Why a Prius?

The personal numbers worked. I was driving a 98 Ford Explorer (an undesired distribution from a divorce), and its was hard to take on payments again. There are cheaper quality cars with near-enough fuel efficiency, so why take on the payments, a new technology, a short-life half-breed?

• the lowest carbon emissions of any choice available to me. Any incremental cost to me personally can easily be borne by a most meager sense of global responsibility. In any pay now or pay later deferred cost scenario, carbon will prove to be much much more expensive for our children than it ever would have been for us.
  
• I vote, as an american consumer, against the corporate interests who control our government. That I can not choose to buy a pure-electric (zero to 60 in a traffic integrating period, 30 mile range, see the Meyers Sparrow) or the Mercedes SmartCar (80 mpg, non-hybrid, available in Vancouver BC but not in the US thanks to the policies of Daimler-Chrysler) has to do with simple, short-term reward, amoral, monopolistic interest mandated market disruption.
  
• the Prius is a design wedge; its body profile signalling a disruptive change. I saw my first one in its first year in the US, owned proudly by an Intel engineer. In 2006, the current owners seem a mix of frugal progressive elders and mid-aged practical adopters (including myself). I doubt the Prius's uncompromising aerodynamic form will prove to be an enduring hot design. At this point its role is to show itself as a viable choice, with that added leading edge derived from the linguistic association (Latin, "prius" = to go before). The root of the 2006 Prius position - best mileage - will only last one season, though my sense of the competition is that Toyota's engineering is two to three years ahead of the catch-uppers