Prius is more damaging to the enviornment than a hummer?

Question

Why get a prius? The area around the mine where the nickle is got is a dead zone, plus it gets shipped to three different countries before comming to the US. SO if this so called man made global warming was real, then getting a prius is doing more damage than just getting lets say a hummer or a big suv.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1800912/posts

dana even if that is true, it is still more damaging because it is shipped from canada to Europe, Europe to china, china to japan, then japan to the united states.

Answer 1

i have read this article and have heard about it on the radio. The people who buy these cars just want to feel like they are helping the planet, but in reality they are not because they buy these cars.

Answer 2

Yes maybe we have to ship the prius's over to the us, but we get most of our oil from the middle east and that has to be shipped over here too. That is even worse for the environment because if a huge oil tanker sinks that would kill like zillions of animals. if a ship carrying hundreds of cars sinks, the oil that the ship is using for fuel will spill(a fraction of what an oil tanker carries) but the cars will all sink to the bottom and rust. They will just be a cozy shipwreck home for the fishes. If the nickle mining area is a dead zone, look at all the oil drilling sites. Oil drilling ruins the earth's geography. Hummers emit much more harmful ozone killing fumes into the air, Prius's emit much much less harmful fumes.

Answer 3

Everything dana and mrvadeboncoeur said plus:

Shipping is just not that big a deal. It takes a couple of weeks, tops, while the car is driven for many years, cranking out much more CO2 every day.

This is just a ridiculous hoax. Completely bogus. The Prius is way better environmentally.

By the way, the Prius is manufactured in Japan, not Canada. Only a small amount of material comes from Canada. And there's a new Prius plant opening in Kentucky.

And global warming is real and mostly caused by us. Proof:

Meehl, G.A., W.M. Washington, C.A. Ammann, J.M. Arblaster, T.M.L. Wigleym and C. Tebaldi (2004). "Combinations of Natural and Anthropogenic Forcings in Twentieth-Century Climate". Journal of Climate 17: 3721-3727

Great website for more information:

http://profend.com/global-warming/

EDIT - catseyenebula - you have any references for your statements about scientists and Gore's movie? Here's the truth (with proof):

"The nation's top climate scientists are giving "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's documentary on global warming, five stars for accuracy."

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2006-06-27-inconvenient-truth-reviews_x.htm

And the Nobel Prize committee disagrees with you about what the latest science says. It says global warming is real, and mostly man made.

"The fact that the community overwhelmingly supports the consensus is evidenced by picking up any copy of Journal of Climate or similar, any scientific program at the meetings, or simply going to talk to scientists. I challenge you, if you think there is some un-reported division, show me the hundreds of abstracts that support your view - you won't be able to. You can argue whether the consensus is correct, or what it really implies, but you can't credibly argue it doesn't exist."

NASA's Gavin Schmidt

Answer 4

That's an old article that has been debunked many times. It is a tabloid-style article that is filled with fallacies. They tried way too hard to discredit the Prius, and it didn't work.

The battery factory has been operating for decades before the Prius was introduced, and a very small percentage of its products are Prius batteries. Making Prius batteries is the most environmentally-friendly thing that plant could possibly do!

The Prius truely is the most environmentally-friendly, mass-produced car. A very safe car too!

Answer 5

No it's not.

That study was done by a marketing company. This is what happens when a marketing company tries to do a scientific study - they make ridiculously bad assumptions which lead to ridiculous conclusions like this one. Here is a debunking of all the misinformation in the study:

http://www.pacinst.org/topics/integrity_of_science/case_studies/hummer_vs_prius.pdf

The nickel plant pollution claim is also bogus. It was based on the Inco plant in Sudbury, Canada.

"In fact any damage occurred more than thirty years ago, long before the Prius was made. Since then, Inco has reduced sulphur dioxide emissions by more than 90 per cent and has helped to plant more than 11 million trees.

The company has won praise from the Ontario Ministry of Environment and environmental groups. Sudbury has won several conservation awards and is a centre for eco-tourism."

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=417227&in_page_id=1770

Moreover, a Swiss study recently found the Prius to be the most environmentally friendly car on the planet.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL2733658020070727?feedType=RSS

Another bit of misinformation in the article is that the Prius' average mileage is just 45 mpg (in reality it gets about 50 mpg), which is "within spitting distance" of small cars like the Aveo. Of course, they forgot to mention that all other cars' mileage had to be reassessed under the new EPA 2008 standards as well. The Aveo has not been assessed yet, but its estimated mileage will decrease just as the Prius' did.

A similar car, the Honda Fit's '07 estimate was 34 mpg, and it's '08 estimate is 30 mpg. The '07 Aveo's EPA estimate was just 32 mpg. Personally I don't think 33-43% lower mileage efficiency is "within spitting distance" by any stretch of the imagination. These cars also cost less than the Prius because they're smaller and have a lot fewer features. They're not comparable cars!

http://autos.yahoo.com/newcars/comparison/results.html;_ylt=AjqjpmjBHoUjD.FFHzADHhwOc78F;_ylv=3?pagetitle=overview&carid0=19021&carid1=22688&compare=Compare+cars

Not surprisingly, the Free Republic got all the facts wrong.

*edit* You read the article wrong.

