For those who think that Bluemotion Passats are greener than Priuses:

Bluemotion Passat 64.2mpg CO2 115g/km NOx 138 mg/km
Prius 70.6mpg CO2 92g/km NOx 9 mg/km

That’s not a typo. Super green Passat produces 15 times more smog-forming chemicals.

But Mol, what about At the point of manufacture?

You tell me.

Like I say, Priuses are made in a super-green solar powered factory. And the battery is not really very big, about 30kg or so. Consider that the whole car is up to 200kg lighter than a Passat, and that 200kg of extra stuff also has to be manufactured, I’m not sure about these wild claims for manufacturing energy costs.

And there this:

For the Prius, Toyota used a new range of plant-derived ecological bioplastics made from the cellulose in wood or grass instead of petroleum.

Oh and the Bluemotion Passat is 105bhp and the Prius 138bhp 🙂

Based on owning a (now) 17 yr old Defender for the last 7 years, and knowing enough people with new cars that are nothing but trouble – I’m going with Defender (heart over head perhaps tho’).

Built to be fixed, and put straight back into service – can the same be said of modern cars I wonder?

Mine’s a bit luckier than U31’s it seems, as it’s (touching wood) only big jobs have been a replacement fuel pump, damaged through water ingress when exceeding the wading depth (a bit), and a bit of work when the clutch springs went a a little tight and popped the slave-cylinder off the ‘box (which was only held on by one bolt – the other having left to pursue an independent life earlier in time).

Other than that, it’s just ‘normal’ service items, even the mpg is ok, and better than a lot of vehicles (Ok granted – spanking Aluminium out of Bauxite takes a lot of power, and old diesel engines = soot).

I’m not sure I’d fancy trying to fix a modern car that had died …

I’d agree it is significantly down to behaviours tho’.

And im not certain alone that solar power could generate the energy requirements of an entire car plant. The assembly line, maybe, but its entirety?
And what about the outsourcing components? Are they all certified for green credential
Bolton Plastics make the interior and heating component parts for all majors, and their energy expenditure is astounding, as is Vita, who do the rubbers for screens seals and trims?
(I’m not saying the Prius soursces components from these examples, but trying to broaden the picture)

Half the factory is solar powered

Solar power is one of Tsutsumi’s big features, with 50,000 square metres of panels generating up to 2,000 kW of energy an hour. That’s enough to meet half the site’s total electricity requirements – equivalent to the power used by 500 homes – with the rest sourced from a highly efficient gas co-generation system.

Check out these bad boys:

(original link http://blog.toyota.co.uk/prius-tsutsumi-eco-factory)

Mol I’ve tried to find details of the panasonic factory that I read would produce the new Lithium Ion battery, it was really impressive and produced waste that was mostly water. Miss Catflees hired a golf bluemotion it was awful and gave figures far crapper than VW stated

Sweet 🙂

I had read that the original Bluemotion Polo didn’t come close to official figures, but I read an in-depth review of a Bluemotion Passat (the newer one, it changed recently) that said it was pretty decent, around 65mpg for the estate. IIRC they used it as an office run-around for a week.

This question is a very complex one. They key thing is how long the car will last and with prius we still don’t know.

It is clear that the environmental cost of making and disposing of a prius are higher than a conventional car. Will this be offset by any savings over its lifetime – I doubt it but its possible

A truly green car is small and light, long lasting and easily recyclable. Something that applies to neither of these cars.

If the pruis was so good toyota would release information about it that currently it refuses to do about the environmental costs of the battery – which are huge. Read up about coltan

I’m going to buy my first car soon (Ive got an MG I’m learning in) but want something enviro friendly with good mpg and cheap insurance. I’d love to get say a Yaris but as i would use it for work I couldn’t fit my crap in the boot. Have you found your prius to be reliable? Like a carerra banshee I hear so much mixed things on ownership.

They key think is how long the car will last and with prius we still don’t know.

There are many many 200k mile cars out there.

t is clear that the environmental cost of making and disposing of a prius are higher than a conventional car.

No it’s not! Don’t remember any evidence last time this came up.

A truly green car is small and light, long lasting and easily recyclable

Yep.

Just reading about coltan. The main use seems to be in tanntalum capacitors, which are used in absolutely everything by the trillion.

