That's right. The total cost of energy (that's manufacturing and operating costs) for a Prius is $3.25 per mile over the 100,000 miles you can expect it to run. A Hummer on the other hand is expected to run 300,000 miles (You know the old saying, "GM cars run bad longer than most cars run.") at $1.95 a mile.
OK, maybe you're not going along with that 300,000-mile Hummer. So give the Hummer a 150,000 mile life -- that's still $2.93 vs. the Prius' $3.25.
For what it's worth, I got 303,000 miles out of my Toyota van, and would have gotten more, if the last mile hadn't been into a six-car pile-up.
That's just the conclusion of a fascinating article by Chris Demorro that ran last week in the Central Connecticut University Recorder. Here's the much juicier stuff:
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 environmentalist’s nightmare.
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