One of the things I’ve been saying for awhile is that the Toyota Prius and cars like it are not the solution to our problems.  Sure, it gets decent gas mileage but at the same time, the energy and materials that go into making one offset the benefits.  The math is quite rough but it takes about 100,000 miles of driving before you start to offset the footprint of making the car.  As such, buying a fuel efficient used car is usually, in the long run, a more environmentally friendly way to buy a car, not to mention all the other options available out there or those that will be available in the near future.

Seems that other people are starting to catch on to this way of thinking as you can see in this short video of a discussion on the topic.  Sure, all those celebrities drive Priuses in an effort to make us believe they actually care about the planet so that seems like a sexier option but what they should be doing, apparently, is running through the classifieds for some diesel Volkswagen Golfs or something. Recent studies and discussions such as this one seem to support the idea that keeping an older car on the road tends to be more eco-friendly than buying a new Prius.

Or, of course, if you can find an older Prius, I’m sure that’s great too. However, keep in mind that we’re currently on the…third (I think) generation of that particular car and several improvements have been made on it since the launch of most hybrids earlier in the decade. Therefore, maybe keeping your Honda Civic for a few more years until we get ourselves some hydrogen power in our motor vehicles is a good idea.