Why we hate the Toyota Prius

It’s not the car itself that riles but rather its self-righteous drivers.

Yes, we’re Prodigal but we’re certainly not stupid. Everyone here at The Guide understands and sympathises with the need to change the way we live in order to improve our collective fate and that of our planet. No argument there. At the moment at least though,  hybrid cars are simply not the answer. But that’s not why we hate the Prius. We hate the Prius because of the fake blanket of ecological security and self-satisfaction it provides for its ill-informed drivers.

Anyone who has given the issue of pollution more than a cursory thought knows that it’s not as simple as measuring your car’s CO2 emissions. There any many more factors to consider. How much CO2 did it take to assemble and deliver your car in the first place? How recyclable are your car components? How long is your car going to last before it needs to be scrapped and replaced? And – the oft-forgotten question – how much CO2 does producing the electricity that powers your hybrid create? It’s about measuring the true ‘CO2 cost’ of a car, the so-called ‘dust to dust’ measure.

Prius drivers tend to be pretty happy to forget all these slightly more complex issues as they cruise off (silently!) into the distance – smug, self-satisfied and blissfully unaware of the full picture. “My car is a hybrid and produces less CO2 than yours” is about as sophisticated as their reasoning gets.

Well, if you’re interested in the facts and some intelligent debate around the real issues (it turns out, for example, that in the course of its lifetime a Land Rover is less harmful to the envirnment than a Prius) then this excellent article in The Economist is worth a read.

If you’re a Prius driver, then reading is probably not your thing. In which case, may we recommend the following informational film? There’s a subtle, almost subliminal message in it towards the end…