Tesla all-electric car on Top Gear

ummmm...but your Prius isn't an electric car.

You're comparing apples to oranges.

You might as well be talking about a motorcycle and how it can't seat four comfortably and doesn't have A/C, therefore you'll stick with your Prius.

Two different vehicles, two different solutions to two different problems.

The Tesla price, however, is purely ridiculous.

GM is going to discover it hard to sell the Volt at $41,000 after the initial rush of buyers who have to have the latest, for that matter.

A successful car has to be in the mid $20s. One midsize hybrid has already been withdrawn due to low sales.

Like I said a completely different solution.

What you meant to say was, "While its closest rival, the Honda Insight, hsa slightly lower mileage, it is cheaper."

Cost of ownership. You're falling into the same trap that Top Gear tried to make in your mind. 45 vs 50? How about $25K vs. $18K? That extra $7K can buy quite a lot of gas, more than enough to offset the

Yes and I'm saying that one of those soultions is totally unacceptable to anyone but an utter moron. You had to see how badly the Tesla kept breaking down and the wait for spare parts too lol...forget it!! As I said the Prius is THE car for me.

The Tesla can't be used for touring. 200 miles a day with a 12 hour recharge time might be useful for local business driving with a guaranteed place from which to recharge; but why would I want a low-slung roadster for that kind of driving? For comparison, think of the history of the Doble steam powered auto. Very high price, very low production--and the Doble could be refueled and watered in minutes, not hours.

Screw the payback calculations. The fact alone that the Prius is a series-parallel "full" hybrid with 2 motor/generators instead of the Honda IMA "assist" with 1 motor/generator is enough to make me want the Prius.

Why is a fuel usage payback period so damned important anyway? People who throw giant 20 some inch chrome spinners on their car certainly aren't expecting a payback but they shell out the dough anyway. As I still say, I would almost kill to have an NHW20 Prius but if all you want is pure, cheap FE, go buy a Geo Metro with the 3 cylinder and play "In a Yugo" by Paul Shanklin while you drive around. BTW IaY is a damn funny song despite my hatred of Rush.

To each his own I guess. I simply can't stand the VFD based MID as a replacement of the touch screen LCD based MFD, that along with many other reasons is why I hate the 2010 ZVW30. My ideal vehicle is a 2006 NHW20, fully loaded, with the following mods: EV button, LED light substitutes, wheel trim ring removal, and front quarter panel hybrid badge removal.

Because it's an important factor in how much the car costs (not its price, its cost).

And people who are buying fuel-efficient cars are, by and large, sensistive to cost.

What you're saying there is that to buy a Prius (or Insight) is a fashion statement, nothing more.

That's bullshit. While some idiots buy a Prius to say "look at me, I bought a Prius!", most are buying it to save money. Using less gas is a big part of that. Yes, the car has a higher price tag than a Corolla; some can't get past even THAT, and they buy a Corolla. But the Prius is bigger and more easily seats five people, and those in back have huge amounts of leg room. And in addition to that, the fuel savings over a long period of time offset the price difference.

Cost. Not price.

You forget the VALUE equation. As I said above, the Prius is a fairly large car inside for what it is, and it's going to last much longer than the Metro--which makes it a much better value overall.

The Insight should be (yeah, well, Honda, let's see you get out of your battery woes) similarly more valuable than the Metro, albeit with a slightly different value equation given its lower price and slightly lower fuel economy. It's also a much, much safer car than a 20 year old Metro, which is part of the VALUE equation.

You're fooling yourself with all these straw men you're setting up. I love my Prius, but I recognize that other cars have value close to it.

I most certainly do NOT say, "I'll buy a Prius no matter what just like that guy buys 20 inch chrome spinners no matter what--like a three year old wanting what he wants no matter what".

I wasn't trying to say it is a fashon statement, I was trying to point out that people buy extra options of all kinds all the time that do nothing to reduce a vehicle's payback period. I was going to mention factory GPS navigation as a prime example but I suppose if it helps you make a more direct route to the destination instead of driving in circles it would save money.

Anyway most people seem to forget about resale value and pretend that everyone just drives a car till it dies.

I didn't forget, the others that bash the Prius forgot, and you can usually spot them easily because they misspell it "Pruis".

I want the Prius for its low emissions along with the electronic goodies and for reasons such as the PriUPS. The fact that it would be roughly double the FE of our current 97 Lumina is just icing on the cake.

Feel free to browse my Q&A on Y! Answers

That's called a "fashion statement".

Note that the choice of Prius vs Insight isn't an "extra option". It's the core purchase.

Fashion statement. Or political statement. Whatever, you're describing the conscious act of making a statement.

Can't ignore those first two points, but my God, people are mindless sheep who are afraid to do something that not everyone else is doing.

I bought my Prius not to save money (I was getting adequate mileage in a Saturn SL2), I bought it because it represented a lot of original thought and state of the art design. Other designs will eventually pass it, but it is still state of the art.

So, y'all ARE buying it as a fashion statement.