[FoRK] Prius does more damage to environment than Hummer? ( slashdot bits )

[Baron Earl]

On 3/21/07, Justin Mason <jm at jmason.org> wrote:
>   'First, make sure you're looking at the right numbers. CNW's 2005 study
>   reported that a Prius costs $3.25/mile but a Hummer H2 only costs
>   $1.95/mile. In 2006 they revised their figures: a Prius now costs
>   $2.865/mile and an H2 costs $3.585 in "energy units". Anyone still
>   quoting the 2005 figures is either negligent or not being a good faith
>   actor.'

Costs who $2.865/mile? I looked at the study page:

http://cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy/

... and I don't see where the numbers are coming from. It sounds like
they're referring to the energy cost associated with producing one
car, but that would mean that Toyota spends $286,500.00 for just the
energy to make one Prius. Non-sensical. If you want to subtract out
fuel from the cost:

100,000 miles
45mpg
$3.00/gallon

... that's $6666.67 in fuel costs, leaving $279,833.33 in energy costs
to produce one Prius.

The Reporter article says that the number refers to "the total
combined energy is taken from all the electrical, fuel,
transportation, materials (metal, plastic, etc) and hundreds of other
factors over the expected lifetime of a vehicle," but the numbers don't compute.

Maybe I should include the square root of -1 in there somewhere,
because the numbers seem to be imaginary.