Good, informative post! Geez, how often do politicians put their money where their mouth is? Usually they put *our* money there intead!

To nit-pick: the Chevy Suburban actually gets 14/18, instead of 14/28.

I believe that Arianna Huffington ran against (drove against) Ahnold driving a hybrid car, most likely a Toyota Prius, the car of choice. :-)

Just for comparison (not that he has ever said he is for better fuel efficiency, unless that means more efficient means of killing Iraqis for fuel — ooh, zing!), what does the POTUS drive and what’s it get? (Yes, he's got a retinue, but there must be something on his personal vehicle of choice.)

On another note, it might be worth mentioning that any American politician running for national office is unlikely to drive a foreign-make car, so that pretty much kills the fuel efficiency thing in its cradle.

This is such a cool thread. I loved the breakdown of candidate cars, and didn't even think of TK's great point about candidates having to "buy American" for political reasons.

TK - doesn't the Prez have to drive bulletproof cars and stuff? Is he even allowed to skate around in a Miata if he wants to? Or does he have some kind of contractual obligation to not do dangerous stuff (you know, like baseball players promising not to play basketball in the offseason).

Does any one here actually own a Prius? Among other awards, it is Motor Trend's Car of the Year for 2004. Not bad for a new technology. And nothing wrong with 55 mpg. But has anyone actually driven one for any length of time?

Jimpy:
Certainly, the POTUS doesn’t drive a single car. He, his retinue (posse?), and his stunt double all are in guv-issued vehicles, generally limos. However, I would figure that there is info somewhere on what he does/would drive when not ferried about by others. And the beauty of the internet is that I can ask someone else to do that research for me. In this case, Cebra.

And I think I can translate your last question into: “Take it away, David Block!” :-)

Thanks, Trip!

Yes, Jimpy, I own a 2001 Toyota Prius, that just turned over the 48,000 mark on my odometer just last night. I test-drove the 2004 model, and it's terrific, but I can get a lot more mileage out of my 2001 model before I trade it in.

I consistently get between 40 and 50 mpg from the "old" model, sometimes over 50. The 2001 model is reasonably roomy in that it comfortably fits 5, and has very good acceleration. It has a "continuously variable transmission," which technically means an infinite number of gear ratios, which the computer on board determines for me as I just put it in drive and go. The computer also determines whether the crank shaft will be propelled by the electric motor or the internal combustion engine. When the car is warm, the internal combustion engine actually shuts down, making it seem like the car stalled out, but it's really just like a golf cart at that point, and the moment you step on the accelerator, it starts up again.

The 2004 model actually has "by-wire" technology, where you are not actually physically changing gears when you shift it from reverse to neutral to drive, as you do in the 2001 model, and in most cars for that matter, where you phyically feel the slight the resistance and tension in the shift lever. In the 2004 model, it's wierd. You don't feel any resistance when you change gears. It's analogous to moving a mouse. It's all computer, and not mechanical at all.

The 2001 Prius has more torque than a Camry, and Liz sometimes has to point out that I'm going 85 and I should slow down. And the 2004 model is supposed to be better!

That's my take. Is there anything specifically that you want to know?

Um -- I've test driven a 2004 prius and one of my best friends owns a 2001. The 2001 felt small to me, but it seems to be a reliable and useful car. Some reviewers said it felt underpowered, which is why the comparison with the Camry is interestined (Prius folks defend by saying that it accelerates so smoothly that you don't feel it).

The 2004 was sufficiently larger and more powerful for me to want to buy it. However, the test drive killed any personal interest in the car, as much as I am a partisan of the idea. To begin with, many people complain about the space-ship like display panel, the overly smooth acceleration, etc. They say that it doesn't feel like a car, it feels like a hovercraft. I liked all of that.

