The drive there and back from Chicago is great in the Prius. My wife (Megan) and I just drove there for Thanksgiving (Kansas City). We cashed in our $520 southwest tickets (had bought them late) and paid $70 in gas round trip instead. Come Xmas we'll probably drive all the way down to Sterling.

 

even driving with 2 people in the car you are using less fuel than you would flying, per capita that is.

plus a road trip is more fun than a plane ride.

As a side note, i emailed CNW and received several responses. When i questioned some of the more outlandish claims they stopped responding. That report is so fabricated that its unbelievable.

They claim they paid for it themselves, but when i asked who funded "themselves" they would not answer me. I have my suspicions, but no fact. I guess you can speculate for yourself who paid for and therefore dictated the results.

It is sad that "journalists" are publishing that as a source of information.

 

As I like to say:

"If it is not peer reviewed then it might as well be a trashy romance novel."

~X~

 

If only it were THAT entertaining

The CNW "dust to dust" report is full of inaccuracies, outdated information, and awful assumptions. Like in 100K, my HCH2 will be dead, although for just $980, I got a genuine HondaCare extended warranty. If Honda believed the car would be useless in 100K, they've made a grave mistake in guaranteeing to keep mine running fine until 120K miles.
Many of the inaccuracies are out-and-out lies, disregarding what the most knowledgeable sources have said. This is anti-hybrid propaganda, pure and simple, and has the stench of being backed (funded under the table) by auto manufacturers that don't want to change the stats quo. Or possibly funded by big oil. If only we could follow the money, we'd find the true source of this trash.
Many people have heard excerpts from this report, and it DOES damage the momentum of hybrid acceptance. I hear people quoting garbage from this report all the time, and believing it with blind faith. Dispelling the myths is made tougher by this horrible report, that is written to sound believable and authoritative. The concept is good; the execution is not only poor, but is inappropriate, juvenile and deceptive journalism.

 

One of the things I do is monitor via Google for "CNW Marketing" to find articles that cite the 'dust' report. If the source is a newspaper or other media, I take pains to write a letter to the editor to rebut the most obvious falsehoods. But then comes the question about those "with blind faith."

When dealing with the ignorant, I have to weigh my time versus the value of correcting their ignorance. At work, it makes sense to correct their ignorance because it minimizes conflict. In social gatherings too, it becomes a question of my commitment to that person's future behavior. However, there are some folks whom I would not spend a millijoule of energy to correct their ignorance because it would be 'teaching a pig to sing.' For those folks, I flash my GreenHybrid T-shirt that says "I get 50 MPG, you?"

Bob Wilson