Is the Prius Eco-Friendly, or Ego-Friendly? - Dan Ariely

[PerformanceCars1FCH1]

0:44 exactly why I don't vote it doesnt matter and doesn't take effect untill much latter.

[343Films]

The ten dislikes are people with Prius'.

[theotherguy245689]

ego

[ninman58]

Yeah but you're kind of missing the point. The Prius isn't environmentally friendly, how much pollution was used up to make one? Plus in the UK at least, there are other far more fuel efficient cars on the market that are not hybrids. Also what happens to the batteries when they run out of juice? That's a lot of waste.

[Captainbob25202000]

if you want to speak mpg everyone it has been proven time and time again if you need a fuel efficient car and still help the environment stick with a geo metro Xfi sure its only three cylinders and its not fast but it gets 44mpg in the highway 37-39 in the city! and some have squeezed out more plus its used and cheap to buy ,hybrids are way overrated i rather buy a fuel efficient small car than to buy a hybrid, i would rather buy a good for the environment natural gas powered car

[garith21]

@Captainbob25202000

The 1991 geo metro xfi is actually pretty good, 43/52 city/highway assuming it's working well and yes if you are going to buy for fuel efficiency small cars are much better because it has less mass to move, but your argument was about how much worse it was for the environment than many other standard cars including SUV's. If we're arguing about what's generally better or less expensive they're different topics.

[LottLottie]

Is it just me, or is Ariely a real sweetie? : )

[cursingyorick]

Hmmm Someone has been watching southpark(10.02) episode Smug alert.

[bvrcrap56]

driving a prius feels good, driving a hummer makes me feel like a fuel hog. so how do i want to spend my day--wordy justifications are a waste of time.

[Rickdeckard2020]

I cant wait to see Big Oil paid Shills pretending to care about the environment coming out of the woodwork when the Leaf launches, they're going to tell us all about the nissan LEaf not being eco-friendly enough, or that leaf owners that arent wearing underwear made of recycled toilet paper fiber are ego-friendly hypocrites, or how its dangerous for squirrels, etc

[Rickdeckard2020]

This type of nickel&dime psychological raving can be found in a tavern or pub among drunken patrons. There are many reasons to encourage new hybrid and EV tech, locally produced energy, less emissions, less dependancy of foreign oil, escaping the gas station gauging, the opinion that peak oil is a problem, some people simply like toyota even if its been bogusly bashed. second guessing other people's choice because its not good enough for dr.cliché is lame, even lamer to generalize prius owners

[Betillo555]

What a terrible reason to do something for the environment...

[garith21]

@Betillo555

Honestly there's some people that don't do things simply because they're the right thing to do and the more people you have aboard no matter how small is another on board.

[davisgreen2020]

Well said !!! I hope there are MORE hybrid cars soon !! Thanks to Mitsubishi ( i MiEV ), Nissan ( Leaf ) and Renault ( Twizy,ZOE, Fluence and Zangoo: Zero emission..). There will a fair number of Electric cars on the roads by 2012/2013 !! More hybrids and EV cars please !!! More Eco or Ego- friendly cars !!! Save the Earth for our children and grandchildren !!

[truefictions]

Bullshit.

[23discordians]

The idea that we can just consume our way out of this situation is completely fucked.

It'll all be fine we'll just buy some stuff to deal with it. I hear sales of rubber dinghies are through the roof in Holland. I'm gonna buy i big freezer and leave the door open to cool shit down a bit. That might make my ego feel better, I could certainly sleep easier knowing that I am doing my bit for the environment, I'm a good eco-friendly consumer.

[Saktoth]

The problem with the prius though is that it is NOT actually eco-friendly. It is so incredibly heavy due to the batteries that the amount of energy required to move it is much greater than the amount required to move a smaller, lighter car, and that energy comes from fossil fuels just like most energy. This is the problem with reward substitution, its not always a direct relationship to the actual ecological impact of the thing.

