The Chevrolet Volt: A General Motors Plug-in Electric Drive Hybrid Vehicle(Detriot Auto Show)

Ooopppsss!

Someone did some research and found out that the Hummers is better enviromentally than the Toyota Prius.

clubs.ccsu.edu...

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’s 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.

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.

I assume that Chevy is going to use the same type batteries for their enviro-cars.

Hopefully more research will be done on this!

The Prius isn't the Volt. Comparing the two is like comparing Apples to Oranges. It just doesn't work! One is Electric Drive that you can plug in, the other is a Gasoline-drive with no plug in option as of yet. The key is plug-in, which has been proven to more than triple the fuel economy of these types of vehicles. 40 MPG also sounds rather feasible to me for the Prius as does 120+ MPG for a Prius with a Plug in Option. Switch it all around and have the Power plant just produce Electricity instead of torque, and you can increase the efficiency just that much more.

Also, to the point that someone has already mentioned about the extra burden on the grid, there will be none as the majority of users will be recharging the batteries via the grid at night when electricity wasted is at it's highest(especially if you get a significant amount of energy from Nuclear/Renewables)