If You’re Ugly And You Know It Honk Your Horn

Hybrid automobiles are ugly. The Honda insight, which will presumably be successful, is no exception.

Uhhh-gly.

The Honda insight is a mirror image of the Toyota Prius and equally hard on the eyes.

By design.

People don’t buy Hybrids for the energy savings; at least those that can do math. Relative to comparably-sized cars, you can’t drive a Hybrid enough miles to make up the difference in cost or to mitigate the environmental impact of manufacture and disposal.

Anyone want Nickel Metal Hydride in their back yard?

People buy Hybrids because they want to make a statement. They want a pat on the back and a place to put their Franken sticker.

Honda acknowledged poor sales of the previous generation Honda Accord Hybrid and ceased its production: they had not adequately “differentiated” the Hybrid variant. Read: not ugly enough.

Even the Cadillac Escalade Hybrid was accompanied by a memo to dealerships assuring them that the unsightly “Hybrid” monikers and badges could be removed without cosmetic damage for well-heeled but less conspicuous tree-huggers.

Being “Green” – or at least looking “Green” is big business and consumers willingly pony up, even when the costs are too high and the benefit negligible.

18 thoughts on “If You’re Ugly And You Know It Honk Your Horn

  1. You know, Roosh this wasn’t a hard observation ot make, but you’re the first I’ve seen make it…and you’re right of course.

    The Prius owner makes several statements when driving his little sh*tbox around town. The “look at me, I’m protecting mother” is only the most obvious. The ugliness of the car goes on to say either “I am not enjoying myself in this car and I wish I could be walking”, or “I’m sacrificing my enjoyment for the betterment of our sustainable urban community.”

    All of which adds up to say “Rest your gaze upon ME world, for I am better, smarter and more worthy than the rest”.

    A Prius assing up the passing lane adds a hearty “FU” to the overall message.

    The whole thing is one big moonbat asshat dance on wheels.

  2. “Relative to comparably-sized cars, you can’t drive a Hybrid enough miles to make up the difference in cost or to mitigate the environmental impact of manufacture and disposal.”

    The cost part is true, depending on the cost of the fuel. However, I’m not sure about the “environmental impact of manufacture and disposal.” If the cost is not relevant to the buyer, then your assertion is that the fuel saved over the lifetime of the car is not worth the cost of “the environmental impact of manufacture and disposal” of the hybrid car over a traditional ICE drive train. Any references for such an assertion? You could be right, but it sounds fishy to me.

    On the other hand, there are cars like the VW Jetta TDI which is a 38 MPG turbo diesel. Thats 9-11 MPG better than the gasoline offerings of the same chasis. Do you think the $2000 extra for the TDI is worth the cost? Environmental impact?

  3. Pingback: The Twin Cities Daily Liberal » If you drive a hybrid, you’re an idiot hippy

  4. 38 mpg of diesel at $2.80 equals about 7.4 cents per mile

    27 mpg of gas at $1.70 equals about 6.3 cents per mile

    Not such a good deal unless diesel prices drop below $2.40 or gas goes back up.

    But I’ve been hearing that the TDI’s can get nearer to 50 mpg which would put the cost per mile at about 5.6 cents

  5. “Any references for such an assertion? ”

    Not for environmental impact, but in terms of energy cost per vehicle type see
    http://cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy/

    “For instance, the dust-to-dust energy cost of the bunny-sized Honda Civic hybrid is $3.238 per mile. This is quite a bit more than the $1.949 per mile that the elephantine Hummer costs. The energy cots of SUVs such as the Tahoe, Escalade, and Navigator are similarly far less than the Civic hybrid.”

  6. “They want a pat on the back and a place to put their Franken sticker.”
    I can think of another place they can put that.

  7. On the other hand, there are cars like the VW Jetta TDI which is a 38 MPG turbo diesel. Thats 9-11 MPG better than the gasoline offerings of the same chasis. Do you think the $2000 extra for the TDI is worth the cost? Environmental impact?

    38 mpg of diesel at $2.80 equals about 7.4 cents per mile

    27 mpg of gas at $1.70 equals about 6.3 cents per mile

    Not such a good deal unless diesel prices drop below $2.40 or gas goes back up.

    But I’ve been hearing that the TDI’s can get nearer to 50 mpg which would put the cost per mile at about 5.6 cents

    Using the assumptions above and 12,000 Miles per year, saving (6.3-5.6) 0.7 cents per mile, it would take twenty three years to justify the extra $2K.

  8. “If you drive a hybrid, you’re an idiot hippy”

    See? You’ve taught Rosenburg something he didn’t know, Roosh..good job!

  9. Don’t forget to add the cost of replacing a battery:

    “Toyota claims that the nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) battery packs used in all Prius models are expected to last the life of the car with very little to no degradation in power capability.”

    “For those of us who have cell phones and other devices with NiMH batteries, that claim may sound unrealistic. Over time, the battery’s charge longevity seems to wane, resulting in shorter and shorter usage between charges. Eventually, the battery becomes worthless and we buy a replacement.”

    $3k plus labor.

  10. “Funny thing about the title that Rosenburg chose for his article, Roosh didn’t use the word “hippy” or “idiot” anywhere in his post. ”

    That’s the style of idiot hippy argumentation. If JRoosh or Mitch writes a post contrasting the academic achievements of urban vs suburban schools — without ever mentioning race, and blaming the disparity on the urban schoolboard’s crazy priorities — then Rosenberg or another idiot hippy will respond with post headlined “SITD authors says blacks are stupid”.
    Even a few commenters at SITD have benn known to try this tactic.

  11. Regarding making things break even, don’t forget the cost of your money to spend the extra $2k for diesel or $5-10k for hybrid; say about 5-7% per year, as well as the depreciation of that system, say about 10%/year.

    Overall, that means that you’ve got to save $300-$1700 every year in gas to simply break even. Not come out ahead, simply break even.

    To draw a picture, if I were to trade in my full size, V8 powered pickup for a Prius, I’d STILL end up behind–even before the acquisition cost of the non-hybrid part of the Prius. That’s how bad the economics of the Prius are. I might start to break even if the price of fuel hit $5/gallon..

    ….except for the little fact that I’d have to pay for the $15k of the Prius not related to the hybrid system. In that case, I’ve got to get $3000 per year in savings, meaning that I *might* break even if the price of gas went to $10/gallon.

    Except for the fact that I can get that savings far easier by trading in for a used Cobalt or Corolla.

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