BUT

* It felt really tinny. I haven't seen the collision tests (they hadn't been done yet) but the sides are very light. Unless it's made from a supersafe composite, it didn't feel safe.
* Compounding the tinnyness is the fact that the new Prius has even a shorter nose, so you have little protection in a head-on collision. You feel like you're driving a vanagon.
* They ruin rear visibility on the hatchback by sticking a spoiler 2/3rds of the way down. I couldn't see much out of the rear. Now, this is pretty common in cars these days, but it's an instant turn-off for me.
* Despite what I've heard about the acceleration, I felt it wanting the one time I needed it. I was waiting to make a turn, and there was a medium size hole in the traffic. I accelerated and ... waited. I did make it, but it was closer than I liked and I wasn't happy about that. I'm not a speed freak at all -- I'm happy with a fairly underpowered but efficient vehicle. But I didn't want to sit in traffic until I saw a large hole, and I didn't want to get nailed by cars that expected me to be going faster.

Despite the fact that I really really wanted to buy a prius, I'm not going to (I've driven the Civic Hybrid but it's smaller and not as hybriddy).

I also wanted to buy a Mini, but I had trouble getting my legs out. It's actually quite a large car inside (starts low and goes high) but the steering wheel doesn't adjust sufficiently for me.

I am (sigh) likely to buy a subaru b/c of the weather out here. There's alot of snow and ice, and while you don't want to over-estimate the benefits of AWD (Drive safe, get good tires, get traction control of you can), it's still helpful.

Given that I've never driven on the snow (and haven't driven a huge amount since I got my license so I've never been in a really sticky situation) I figure I can use the edge. However, my gas efficiency goes way down, to only 28 on the highway :(

Not only is Sharpton chaufferred, but apparently the GOP is at the wheel.

Thanks for the Prius feedback. We aren't quite in the market for a new car yet (though I suspect we are only a year or less away).

I admit, I am very attracted to the Prius in principle, and with due respect to Ennis' comments, they weren't damning enough for me to avoid at least taking a test drive of my own.

There is really no crash data yet? That kind of sucks. I don't need a car to "feel" safe necessarily, but I feel pretty strongly that the numbers have to show that it is "actually" safe (at least within its class). Then again, I confess, I couldn't buy a Mini even if the numbers said it was the safest car on earth.

From a purely shallow, jingoistic, patriotic point of view (not to mention to tie it back to the original topic), it bums me out that we are comparing the merits of the Honda hybrid and the Toyota hybrid as the only real options. Where is the killer Ford hybrid? Where is the kick-ass GM hybrid? C'mon Detroit! You want us to "Buy American" - show me what you got!

Jimpy,

Actually, Ford, GM, and a host of others are jumping on the hybrid bandwagon. I heard from my Toyota salesman that Ford has licensed the technology in my 2001 Prius. Toyota is still a good 3+ years ahead. They will be coming out with a hybrid Lexus within a year or so.

As for safety, the 2004 has side and curtain air bags. Having driven mine for the past 3 years, I don't know how the "tinniness" compares with other cars of the same size. I drove some "Luxury" vehicle rentals on vacation recently, and I didn't notice that much of a difference, other than the normal difference between the size of cars. A Pontiac is going to feel difference than a Toyota, hybrid or not.

All I know is that, as you said, the 2004 model was Motortrend car of the year, and that there is (as there was with my car) at least 6 month waiting list. I ordered mine in September, and it wasn't delivered to the dealership until February, but that was because they were unsure of demand, and were only making a limited quantity. This time, they increased the quantity, but still can't keep up with demand.

Yeah, but that's my point: Here we are supposed to be this economic and technological juggernaught, but when it comes to fuel economy we are licensing three-year old technology from Toyota to get in the race. I fear this is yet another cost incurred by Detroit's race to the bottom to take advantage of the lucrative SUV market.

The 2004 Prius has a bunch of other awards too. They got in the Top 10 of Car & Driver, and some other stuff too (that you can see at their website).

Another indicator of its success: All indications from Internet car sites are that it is selling "at MSRP," which is crazy. You can get a Honda Civic (which is a great car, by the way) below INVOICE if you shop around. If something is priced at MSRP it has to be flying out the door.

