Prius is not the Savior we thought after all

File this under what you see is not what you get. I have railed against the Toyota Prius before. It looks like I have good reason to. Well other than the fact that it is not as green as Toyota and the Environmental nuts would have you believe.

I have said that the Prius doesn't get as high an MPG as the sticker says. Which is really kind of funny when you think about it. The reason is because many cars exceed their actual mpg than stated on the sticker in the showroom.

The reason being that the auto manufacturers prefer to understate their mpg so when people actually get better, they are happy. Prius has been proven the opposite. The mpg as stated on the sticker of the Prius says that the car will get a combined 46 mpg highway and city.

Drivers are getting far less than the sticker. Test upon test and actual drivers are getting around 40. In fact, as I have stated in the past, that there are other cars that get the same or nearly the same with far less devastating environmental impact.

Not to mention the fact that when the cars came on the market, they were going for a premium price and there were back orders.

Now comes this. The BMW 5 series deisel beats the Prius in actual driving test. Yes you read that correctly. The not so small BMW 520d got a stunning 41.9 mpg vs the Prius at 40.1 mpg. This is made more amazing that the BMW is 500 lbs heavier than the Prius and it obviously is not shaped to get the best mpg possible.

The BMW is classified as an executive car, which means it is far from the compact category of cars. Unfortunately this automobile is not available in the USA but it should be. This begs the question do hybrids have a place in saving the planet or are they just over hyped vehicles that should not be on the car lots of the world?

The point is, we can build cars that do not damage the environment as much as the Prius does. We don't need laws to tell us what to drive or how to drive. The market works and I would say that if the BMW 520d were to become available in the US, it would be a big hit.