Import owners are to blame for the recession

Cars are designed by designers, and then made buildable by engineers.
THEN the accountants get involved and tell the engineers how many
dollars they need to take out of the product before it will be built.
Between squeezing the suppliers and cheapening whatever they can get
away with, they get the production cost down to the target set by the
accountants.

Usually it is several rounds of thrust and parrie before it is all
over.

 

In general, you are correct - except when the warranty is not an
option but is standard.

 

Evidence, please. Show us where the analysis came.
====================================================

Google is your friend. Try using it.

March 7, 2007

Prius Outdoes Hummer in Environmental Damage
By Chris Demorro
Staff Writer


The Toyota Prius has become the flagship car for those in our society so
environmentally conscious that they are willing to spend a premium to show
the world how much they care. Unfortunately for them, their ultimate green
car is the source of some of the worst pollution in North America; it takes
more combined energy per Prius to produce than a Hummer.
Before we delve into the seedy underworld of hybrids, you must first
understand how a hybrid works. For this, we will use the most popular hybrid
on the market, the Toyota Prius.

The Prius is powered by not one, but two engines: a standard 76 horsepower,
1.5-liter gas engine found in most cars today and a battery- powered engine
that deals out 67 horsepower and a whooping 295ft/lbs of torque, below 2000
revolutions per minute. Essentially, the Toyota Synergy Drive system, as it
is so called, propels the car from a dead stop to up to 30mph. This is where
the largest percent of gas is consumed. As any physics major can tell you,
it takes more energy to get an object moving than to keep it moving. The
battery is recharged through the braking system, as well as when the
gasoline engine takes over anywhere north of 30mph. It seems like a great
energy efficient and environmentally sound car, right?

You would be right if you went by the old government EPA estimates, which
netted the Prius an incredible 60 miles per gallon in the city and 51 miles
per gallon on the highway. Unfortunately for Toyota, the government realized
how unrealistic their EPA tests were, which consisted of highway speeds
limited to 55mph and acceleration of only 3.3 mph per second. The new tests
which affect all 2008 models give a much more realistic rating with highway
speeds of 80mph and acceleration of 8mph per second. This has dropped the
Prius EPA down by 25 percent to an average of 45mpg. This now puts the
Toyota within spitting distance of cars like the Chevy Aveo, which costs
less then half what the Prius costs.

However, if that was the only issue with the Prius, I wouldn't be writing
this article. It gets much worse.

Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that
is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. As already noted, the
Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is
mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so
much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used
the "dead zone" around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the
plant is devoid of any life for miles.

The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius battery and
Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the
plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming
every environmentalists nightmare.

The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the
soil slid down off the hillside, said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator
David Martin during an interview with Mail, a British-based newspaper.

All of this would be bad enough in and of itself; however, the journey to
make a hybrid doesn't end there. The nickel produced by this disastrous
plant is shipped via massive container ship to the largest nickel refinery
in Europe. 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. Are these not sounding less and less like
environmentally sound cars and more like a farce?

Wait, I haven't even got to the best part yet.

When you pool together all the combined energy it takes to drive and build a
Toyota Prius, the flagship car of energy fanatics, it takes almost 50
percent more energy than a Hummer - the Prius' arch nemesis.

Through a study by CNW Marketing called "Dust to Dust", the total combined
energy is taken from all the electrical, fuel, transportation, materials
(metal, plastic, etc) and hundreds of other factors over the expected
lifetime of a vehicle. The Prius costs an average of $3.25 per mile driven
over a lifetime of 100,000 miles - the expected lifespan of the Hybrid.

The Hummer, on the other hand, costs a more fiscal $1.95 per mile to put on
the road over an expected lifetime of 300,000 miles. That means the Hummer
will last three times longer than a Prius and use less combined energy doing
it.

So, if you are really an environmentalist - ditch the Prius. Instead, buy
one of the most economical cars available - a Toyota Scion. The Scion only
costs a paltry $0.48 per mile to put on the road. If you are still obsessed
over gas mileage - buy a Chevy Aveo and fix that lead foot.

One last fun fact for you: it takes five years to offset the premium price
of a Prius. Meaning, you have to wait 60 months to save any money over a
non-hybrid car because of lower gas expenses.

 

Notwithstanding the other claims, has the first Hummer reached 100,000
miles? Let alone the notional 300,000 mile lifetime.

 

Actually, I have. (known, not owned) but generally a Corvette is a
"toy" so having it in the shop is only a minor inconvenience. Same
with a Porsche. Not too many people use them as their daily driver.But
the Corvette is more reliable than the Bimmer or the Porsche

One of the partners in the insurance office where I spend my mornings
has a Porsche 911 twin turbo, a Caddy Escalade, several Jeeps, and
usually at least one or too other "cars of the moment" He's never kept
a Caddy more than a year and it's not out of the ordinary for him to
have to come in with one of the Jeeps because the roads are too
nasty/wet/whatever to have the porsche out and the %$#@)* Caddy is in
the shop AGAIN.
Another partner has an X5 Bimmer . His wife has a Saturn Hybrid Vue
replacing the "new beetle" - and he can't wait to get rid of the
"silver money-pit" when the lease comes up in March.

