Writer is torn between hybrid and sticker shock

Writer is torn between hybrid and sticker shock

I single out the Prius because it’s the best-selling hybrid in America.

I went to Toyota of Portsmouth this past week and found four Priuses in the lot and that red one in the showroom. There were 20 available last month, sales consultant Patrick Fogarty said. A used Prius? Forget about it. The day they come in, they go out the door.

The car’s popularity isn’t new, Toyota of Portsmouth owner Jim Boyle said.

Sales have “been strong since (Hurricane) Katrina,” he said. “Awareness is certainly up. It’s been a strong seller since 2004. You can buy other Toyotas and get great mileage. People who buy them are concerned about the environment … obviously, the more they sell, the more Toyota will keep investing.”

The Toyota dealership is also going green. Used oil from oil changes is being recycled to heat the building. There are skylights and the floor has a special paint to reflect light, saving money on electricity. There are master technicians in the shop trained to work on hybrid vehicles.

It all sounds so right.

The problem is buying a Prius would cost me $100 more a month in car payments a month than I can or want to spend.

Patrick, the salesman I worked with, found a base model at another dealership for $21,959. The car could be here in days, he said.

It has all the bells and whistles I could possibly want: power steering and windows, CD player, keyless entry, air conditioning, everything but leather seats and a sunroof. No Prius has a sunroof; it’s just not in its aerodynamic design.

And no stick shift. I’ve been used to the vroom-vroom of driving a manual transmission and not so secretly harboring a desire for a MINI Cooper. The Prius has a push-button start.

My car payment, with trade-in, would be $349.81 a month for 75 months, according to my lender.

Is it worth it? Would the extra money I’d be spending on a payment each month be made up in gas savings and the good feeling I’d get driving a car that lowers my carbon footprint? Wouldn’t I feel guilty buying anything else?

And then, sustainability expert Bert Cohen told me, it is OK.

Cohen, of Portsmouth, is on the steering committee that put together Portsmouth’s first Sustainability Fair on Saturday. He’s also a professor at UNH, teaching courses on what sustainability means to the individual, and in the second semester, hits them with what the bigger picture means.

“The first thing with any degree of awareness is to feel guilty because we’re not doing enough,” Cohen said.

He makes lists, “two lists,” he said. “One (shows) all I do that I can do better, from buying plastic pencils to bananas in the winter. Then I make a second list of here’s what I do to move to a more sustainable future. I teach, I’m on the mayor’s blue ribbon committee for sustainable practices. I also take cloth shopping bags to the market. I buy organic food. Then I say, look at both lists. What I found is … not to get too tied up about feeling guilty about what I’m not doing.”

This doesn’t mean a big change and shift in perceptions won’t be needed for a sustainable future, he said. The change will need to be as big, he said, as when humans made the leap from hunter gatherer to a society of agriculture, and from agriculture to the Industrial Revolution.

But what does he drive?

A 1995 Honda Civic, he said. Not a hybrid, but an energy-efficient model.

“That car was rated 49 (mpg) city, 53 road; that is better than some of the hybrids are getting today,” he said.

Cohen doesn’t know why it isn’t still available.

“I think it has to do with consumer expectations,” he said.

Expectations and behavior will change, Cohen indicated, when people get feedback that moves them in another direction. For instance, he said, driving in a way that lowers the gas-use monitor on the Prius.

“Feedback,” he said, “is a great change agent … you get rewarded for doing the right thing.”

The right thing for me may not be buying a Prius, or other hybrid, today. And I’ll try not to feel too guilty about that side of my list.

Read the entire article at Writer is torn between hybrid and sticker shock.