Funny Coincidence...

[CTX-SLPR]

So I work at a nuclear weapons laboratory which is part of the reason I try to stay rather off the radar as far as who I am personally. I've noticed that of the people that actually do the design work on them... about half of them drive a Prius. I'm not sure the yuppie/hippy crowd that likes Prii (had to look that up) would like that so much...

[Dan Barlow]

Nuclear weapons don't use fossil fuels . What's the problem ?

[Huskinhano]

keeping secrets to yourself? You're no fun. A friend of my daughter's who's like our 3rd son works at Abington. He's a EE. He works on severs for satellites. He tells me it's just amazing what they can do.

[JOES66FURY]

It's offset by the sheer number of Prii on the road here in Tucson...lot's of the peace & love types out this-a-way.

[Barry Donovan]

maybe it is a comfortable vehicle.

I still kill IGN coil and modules by my hands near them.
I used top blame my ricer subaru.

my gmc did the same. Alternators too.

dc current, it has a begin and end..must be nice. I'd own one for a good deal.. but american branded.

[RockJustRock]

They make great Taxis and full torque at stall under an immigrant cabbie foot makes for a decent ride.

[AndyB]

Nothing is quite as funny as talking to a Prius owner in a gas station while refuelling your `95 ZX9R. Talked to a chap who was thrilled to be seeing 48mpg on the highway and very happy to tell me that he had his cruise set at 67mph because the mpg crashed above that speed.

I was running 85mph or so, and got 51.9mpg on that particular stop.

Turns out a Prius is not only a horrible, horrible car, but despite putting less power to the ground than a motorcycle, gets worse mileage. Nevermind that after having driven a new 2014 (7 miles on the odo) and pointing out that it drove like a 150k rental car--doubly so compared to my little MKV VW GTI with 100k-- that everything rattled and felt basically cheap, my brother bought it anyhow--it was totalled after 20kmi [not his fault, surprisingly]--but it never improved. He got a total average of 42mpg from it, being used as a long-distance taxicab (average distance of 18mi, so a fair chunk of not-in-town-driving).

*My ZX9 puts right around 125-135hp against the ground, weather dependent. Total package of 730lbs at the track and goes 129-132mph through the traps, depending on weather.

I must say that I do wonder: If you took a Prius and removed 500lbs of battery and converted it to a normal, respectable machine.... Toss the motor and put in a 800cc I-3 with a teensy turbo on it, you could make the same power/torque. Fight the weight down significantly, and how much could you improve the milage? Obviously if you go out with your foot on the ground, it'll be poor--and you'll need your foot down hard for most of the time to make up for the lack of power, but if you saved some weight, could you make it quick enough to be reasonably safe in merging situations and yet still be decent per gallon? I'd think so, but I'd love someone to actually do the math.

[Dan Barlow]

It's offset by the sheer number of Prii on the road here in Tucson...lot's of the peace & love types out this-a-way.

I try to fix that here in Indy by treating them like the footballs they look like but not actually not making contact when I go for them .It will stop when I get a tax credit for saving old cars out of their pocket .

[JOES66FURY]

I try to fix that here in Indy by treating them like the footballs they look like but not actually not making contact when I go for them .It will stop when I get a tax credit for saving old cars out of their pocket .

The slowest moving things on the roads here is the Toyota Prius. The only thing close is the Chevrolet Corvette.

It never fails, when I get behind either one of these vehicles on the roads here, they are going far slower than the traffic around them OR 5 to 10 under the posted speed limit.

My truck is not beat up enough to scare them out of the way. I need to get the old 71 D100 on the road plus, it'd probably get better mileage than my 08

[pdub]

Prius folks are just driving along, blissfully convinced they've made a great investment and they're doing all the right things, even if not hardly anybody else does. Singlehandedly saving the planet. Hilarious, actually.

And I'm seeing more and more electric car charging stations at some restaurants and motels. More hilarity, especially at restaurants. So, if it takes 8 hours to charge the car to go 350 more miles....how long can you sit at the Cracker Barrel pretending to still be eating before they run you off for taking a bath in the restroom?