Prius Alternatives

There are better options than Prius for saving gas and the planet. So why buy one of these ugly cars and become a crappy driver? The most obvious alternative is to get a different hybrid. Duh. There are many options available now.

But then there is hotly debated issue of the actual environmental impact of hybrids. And there is the fact that real world mileage doesn't even come close to the advertised mileage.

Data from independent product-testing organization Consumer Reports indicates that hybrid cars get less than 60 percent of EPA estimates while navigating city streets. In Consumer Reports' real-world driving test, the Civic Hybrid averaged 26 mpg in the city, while the Toyota Prius averaged 35 mpg, much less than their respective EPA estimates of 47 and 60 mpg. Hybrid cars performed much closer to EPA estimates in Consumer Reports' highway tests.

You could get better mileage with a clean diesel! Although it's not available here (yet), the Volkswagen Polo gets 60-70 mpg!!! And you wouldn't look like a total tool driving it, like you would in a Prius.

If you bought a diesel, then you would be one step closer to running your car on used vegetable oil. My brother in law does it. He drives his Mercedes 300D everywhere for FREE. It takes some effort, but jeez, how could it not be worth it? You don't even have to get your hands dirty to run veggie oil. Bring your diesel to my friends at VegRev and they will do the conversion for you and can provide you with filtered veggie oil for $2 per gallon. You can't go wrong. You'll be helping the environment a lot more than you would in a Prius, saving money, giving OPEC the middle finger and look cool doing it.

Come on Toyota, start bringing your diesel HiLux trucks to the US! I want to go to VegRev! And stop selling Priuses. They make drivers suck.