If you are not familiar with the Toyota id=”SPELLING_ERROR_0″ style=”font-family: verdana”>Prius, it is the premier hybrid vehicle on the road today.

A friend of mine recently mentioned that more energy goes into a class=”blsp-spelling-error” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_1″ style=”font-family: verdana”>Prius than it would ever save in its lifetime.

Hmmm. I purchased one a year ago, and they are not cheap. Had I been bamboozled? I could feel the little hairs on the back of my neck go up. I took a deep breath, and did what I always do in a crisis moment: I started googling.This is what I found out:
A firm called CNW Marketing Research, performed two studies comparing hybrids to standard vehicles. Their conclusions include the following:

1) 2005 hybrids have “significantly more overall energy costs than conventional Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles.”

2) Since the Hummer’s average lifespan is three times longer then the Prius‘, it’s overall costs are significantly less.

I may not be the brightest bulb on the planet, but sheesh, do they have to compare it to the Hummer?! That made me suspicious.

To add fuel to the fire, CNW also states that nickel used in the manufacture of the Prius battery comes from a Toyota smelting plant that’s one of the biggest polluters in Canada. The plant is so bad, they claim, the land surrounding it looks like the surface of the moon.

Wow. Pretty bad.

But something told me to keep digging. And eventually, my efforts were rewarded. I could find no other evidence supporting the CNW claims. In fact, I found much evidence to the contrary.

Studies done at MIT, Argonne National Laboratory, and Carnegie Mellon’s Life-Cycle Assessment Group completely contradict CNW’s studies. Further investigation of the CNW report suggests that, through creative data manipulation, false claims and faulty logic, the company was able to create some substantial smoke over the hybrid’s environmental benefits.

Oh, and that claim about the smelting plant? It turns out the company was a serious polluter about 30 years ago, but has long since cleaned up its act. It’s also not owned by Toyota.

Below is an energy comparison of the Hummer versus the Prius from fueleconomy.gov. You compare for yourself. Certainly, the Prius still uses gasoline. It is not the end all to green transportation. But it’s the most efficient hybrid vehicle on the market today. It is making a substantial environmental contribution.

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