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Originally Posted by derangedtoolman
manufacturing the Prius's battery is extraordinarily carbon-intensive. Paying off this carbon debt through fuel savings will take 46,000 miles, according to Wired . Only after 100,000 miles would the Prius catch up with carbon savings offered by a ten-year-old Toyota Tercel. And the Prius would never catch up with a 1994 Geo Metro XFi. By now the Prius is a cliche. Tooling around in an ancient, airbag-less deathtrap, by far the greener choice, is not.
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Those are pretty lame arguments and misleading too. You're probably referring to
http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/05/t...e-pr.html#more and
http://www.wired.com/science/planete...ies_09usedcars. See
http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-hy...tml#post620703 in response to the latter.
If you bothered to read the analysis at
http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/as...car-002538.php (not saying he's necessarily credible or that his numbers are right):
"According to the GREET model it takes 100.391 mmBTU (million BTU) to make the vehicle, batteries, and fluids in an average 3,201 pound vehicle
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According to the GREET model a Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) that weighs 2,632 pounds requires 101.726 mmBTU to make, or 38,650 BTU/lb. As we will see, this small difference in production energy becomes negligible when you factor in the increased fuel efficiency.
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Toyota Prius: 113.322 mmBTU"
Assuming his numbers are right, that would put a Prius increased gasoline energy equivalent to produce it at ~114 gallons vs. an average 3201 lb. vehicle.
Also, to equate these amounts of energy directly to carbon and translate into gasoline is also somewhat misleading. Per
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Japan/Electricity.html, Japan gets ~28% of its electricity from nuclear and 10% from hydroelectric sources.
You can also look at the life cycle assessment at
http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/k_forum/tenji/pdf/pgr_e.pdf.
BTW, being "green" doesn't necessarily refer only to carbon dioxide emissions (of which the Prius is estimated to produce 2.1 tons less of every year per
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/sbs.htm when comparing an 08 Prius to a 98 manual Tercel) but it also refers particulate matter, carcinogens, poisonous gases like carbon monoxide and compounds that cause smog. The Prius gets an 8 or 9.5 on the EPA pollution score and is extremely clean in the above department compared to the horrible standard 1998 era vehicles had to meet. See
http://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/detailedchart.pdf (see pages 1 and 2).