Another partner has a Mercedes SUV (can't remember the model) which
replaced an X5. She thinks the Mercedes is perhaps a slightly better
vehicle, but the Bimmer dealer was a lot better to deal with when the
car was in the shop (which for both is WAY too often) Her "fair
weather" car is a triple white VW Cabrio

Good friend and customer had 7 Caddies over a 5 year period - and
never had one at his exclusive disposal for more than 3 months at a
time - as they were constantly in the shop. Both he and his wife are
driving Lexus now.

Another client had been a Caddie man for decades - but the last 2 were
so bad, the last one in particular knew every Caddy dealer between
Kitchener Ontario and Marco Island Fla. He's driving a lexus now. His
wife drives a Lincoln - which has been standing up quite well.
It was so bad he was afraid to take the Caddie on the highway because
he never knew where it was going to leave him sitting - he just knew
it would.


Another friend/customer traded his old Bimmer, which had treated him
reasonably well (it was over 10 years old) on a Lexus, and traded his
wife's Caddy in for a new one. Before it was off warranty it had been
in to just about every dealer between here and Ann Arbour Michigan for
a suspension related problem no-one could pin down.
He traded it on a Toyota Avalon - which he traded a year later on
another Lexus (he didn't like the radio in the Avalon and the seat
adjustment was not as good as the lexus)

 

I could tell you that I have seen Hummer's with well over 300,000 miles, but
without actual DMV proof, the question can't really be answered.

 

Interesting. Civil or military?

 

http://www.humvee.net/hmh.html

That site has quite a few listed, but the newest I see is a 2001 at 261,155
miles. The highest is a 1993, with 758,000 miles.

 

Interesting.

512k to and from the mall 15 miles away. $10 each way, this past summer.

That family with two, with 800k between them, must spend a lot of
quality time together.

Around here, they are mostly leased, driveway ornaments, 6k per year at
most.

 

Flagship? If the Prius is such a great car why is it not Toyotas number
one seller? Even Toyota buyer chose the Camry over the Prius by at least
two to one?

 

Do your own search of the US Department of Commerce site and see for
yourself.

 

One can easily prove it to themselves. Go to old cars shows around the
country as I do and you will see plenty of domestic and European cars but
rarely if ever a Japanese car from that period. If you do it is not a
regular sedan but a low mileage 'Z' or an RX7 on occasion. I've seen more
Italian cars than Jap cars and we all know they were 'great' cars LOL

 

I did. It says you are a liar...

 

Once again, your ability to come to conclusions is broken. There could be
another reason why you see more domestic & European cars at these shows.

Hurry. Think about it fast, before you lose your ability to spell, like you
do every day after lunch, when you begin slamming whatever it is you drink,
Uncle Jemima.

 

Not quite! That may be your opinion but it is confused opinion The
'designers' ARE engineers, as are the chassis designer that must put it
together and they work as a team, not individually. I know my engineering
degree is in metallurgy and I worked in industry for thirty years.

You are correct about meeting cost goals. Not as you suggest, to make it
'cheaper' but to build it cost effectively, to meet the market goals for
that particular vehicle. Obviously a Corolla does not compete in the same
market as a Lexus, nor does a car meet the same requirements as a truck, get
real.

 

In the 1980s, GM could have not only bought a Toyota but could have
bought the whole Toyota corp. for the amount of money GM invested in
automation.

 

Japanese car dealers treat customers at least as badly, and a poll by
Consumer Reports from several years ago said that customers were most
satisfied with Buick and Saturn dealerships.

What I don't understand is why GM gave up on Saturn, after spending at
least $6B (in 1990 dollars) to start up a division that, at least for
a while, managed to put fear into the Japanese car makers. But the
most important thing about Saturn wasn't its cars but its dealerships,
which didn't put us through nearly as much crap as others did. I
doubt that GM realized the importance of changing the way cars were
sold.

 

Buick? I'm not so sure I'd trust those survey results. Around here, I have
never seen a Buick being driven by anyone younger than 80, and those drivers
never exceed 26 mph. There's just one thing that makes them happy at a car
dealership (or a bank): Free coffee.

Scott Adams has the right idea:
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-12-10/

 

Do your own homework

Please provide real evidence that the Japanese companies don't pay
taxes in the US.

Jeff

 

You made the claim. That means you have the information available to show
us. If you do not show it, it's because you're being childish.

The other possibility is that you do NOT have the information, never had it,
never saw it, and your tax comments were pulled outta your ass. Yeah. That's
the real story.