Freaky Gear: SMART Hybrid

[Tony Scharf]

I had one of the first Toyta Prius' in the US.  It had pleanty of
space for a family of 4.  I averaged about 45m/g in town and 40m/g on
the highway.  I sold it to my sister recently as she has a long
commute, and I now walk 2 blocks to a train station and my wife works
at home..

Hybrids are actually a very smart way of doing things.  Purely
electric cars that recharge often end up burning MORE fossil fuel
because the power coming into homes is generated by burning coal.  The
downside, unfortunately, is that the batteries are an environmental
disaster waiting to happen in the case of a severe accident (though
you would have to be hit pretty hard to rupture them because of where
they are located) and also require that the cars be recycled properly
when they reach the end of their lives.

The new Prius gets 60m/g I here.  Tempting with gas prices starting to
inch up to $5.00 per gallon.

Tony

On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 11:29 AM, Jay Vaughan <jayv at synth.net> wrote:
> So our big fat Mercedes went into the shop today for some badly needed
> maintenance in advance of our summer driving holiday (w00t!) and in
> the meantime I've been given a little SMART Hybrid to drive around.
>
> Let me tell you, there's something very definitely *WEIRD* about a car
> that turns itself off when you hit the brake and come to a stop, even
> a crawl, then powers back up when you hit the gas .. very freaky
> stuff, but after 10 minutes in the Vienna Gürtel I see the big fat
> point right away: if every car did this, we'd be a hell of a lot
> better off ..
>
> Still, its bloody small.  Too small, even, for a spot for Flynn, so
> I'm glad there's only a couple days of it to go and then we revert
> back to pure decadence ..
>
> ;
> --
> Jay Vaughan
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> music-bar mailing list
> music-bar at lists.music-bar.org
> http://lists.music-bar.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/music-bar
>