All in all, I'm pretty psyched. I hope it drives well. Can you imagine if hybrids start becoming a real market force in America? What that would mean for our environment/fuel development? O.K., I'm getting overly excited. But man, its fun to think about good news for the future every now and then, ya' know?

For the record, I don't want to discourage anybody from driving or buying the car. I want them to do both, just as I wanted to as well. Clearly, your mileage may vary (pun intended). I just had a fairly dissapointing experience, especially in light of how much I wanted to but the car (I had basically decided on buying it before my test drive). Hopefully others keep buying hybrids and entice other car manufacturers into making hybridization a standard option.

Ford had promised a hybrid car some time back, but they decided to hold back or cancel it. They've criticized Honda/Toyota saying that you don't make back the price differential between a regular car and a hybrid with the gas savings, so why would anybody buy a hybrid other than b/c they were green kooks?

Clearly, somebody feels threatened. They will have to follow suit, however, in light of China's new fuel economy standards ...

Ennis,

That's interesting. I hadn't heard that about Ford. It is very true that one does not buy a hybrid car to save money. The Prius I bought 3 years ago cost about $20K, and I could easily have bought a non-hybrid Corolla or Honda Civic for about 13-15K, and there is no way that I will save $5K in gas while I drive it. That was a given going in.

But when someone talks about Economy and Ecology, the root of both words is oikos," which is Greek for "home."

Murray Bookchin makes the point (I don't know in which book -- I heard him say this in his living room) that Marx was wrong when he said that Capitalism has limits. Marx believed (grossly oversimplifying, I know) that Capitalism would stretch to its limits, the tethers would snap, we would have Socialism, which would stretch to its limits, the tethers of that would snap, and we would have Communism. Bookchin argues that the 20th century showed that Capitalism has no limits -- it grows, like a cancer, consuming its host. And, like a cancer, left untreated, its only limit is the life of the host itself.

In other words, the only limit to Capitalism is Ecology.

So, many of us who buy hybrid technology are doing so not so much as to save money, if that is even a motive at all, as to preserve the life of the host. Remember that on 60 Minutes a year ago, they profiled the Prius (pre-2004 model. The claim was made that the exhaust coming out of the tailpipe was cleaner than the ambient air of Los Angeles.

Huh? So Capitalism = Cancer, the U.S. Economy = Diseased Host, and Environmentally Conscious Consumption = Chemotherapy?

I'm not sure I'm with you. I can *completely* understand the desire to purchase a car for reasons other than one's bottom line. People without your concern for the environment do that all the time: for instance, one might choose a truly uneconomical vehicle such as a Hummer in order to compensate for feelings of inadequacy.

What I don't get is how that is supposed to be a therapy for the "cancer" of capitalism. Communism never produced a hybrid Lada, but it produced a heck of a lot pollution. Moreover, your purchase isn't limiting capitalism in the slightest. And if capitalism is in the process of 'consuming' the U.S. economy, well, we're already far into the digestive tract.

My take is that economic growth often produces pollution, government regulation is necessary to force companies to take into account the costs of pollution because they are external to transaction, and that capitalism is simply the most efficient way to match producers and consumers.

I might understand better if your analogy were Economic Growth = Cancer and Environmental Regulation = Chemotherapy. I'd still probably object because I'm not convinced that the economic growth the world has experienced in the past couple of centuries has made us worse off than we were, although I can see how that's debatable depending on what one values (i.e. ecological diversity vs. long, healthy human lives).

Cebra,

It is interesting, to me, that the only alternative to Capitalism that you could think of is Communism, and the only solution to cancer that you could think of is chemotherapy!!! :-)

You are absolutely correct that Communism -- Stalinism all the way through Gorbachev -- was (is?)death to the planet. But that's not what Bookchin is talking about. Kropotkin was a contemporary of Marx, and his idea of a non-capitalist society/economy was anti-thetical to Marx's. Kropotkin, of course, was an Anarchist, which does not mean (as it seems to today) that he was for throwing bricks and bombs and creating chaos. "Anarchism" and "Anarchy" are mutually exclusive.

