Why American

[essentialsaltes]

I saw a billboard this morning for the Saturn Hybrid Aura. Great, I thought, an American hybrid, and I know a lot of happy Saturn owners. So I checked it out. The Aura Greenline is priced at $22.7K and gets 28/35 mpg. Hmmm... that doesn't sound so hot.

Let's see... the 2007 Prius gets 60/51 mpg for $22.2K. Far better performance for slightly less money.

Shit, the non-hybrid 2007 Nissan Sentra gets 29/36 with the continuous variable transmission option, pricing out to around $16K.

Sorry, GM. I know you've got twice as many retirees as employees, but you'll just have to do better than that.

Comments

[jimkeller.livejournal.com]

I average 31 MPG in my Scion XA, and my daily commute is all city driving. I paid about 14K with options. Don't be fooled by the Prius' advertised EPA ratings. It was designed to ace the test, and all the owners I know say they're operating in the low 40s in the real world.

stacymckenna wrote an interesting blog on the subject of apparently green things that aren't which you might want to peruse...

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I knew the Prius numbers had little connection to real-world driving, but low 40s is still significantly better than the Aura's EPA numbers.

And things that are labelled "green" by their manufacturers certainly do need to be investigated somewhat in terms of their total impact.