Prius Drivers Take the Heat for the Dying Oil Industry

Ever wonder why automotive heads poke fun at Toyota Prius owners? 

For car geeks like me, often the automotive press jokes about the tree-hugging snobbery of owners of that particular gas/electric hybrid car.

With gas prices constantly rising, all the major automakers are pumping out hybrid these days. Some of the better ones are even producing all electric vehicles.

But still, whenever an automotive journalist reviews a hybrid car, an electric one, or another alternative fuelled vehicle, they almost always toss in a parting shot at Toyota Prius drivers.

Not that I drive one myself. Though I have driven them, and found them to be nimble, quick and very fun vehicles to toss around the block. I’m still amazed at the tight turning radius of those cars – one of the best I've ever encountered.

Despite not owning a Prius, I feel obligated to come to the owner’s aid, because they aren't the real targets of these jabs.

All drivers that choose environmentally-friendly vehicles are.

That’s right, although the automotive reviewer may be talking about an electric vehicle, when they snap “and that ought to impress even a Prius owner,” they are snapping at all green drivers.

It’s no secret that the oil industry has a lot to lose as we move from gas guzzling Hummers to hybrids like the Prius, and eventually onto fully electric vehicles like the Chevy Volt.

Sure, there are still petrochemical components in these cars – the tires are made from rubber which, as anyone who’s witnessed a tire fire knows, is made from oil-based materials.

But the oil tycoons in their lofty fossil-fuel fed homes know all too well that eventually they will be out of business. All fossil fuels will eventually disappear – that’s the nature of the resource.

It took billions of years for the layers of dinosaurs, cave dwelling humans, bugs and all the other creatures prior to our discovery of the liquid black gold, to breakdown under pressure to naturally form the crude oil which we harvest from deep within the Earth’s crust.

Although we humans mine, drill and eventually collect and use fossil fuels, we don’t have much luck when it comes to replenishing the crop. That’s something only Mother Nature can do, and you can’t rush Mother Nature.

So what does this all have to do with automotive journalists taking pot shots at Toyota Prius owners?

Plenty.

The oil and gas industry runs the auto sector – or at least it has a great influence over it. So when the Prius took off as one of the best – if not the best and most popular hybrid – it became an instant target by those who stand the most to lose from alternative fuelled vehicles – the oil and gas sector. 

So the oil and gas sector used its great influence to distance themselves from the snooty environmental elite driving Toyota Prius hybrids.

They manufactured an image of your typical Prius owner, being one of great snobbery.

Though most I know who drive these cars are just like you and me – trying to get from point A to B without emptying their wallets.

Though the oil and gas tyrants love an emptying wallet on fill-up – it helps ease their pain as they remember their days are numbered.