I don't understand why anyone would be against higher mileage and lower emissions. I decided in 2001 to never buy a regular gas car again. And I haven't. I've saved a lot of money on gas and I'm not polluting the air as much. Half the time I'm driving totally on electricity.
Higher overall vehicle cost and lower capabilities of the vehicle (generally).
If you want me to buy a “clean(er)” car it cannot cost more and must have at least the same level of capabilities as the older cars.
That is 100%vtotal bullshit.
I have a 2005 Prius. 45 MPG, Carries a shit load of stuff & saves me big money.
I had a loaner Prius for a couple weeks while my truck was in the shop. At first I was pissed because they didn't give me a truck or SUV, that's all they had available. I decided I'd beat the crap out of the Prius. After the two weeks I didn't mind the Prius though. It's an ugly ass car and handles like a big go cart but that thing took a beating and returned amazing gas mileage. Not fast but not as gutless as you'd think it would be either, has just enough pep. Even doing 85 on the highway for a 160 mile round trip where the gas engine is doing the work it got great mpg. It was fun seeing how far you could keep it on just the electric motor from a stop. Also when you come to a stop everything is off. One night I was out late no traffic had the windows down and came to a stop. Complete silence could hear the crickets chirping. Kinda neat. I thought I would hate it but I was actually impressed with it.
My mother had one...I wasn't impressed. Cramped interior, harsh ride with no handling benefit, weird Jetsons-meets-TRON interior kitch, poor handling on the glazed-donut LRR tires, and a very large price premium over a conventional car. The only purpose for it is virtue-signalling.
My uncle had a Prius too. I remember getting into it for the first time, and having a "This is it?" moment. That isn't to say the car wasn't good... but relative to the additional cost of that car, the results were significantly underwhelming.
That said, you would have to know my uncle. This is the guy who in high school, was constantly buying the latest gadget, so he could go around impressing people with some nifty, yet unimportant feature, that his thingy could do, and yours could not.
And it wasn't like it was arrogance, it was simply his nature that, cool gadgets is what got him excited. So all we day, he's telling me "see it's turning off the engine!" and "See it's turning the engine back on!".
Again it was nifty, but seriously, do you really think it's worth paying $10,000 more for what is otherwise an average car so that you can "hear the crickets" in an expensive car?
Now if that's your thing... and that's worth $10,000 more for an average car... far be it from me to suggest you do otherwise.
I've just never understood how people can pay $10,000 more for a car, to save $3,000 in gas.
Now with my uncle, is almost made sense... almost. He was driving a thousand miles a week, because he was working in southern Ohio, while his home was north of Chicago.
Of course the moment me moved, he started driving his Camaro again.