[garith21]

@Saktoth Honestly for as much as I'm a bigger fan of electric cars over hybrids it's simply not that simple, since hybrids work on maximizing engine efficiency and other technologies it ends up being slightly more efficient than traditional gas powered engines. Traditional cars don't have the benefit of always running at the optimum rpm when it does run like hybrids do.

[Captainbob25202000]

@garith21 that is simply not true prius and it has been mentioned dozens of times in studies show (of course magazines cant post anything against hybrids since their advertising is mostly toyota)that driving the prius causes more harm and the main culprit is the battery there needs to be a more eco friendly method for the battery if there isnt then its just as polluting as a big SUV (the damage comes from mining nickel,and cadmiumn and other minerals for the batteries)

[garith21]

@Captainbob25202000

You mean "multiple studies" produced by CNW marketing when they were marking for GM? Those same studies that have been repeatedly discredited? Those studies? Let's completely ignore that those mines were in operation long before the toyota prius and make certain flaws and biases like using their greenest model of the hummer as well as assuming that the prius will operate for 100k miles vs claiming the hummer will last 300k miles with no maintenance.

[Captainbob25202000]

@garith21 prius will never be a great car,its just a expensive car small motor with a small electric motor,still consumes oil,im not bashing but take for example a nissan leaf it uses more eco friendly materials and its all electric no oil,that what toyota needs to build and innovate not douche bag cars that cost a bundle ,if you still want great mpg read my other comment used cars like suzuki swift was a great car almost as efficient as the prius but costs 22k less

[garith21]

@Captainbob25202000

I'm a bigger fan of the EV's frankly, but my comment was in response to your claim about "studies" that make the prius worse for the environment and energy than SUV's are credible. It's nice that you just want to hop to different points, but I was addressing this one.

If you want to ask what kind of cars I'd prefer in the long term it would be electric vehicles, especially if we can manage cheaper battery technology.

[garith21]

@Captainbob25202000

However Fueleconomy .gov

states

2001 suzuki swift 31/38 city/highway

2008 prius 48/45 city/highway

which is a significant difference in regards to consumption. If your argument is "pocket book" then yeah probably better to get the swift, but you have to throw out the EV's as well, if your argument is environment prius is probably better because most of the energy costs for the car is in operation not it's production, with EV's being more expensive but better environmentally

[Shadizar666]

give away free fleshlights and/or dildos for every 100 light bulbs

[78UNKNOWN]

Bollocks, ultimately the smile is there because of the money saved on fuel

[johnstall5350]

i always wondered what if every house had a few solar panels on the roof along with some sort of wind mill thing. that combined with more nuclear plants, and wind farms could reduce the need for coal. although you still have the problem of cars and gasoline. obviously fuel economy is changing, but I don't see us getting off gas anytime soon.

[soccom8341576]

I do Proxy-Connection: keep-alive

Cache-Control: max-age=0

re about global warming. I laugh at global warming everyday.

I like the prius for the hi

[AtheistKharm]

Good video, I'm thinking of getting a Prius. I was looking into Nissan's new Leaf, full electric car, but decided its range is not good enough. Oh well maybe one day...

p.s. please don't troll me about electric cars and burning coal for electricity.

[TheLonelyImmortal]

@AtheistKharm Wait until your old car is truly destroyed, then look at the cars on the market. I recently heard about a car designed for city driving that gets something like 70 or 90 miles a gallon or something. It's not a hybrid. It also is short, so parking will be much easier. But I don't know about its crash-safety rating. Amory Lovins has said that lighter carbon fiber cars are just as strong and not difficult to manufacture. Those should be good :)

[AtheistKharm]

@TheLonelyImmortal I can't find anything about it. can you send me a link?

[TheLonelyImmortal]

@AtheistKharm I found the link for you :) It's on TED.com. It has mind-blowing talks on many subjects and I suggest bookmarking it because it's that good.

