Toyota Prius Saves Large Parts Of Australia From Being Covered By Noxious Gases
Toyota has been selling many hybrids since they introduced the Toyota Coaster Hybrid EV minibus in 1997. A few months later, they started mass-production of the Prius, and it’s been a runaway hit. In Japan, the Prius is leading the charts. The Toyota hybrid system is available in minivans, SUVs and sedans. Nine TMC-produced hybrid passenger vehicle models and three hybrid commercial vehicle models are sold in Japan. Outside Japan, eight hybrid passenger vehicle models are sold in approximately 80 countries. So far, Toyota has sold 2.68 million hybrids throughout the world. Of course, Toyota is proud of that achievement. But what are they really proud of? That they have saved the world from a huge pile of dangerous dirt.
Through their hybrid technology, Toyota has spared the planet 15 million tons of CO2. The very gas that is guilty of global warming. Allegedly. Now picture that: 15 million tons saved! Having a hard time visualizing success? The Australian site Advertiser Talk tried to put it in terms anybody can understand
- “Measured at sea level, that quantity of CO2 equates to more than 7.28 billion cubic meters of gases.” Come on, we are metrically challenged.
- “Imagine a container that is two storeys (six meters) high and one meter wide that stretches almost 60 times around the equator.” Hard to imagine? I’m having problems imagining a container that is 6 meter high – once it starts winding around the globe, they lose me. So how about:
- “Rather than imagining a massive equatorial container, that amount of CO2 would fill the 1.7 million cubic meters of the Melbourne Cricket Ground at least 4,285 times. That’s once a week for more than 82 years.” Not doing it for you, simply because you don’t get cricket? So let’s say …
- “Alternatively, it would blanket 90 percent of NSW to a depth of one centimeter – or envelop both Victoria and Tasmania with a 2.2cm covering.” That’s a bit shallow, don’t you think? But we are slowly getting there.
Still not connecting with you? How about 20,681 Lake Meades? 308 times the contents of the Lake Baikal? 93 times the Caspian Sea? Can you picture it now? No?
Just take their word for it then: They saved you a whole shitload of shit.
(Disclaimer. Due to mindboglification, TTAC will not be responsible for damages caused by mathematical errors.)
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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"dangerous dirt." Rubbish. CO2 is a colorless, odorless, non-toxic gas. Its presence in the atmosphere is absolutely necessary for life on this planet. The amount in the Earth's atmosphere at sea level presently is less than 400 parts per million, or, .04%. The mass of the Earth's atmosphere is about 5 quadrillion (5*10e15) tonnes, and, .04% of that is 20 trillion tonnes. 15 million tonnes is less than .0001% of that. It is literally nothing.
Metric is not hard. The US is about the only country in the world not using it in any official fashion. That doesn't mean the facts presented are wrong. It tells us the readers are ignorant of the most common and trivially understood measuring system used by over 5 billion folks daily. Shame on Bertel because as a German, he would have known no other measuring system until he had to face the idiocy of measuring things in furlongs per hogshead or similar. The MCG is a very, very, very big ground. It holds 100,000 folks. The MCG is one of two photos in the Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seating_capacity#Seating_capacity_in_venues) the other being the Indy raceway. NSW is big. Covering the entire state to a depth of 2.2 cm is huge. We have flooding like that at the moment, breaking our 13 year drought, and it will take a few years for all the water to go away. Even if you don't believe in climate change, what if you're wrong? Acting the same as we've always done means you've just given our children's children no chance to use oil, which we squander in huge trucks and cheap plastic bits and bobs. We should be conserving our oil for important things, and sooner or later, we simply have to stop burning it for moving around when there are cheap and viable alternatives. We need oil and gas for things that cannot be made in any other way, such as medicines, gases important to industry, and so on. We should conserve oil wherever we can. Minivans that can halve their fuel use, say by using 10 l/100 km instead of 20 l/100 km, not only saves money to the owner of the minivan every day, but it means there's 10 litres left every 100 km the minivan travels to use in the future, with no diminished loss of lifestyle or luxury. It's a win-win. There's nothing wrong with being conservative in its true sense.