Green is Good. It's Just Not Sexy

I've said for many years that the Toyota Prius is going to go down in history as being THE vehicle that brought the idea of an electric/hybrid car to the masses in the same way that the Model T made the idea of owning a "horseless carriage" possible 100+ years ago.

That said, I've never been a real fan of the car.

Let's just say that it never really "fit" either my driving style or my 6" 200lb body.

We owned one for several years and I was forever banging my head, knees or shins on one thing or another whenever I got in or out of the car. On the other hand, my wife loved it! Partly because it fit her petite frame better and partly because it got great gas mileage - a boon for the amount of company time she's spent on the road - if only if you followed the rules and drove like IT wanted you to.

To illustrate this point, on two separate occasions, she and one of our boys traveled down to Washington D.C. from Portland, Maine on a little more than a single tank of gas. In other words, she traveled approximately 550 miles for $25 in gas. It's one thing to see a 55 mpg listing on a vehicle window...quite another to say that you drove from Maine to D.C. without refilling your tank.

This is also where I will make another comparison between the Prius and the Model T.

Both cars became incredibly popular because of their affordability - NOT because of all the bells and whistles they offered their owners.

As Henry F most famously noted, "customers could have a Model T in any color they wanted...as long as it was black". While Prius options were dramatically larger, the car still reminded me of utilitarian transport. You got in, it went, it stopped and you got out and on with your life.

As the sticker above points out, no one ever said: "that's one bad-ass Prius."

However, I'll bet that when history looks back on the Prius Effect, its impact on consumer behavior and vehicle emissions is going to be huge.

Never before have so many individual people been able to travel so far for so little green. Drive softly and make a big dent in the amount of new pollution we add to the air. Just don't expect to see your ride on the cover of Car & Driver magazine anytime soon.

Where do you think the Prius will land in the annals of automobile history?

~ TK