prius: SMUG LIBRUL MURDER CAR

[Van Cruncheon]

http://www.seattleweekly.com/2009-04-22/news/the-flip-side-of-the-perfect-prius/1

Bobette Riner publishes an electricity index used to promote renewable energy, and she bought a brand-new Prius last year to shoot the bird at the oil companies.

"I felt so smug for a while," she says. "Especially being in Houston."

She had been lucky to score the car from a dealership on Houston's south side, because for nearly a year there had been a three-month wait to get a Prius. The dealership couldn't even keep a model for the showroom.

The car had a "cute little body" that Riner loved, and she reveled in driving like a "nerdy Prius owner," watching the energy-usage display on the car's center console, trying to drain every possible mile from a gallon of gasoline. When she hit 2,000 miles, she could count her trips to a gas station on one hand.

On a rainy night last fall, a couple of months after Riner bought her Prius, she was driving toward the Houston Galleria for a sales meeting. She hated driving in the rain because a car wreck in college catapulted her through the windshield, and doctors almost had to amputate her leg.

Traffic near the mall was congested but moving, and Riner kept the Prius pegged at 60 mph, constantly looking at the console to manage her fuel consumption.

Suddenly she felt the car hydroplaning out of control, and when she glanced at the speedometer she realized the car had shot up to 84 mph. Riner wasn't hydroplaning; quite simply, her Prius had accelerated on its own.

She pushed on the brakes but they were dead. Then just as suddenly as the car had taken off, it shut down. The console lit up with warning lights, leaving Riner fighting a stiff steering wheel as she coasted across four lanes of traffic and down an exit ramp.

The car stopped near a PetSmart parking lot, and Riner sat in disbelief, listening to fat raindrops pelt the Prius, wondering if her new car had actually gone crazy.

The Prius is one of the great success stories of the past decade, becoming the one car synonymous with "hybrid" and helping Toyota drill into a skeptical American auto market while the Big Three failed and failed again to produce efficient vehicles. But from day one, it has come in for criticism as well. Early reports claimed that the manufacturing is so complex and uses so much energy that the Prius stomps out a troublingly deep carbon footprint.

[FlameOfCallandor]

Bobette Riner publishes an electricity index used to promote renewable energy, and she bought a brand-new Prius last year to shoot the bird at the oil companies.

Trying to live off the grid?

Who does she think she is. Clearly she is incabable of making choices that are best for herself. SMH

[Van Cruncheon]

no worse than choosing to go to film school on daddy's dollars, all things considered

[FlameOfCallandor]

Early reports claimed that the manufacturing is so complex and uses so much energy that the Prius stomps out a troublingly deep carbon footprint.

Wait so the Prius has a larger carbon footprint?

People who use it are smug douchbags who think everyone else is part of the problem, but in reality they are the problem. Liberal car confirmed.

[ToxicAdam]

Bobette? What cruel parents she had.

[Human Snorenado]

Yeah, you can use up less carbon by getting a 10 year old used Tercel in good shape.  Gas mileage isn't THAT much worse, either.

[tiesto]

Only person I know with a Prius is also the biggest Ron Paul supporter I know (aside from FOC)...

[Eric P]

i consider the prius to be a marketing success rather than an engineering success

[FlameOfCallandor]

i consider the prius to be a marketing success rather than an engineering success

Pretty much.

[Human Snorenado]

I'm interested in the new Honda Insight hybrid.  Also, the Ford Fusion hybrid is supposedly the tits.

[ToxicAdam]

I wish they'd measure the amount of carbon wasted using Twitter.

It's time to use the AGW scare for the benefit of society.

[Tauntaun]

I'm interested in the new Honda Insight hybrid.  Also, the Ford Fusion hybrid is supposedly the tits.

[Van Cruncheon]

ford engineering :usa

[ferrarimanf355]

So much for that alleged Toyota quality. 

[brawndolicious]

"You get these customers that say, 'I stood on the brake with all my might and the car just kept on accelerating.' They're not stepping on the brake," says Toyota corporate spokesman Bill Kwong. "People are so under stress right now, people have so much on their minds. With pagers and cell phones and IM, people are just so busy with kids and family and boyfriends and girlfriends. So you're driving along and the next thing you know you're two miles down the road and you don't remember driving, because you're thinking about something else."

"I thought they were the coolest thing ever," James says. He and his wife Elizabeth, who teaches at an elementary school, bought their first Prius three years later.

Elizabeth survived the wreck, but her legs and back were banged up and she's still hobbled, despite a year of physical therapy. Scar tissue on her intestines requires her to drink MiraLAX for the rest of her life to ease stomach pains.

Then other horror stories rolled in.

The funniest story is of the guy who parked his Prius in his driveway, actually got out of his car, and then saw the Prius surge forward and crash through the garage door into his Altima.

There's probably some major software problem with these cars.  These accidents are usually a combination of unintended acceleration and unresponsive brakes.  Makes a very good case for a manual transmission.

[Don Flamenco]

I am reacting with great manufactured anger with the intent of advertising myself as an individual.

[Eel O'Brian]

you could climb under the hood of my nissan truck, beat on the engine with a hammer, and it would still run

[ferrarimanf355]

you could climb under the hood of my nissan truck, beat on the engine with a hammer, and it would still run

PICS OR IT NEVER HAPPENED, nicca.