any scientific evidence to back this one up, but if someone has a Chevy Suburban and gas prices are spiking, they would be less likely to go for a short drive to attend to a non urgent item, than they would if they had a hybrid and prices were falling.
You may not, and I accept that you don't do any more driving than you have to, but the perceived cost of driving has a large effect on a lot of drivers.
It has to, it's an economic decision.
People may not consciously sit there and calculate the cost of driving (although some at this forum might), but it does have an effect...IMHO

 

Yet a hybrid driver probably has the opposite mentality.

They might try to combine trips and cut out unnecessary driving regardless of gas prices.

I'm not driving any more or any differently than before I got a hybrid. I was always trying to conserve energy.

 

Sure people may not worry so much about driving _less_ if they're not in a gas-guzzling vehicle that's costing hundreds of dollars per month in fuel costs, but I don't see them driving _more_, which was the original statement. But the purpose of getting a hybrid isn't to reduce the amount you drive, it's to be able to do the driving you already do without wasting tons of fuel and money in the process.

 

Sounds like a task for the Mythbusters.

In the mean time this can shed some light on the issue.

http://www.pacinst.org/topics/integr...r_vs_prius.pdf

 

Great reference! It's a shame that the media won't pay as much attention to this as they did to the Dust-to-Dust report. Not surprising, but a shame nonetheless.