Skip to 6:40 for carbon composite vehicles and when the subject changes slightly, skip to 9:42. You might enjoy watching the whole talk, though. ted.com/talks/lang/eng/amory_l­ovins_on_winning_the_oil_endga­me.html

[AtheistKharm]

@TheLonelyImmortal its a good watch, but the video is 5 years old. I did in fact get the 2010 Prius since I last posted on here. i decided to get it on a 3 year lease so when its up we'll see where the technology is at. I was thinking about waiting for the plug in hybrid Prius thats suppose to come out next year, but i didn't feel like it was worth the wait. The car is awesome btw, cheers. 

[TheLonelyImmortal]

@AtheistKharm Oh, um. If you wanted a link to the small city high mpg car, I can't find it. It is probably on the website Treehugger, in a somewhat recent post. Their search engine kind of sucks so I always have trouble finding what I want.

[prosvjeta]

well, i don't care about jp morgan so i don't care about this so-called man-made co2-based global warming.

though i believe that we have global poluting but nobody seems to care about this problem,scince there isn't any moeny to make.

and if the gobal warming were happening i don't mind if the humans would die out, cos we haven't deserved anything else, seeing that we don't mind living as slaves under this kind of a monetary system, that creates such an uncivlizied world.

[MrMansuor]

wow amazing

[anubis2814]

Good for you!!! Thanks!

[therealallpro]

reminds me of the south park episode.

[ResidentNinja]

Sure is smug in here...

[imre1000]

As much as I care about the environment and global warning - I am really disappointed about the direction this movement has been steered towards.

Every radical political movement is using it as an excuse for why they should have more power & money.

I personally pay more for solar power in my home, but I wouldn't support any organisation that tries to force the green view on others.

[greenhell666]

lol

Brian Griffin!

[TheGodofAtheists]

No one cares about anthropogenic global warming largely because they know it’s a load of crock. Reference: Climate Gate. If global warming was really produced by humans then the scientists wouldn’t forge documents. 2nd Reference: the people who preach global warming ride around in private jets (Copenhagen meetup). 3rd Reference: If Global warming was true, Government would be the last institution to turn to. THEY CAN’T EVEN EDUCATE OUR CHILDREN FOR GOD SAKES; PUBLIC SCHOOLS SUCK ASS.

[jhip87]

@TheGodofAtheists This is awfully silly. (1) The scientists at East Anglia were recently exonerated, (2) This just proves hypocrisy on their part; it doesn't count against anthropogenic climate change, (3) Ditto; this is a practical question, not a a challenge to ACC.

[Asiablue]

@TheGodofAtheists Climate Gate? The scientists were exonerated. No documents were forged.

[Lawsuit]

@TheGodofAtheists I like that so many atheists hail logic and reason in denouncing religion, but can't use facts to back up their arguments.

There are much better arguments against global warming, and you should start referencing unbiased scientific articles rather than your own assumptions.

[AtheistKharm]

@Lawsuit If hes an atheist hes one of those bat shit crazy atheist. Which is fine b/c atheism is not a world view, its a response to a claim (i.e. Gods exist). That response in most cases is not an assertion that there is no Gods. For those that assert that then they have adopted the burden of proof and taken on the impossible task of proving a negative.

People who don't know global warming is real are either willfully ignorant or uneducated or both.

[1HumanKind]

Well every one knows you don't buy a prius for a small footprint. It's production footprint is more than twice the impact of manufacturing a Hummer. Yay for capitalism.

[alowlyapprentice]

Very interesting. I like the idea of ego-driven eco-friendly products. But I worry about the social implications and further class stratification of such a concept. Not everyone can afford a Prius and to tie one's relevance and ego to a car is prolly not good. Oddly enough if someone did not own a car and used public transportation I doubt they would have their ego's served in the same manner as owning a Prius.

[eirefrance]

I don't know, I bike to work and I'm usually bored or pissed the whole time, depending on how useless and blind the car drivers are.

[MegaYippie]

Private wind-power at your backyard! A 50-100 meter tall pole in you backyard and everyone knows what it stands for - it just must be good for your ego. ^_^

[tecnoblix]

@MegaYippie I would LOVE to do that. My city ordinance doesn't allow it. How screwed up is that?

And really, when does a giant pole not help the ego.