Prius / Auris - meh
"Yet still, the hard-of-thinking and loud-of-mouth insist on telling anyone listening that they are only bought by fools, Hollywood actors and middle class tree huggers."
Ho hum. I think the above statement might be deliberately obtuse.
A lot of comparisons were made, when the Prius was launched, between them and, say, a similarly priced / sized VW. Simply put (unless the person was driving in a manner to infuriate all other road users) the fuel efficiency was no better and often worse. When one took into account the environmental costs of manufacture, they (over the expected lifetime of the vehicle) fared far worse than a combustion engine of modern day efficiency. If that is hard of thinking and loud of mouth I apologise.
This is not to say I don't respect their intentions - this tech, as with any other tech, requires years of smoothing, refining etc to get the efficiency gains that would make this style of vehicle worth while, and without early adopters supporting them then, we'd all suffer from tech stagnation in the long term.
Realistically the best thing you can do, environmentally and financially, is join a car club. If that's not a realistic proposition (e.g. rural living or kids or a usual commute that can't be done without a car), is to buy a reasonably efficient second hand car that's the size you need. (Why would anyone with half a brain want to drive around 2 extra tons of unnecessary metal and plastic?) Some people do want to reduce our emissions, others don't care. The reason these cars were attacked as bought by fools, is that to an extent, they were. Either that or hypocrites, who want a shiny new car while wearing their green credential on their sleeves.
Nowadays, with the refinements made since the launch of the Prius, buying one of these is not a lot worse than buying a new standard combustion engine, but if you're actually trying to be green you won't be buying new.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