"From there, the nickel hops over to China to produce ‘nickel foam.’ From there, it goes to Japan. "

"Finally, the completed batteries are shipped to the United States, finalizing the around-the-world trip required to produce a single Prius battery."

The NICKEL and the BATTERY, not the whole car. Do you think the Hummer is all made in one place? No, all cars have parts made in all different countries.

As is pointed out in my first link (debunking the Dust to Dust study), 80-90% of a car's lifetime energy use is during the operation stage, and just 5-10% during the production stage. Any transportation of the parts to build the Prius (or any other car) during the production stage is thus negligible.

Cars drive 150,000+ miles during their lifetime. Do you think shipping a battery a few thousand miles is going to do more damage than that?

Look, I know that anti-environmentalists really want this story to be true. They want to be able to laugh at those dumb environmentalists for driving their hybrids which are really doing all this environmental damage, and meanwhile drive their gas-guzzling Hummers guilt free.

Sorry, but the facts completely disprove this myth. The story is no more than wishful thinking.

Answer 6

If people that drive 7900-lbs. trucks wouldn't drive like wild cowboys, there would be less need to worry about having an accident.
If everyone drove 2,000-lb. economy cars, it would be an equal playing field, which would create a safer environment and a safer traffic system.
If anyone believes that a compact car is more damaging to the "enviornment" that a Hummer, they need to seriously do more research on the subject.
The only reason people drive Hummers, gas-guzzling SUVs, and ride 'em cowboy pick-up trucks is because they like to believe that 'bigger is better' and they want everyone to know that they're rough, tough road hogs.
By the way, I was hit by some cowboy driving a Dodge Ram truck while taking on his cell phone and not paying attention to his driving. He hit my Taurus head-on and actually did more damage to his truck and caused more injury to himself. The lawsuit is still winding its way through the court. -RKO- 10/18/07

Answer 7

The only reason that the comparison works is that they use a 300,000 mile lifespan for the Hummer and a 109,000 mile lifespan for the Prius. It is not an unbiased comparison and is dismissed as such.

Answer 8

I suggest reading:
Battery Toxicity: http://www.hybridcars.com/battery-toxicity.html
Hummer versus Prius: “Dust to Dust” Report Misleads the Media and Public with Bad Science: http://www.pacinst.org/topics/integrity_of_science/case_studies/hummer_versus_prius.html
Prius Versus HUMMER: Exploding the Myth: http://www.thecarconnection.com/Auto_News/Green_Car_News/Prius_Versus_HUMMER_Exploding_the_Myth.S196.A12220.html
Giving Directions: http://www.betterworldclub.com/articles/hummer-not-more-efficient.htm
Toyota's rebuttal, "Heard the one about the Hummer?" : http://www.toyota.com/html/dyncon/2007/september/hummervprius.html

Usually the mythic "article" from The Mail on the nickel in the hybrid cars' NiMH batteries is quoted from a now retracted article. The retraction that clears up this bit of misinformation is at: http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=417227&in_page_id=1770

Meanwhile, here's the 2004 Toyota Prius Green Report (life cycle assessment):
http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/k_forum/tenji/pdf/pgr_e.pdf
(you'll need to download the Japanese fonts for your PDF reader inorder to read it, but the entire document is written in English. note that this was published well before the Inco-Sudbury "article" and CNW "report.")

Over the measured lifespan of the Prius, when compared to a comparable mid-sized gasoline vehicle, the Prius comes out ahead in the lifecycle assessment (LCA) for airborne emissions for CO2, NOx, SOx, HC, but actually does worse for PM (thanks to the material and vehicle production stages). Lifespan is given as 10 years use/100,000km. The CO2 break-even point for the 2004 Prius compared to this unnamed gasoline vehicle is given at 20,000km. (more CO2 is emitted during Prius production, but the Prius makes up for it over its driven lifetime.)

Another neat thing is that the Prius is one of the first uses of Toyota's Eco-Plastic (plastic made from plants, as opposed to petroleum products). The battery is recycleable (NiMH), as is much of the car (steel and aluminum body, for example).

Answer 9

Don't make decisions based on what will damage or not damage the environment. Most of these studies and articles are wrong. Al Gore's movie has been proven to be almost completely factually challenged, and most scientists say it's just a hoax anyway.

The latest studies have already proven that global warming is not caused by anything humans are doing, so enjoy life and get the car you enjoy to drive. Get what's best for your lifestyle.

Driving some tiny death-trap of a car with the belief that you are helping the planet is the height of idiocy.

As a country, we're already cutting back on pollution better than any other country, so don't worry too much.

Answer 10

Nickel mining a problem? Don't accept any nickels in change next time you buy something. Of course coal mining and oil drilling is not damaging to nature, so we don't need to make any efforts to use less coal or oil. Right.

Answer 11

Another thing I get a kick out of is that people are driving these little tiny cars and they complain to people driving big trucks and suvs. If we convert the MPG to Weight ratio...Its normally about the same!! I have a Dodge cummins turbo diesel it weighs 7900lbs and I get 22 miles to the gallon...People are proud of these little 2000 pound cars that get 30 MPG or even a little better?? As for those little cars, if you ever get hit in one...your pretty much dead! When it comes to safety bigger is better!