The first page of google hits for ‘coltan prius’ contain only co-incidental links ie an article about coltan with a sidebar contianing another unrelated article about Priuses.

Catflees – The Prius has has absolutely nothing at all go wrong with it in 72k miles and 5 years. All it’s needed has been tyres, oil, air filters, oil filters, and windscreen wiper blades 🙂 I was told the brake pads needed doing, so I bought some more and the old ones were only half gone 🙁

It’s top of the JD power survey for family cars.

Plus if you put the seats down it’s as big as an estate 🙂

Molgrips – of course it is higher. You have a conventional car to build – a large and heavy one then you add a battery to it. Rechargeable batteries are polluting to make and dispose of and look at the miles traveled by the components of it.

And don’t try to claim photovolataics on the factory make any significant difference as they don’t. 10 years simply to recoup the energy cost of making them without allowing for all the pollution that comes from making them

Its lifetime environmental cost you need to consider. When you do this the pruis is not greatly different to any other similar car. We don’t know the full figures ‘cos Toyota will not release information about he batteries

I still feel like the prius is a mix up of 2 different things rather than the best of both but I really does Fit my needs. I like the fact it’s greener than the competition and a bit obscure too. Would look good parked next to the misses supercar too. Ha ha

a large and heavy one

1300kg is not heavy.

Its lifetime environmental cost you need to consider.

Contrary to popular belief I am not stupid.

However I am bored to tears of hearing the exact same old sh*t from you every single time the concept of cars and economy comes up. Just shut the **** up on the subject for all our sakes.

You will never listen to me, I will never listen to you so what’s the frigging point? And before you point out that I started it, I was talking to someone else.

Solar panels don’t take 10 years to offset the energy used to make them?? I used to live with a scientist who worked in that field who seemed to spend lots of his spare time displacing those kind of urban myths. Say that they did, in 10 years they would be reaping enivromemtal dividends anyway. Even a small percentage of naturally sourced energy is better than none at all.

Absolute cert. bet you No Prius’s are about 20 years after they are made. Wqually most Landy’s are. the huge % of those made still running popped up many years ago, way before all the new fangled stuff pushed nimbers up. personally I think all new cars are criminal in that they cannot be easily mended. How many fuel injectors are scrapped because the average 17 year old can’t mend them. with a Mini you changed the points.

Absolute cert. bet you No Prius’s are about 20 years after they are made. Wqually most Landy’s are

Not quite the same thing. Landrovers are mostly tools and are made like industrial equippment – which is why they suffer as normal cars for lots of reasons. Try comparing Priuses and say, Passats or Corollas.

How many fuel injectors are scrapped because the average 17 year old can’t mend them. with a Mini you changed the points

Again not the same – injectors and points are different altogether. You can work on modern cars anyway, just don’t be scared of the computery bits.

Have you heard the story, i think it goes (figure is for arguments sake and may not be accurate) 60% of land rovers ever built are still on the road today?

And the other 40% got home!

(it was originally a H-D joke)

A truly green car is small and light, long lasting and easily recyclable

True, and easily remanufacturable is even better

Compared to most modern cars, I would say the Defender probably ticks most those boxes. (Though the new Discovery weighs 2.8tons 😯 )But it’s mpg is pretty poor compared to modern cars.

So if you only do 1000 miles a year, probably best to keep it. If you do 30,000 miles a year, probably best to get something significantly more efficient and get the land rover to someone who it’s more appropriate for. If you’re not towing or driving in fields much anymore.

We just tried doing some LCA at work and it’s an absolute headfcuk! That’s on a product with just 40 components, so if auto companies manage to know everything about the 1000s & 1000s of components they use, that is a big project.

What, Landrovers small and light? 🙂

But yes.

There are many many 200k mile cars out there.

It was launched in 1997. 200000 miles in 13 years means we’re back to modifying behaviour again.

No-one’s arguing against driving less!

But if for some reason you have to (or want to) drive 200k miles in 13 years then you might as well do it in a Prius, no?

Anyway, the 200k mile ones are MkIIs which came out in 2003. There’s quite a few 300k mile cars too. One of them’s a taxi in Montreal, which is a pretty good excuse for doing high miles, no?