That's not to say that Bookchin is an Anarchist. It's hard -- no, impossible -- to pigeon-hole Bookchin. He has a brilliant concept which he calls Social Ecology, which he has elaborated on in dozens of books over the last 50 years or so. Try finding The Bookchin Reader, edited by his long-time companion, Janet Biehl.

The other piece is that chemotherapy is not the only solution to cancer. There is also surgery. There is also the concept that a healthy lifestyle is the best defense against cancer. Some actually believe that radical changes in diet and lifestyle can reverse cancer without chemotherapy. You might not be one of those who believes that, but some do.

The analogy holds that Marx was wrong. Capitalism has no limits. Like a cancer, Capitalism will consume its host without treatment.

Can you argue that Environmental Regulation = Chemotherapy? Perhaps.

And yes, it is true that my purchase promotes capitalism. And my profession is that of an Accountant, which also promotes Capitalism in its own way. I wasn't pretending that it doesn't. But given the amount that I drive, it is far better to be driving one of these things than not. And by purchasing it when I did, I hoped to help make hybrids more palatable to the general population, with the hope that the concept would eventually become commonplace.

One other clarification:

The "Host," in this case, that Capitalism is consuming (in case it is not obvious), is not the "U.S. economy," as Cebra was wondering, but rather the earth itself. We're talking about the entire ecology of the planet. We can start with Global Warming and work our way down a long list of things that -- if not unchecked -- can eventually render the planet uninhabitable.

I wonder how I fit in? I'm as capitalist as they come. But I see one of the benefits of my shallow materialist life is that I can spend my money on the luxury of making socially conscious decisions (and on computer games too, but that is for the other thread).

I would never buy a Prius to save/make money. But I would also never buy a Prius as any kind of statement about capitalism (and if I did, the statement would be "Yay capitalism!").

I would do it because I personally believe I have a duty to not go out of my way to trash the environment. While that duty has strong utilitarian limits (for example, I am unlikely to totally eschew driving in exchange for the environmental benefits), it pleases me when, in my personal calculus, I can make a decision that is also earth-friendly (or at least more earth-friendly than other convenient alternatives, like Hummers).

Now, as for cancer? It is certainly reasonable to believe that some lifestyle choices can help reduce the liklihood of getting some kinds of cancers (uh, don't smoke?). But it is only an "odds-improver," not a guarantee. And it doesn't apply to all kinds of cancer. And it is of precious little comfort once you are stricken.

Depending on the kind of cancer you have, reasonable treatment options can include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy or just trying to outlive the disease without any treatment at all (generally only an option for the elderly, and with certain types of cancer). These can be supplemented (though not replaced) with a host of non-traditional nutritional and holistic alternatives that have proven beneficial (or at least harmless) to patients.

But non-traditional treatments should only supplement "traditional" medical options, and they should be undertaken thoughtfully. Regardless of how many people believe in them, there are a myriad of unreasonable "alternative" treatments, including laetrile, coffee enemas, whole-body hypothermia and a seemingly endless list of supplements, salves, pills and theories that have led an army of desparate people to their death.

It is sad, but true, that some people think cancer can be reversed with one of these nostrums. But neither the occasional survival anecdote nor any measurement of the degree of sincere belief should be confused with a reasonable overall approach to treatment.

There is lots of information out there, ranging from institutions like the American Cancer Society to individuals like Quackwatch.

O.K., so not related to fuel economy. But really important.

Jimpy,

In this case, I fit in where you fit in (who wudda thunk?).

I bought my Prius for predominantly the same reasons that you are thinking of buying yours. I also hoped that if enough people bought one that it would catch on, and decided to be one of them.

And I am a Capitalist as well, as we must all be in this country with this economy. The analogy still has merit, no matter what we think of various cures for cancer.

Yeah, I have no beef with the analogy. Just always happy to push info about cancer treatments out to the masses. Call it a pet crusade.

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