i cannot escape my science training. When faced with overwhelming facts i re-assess my perception and update my concept of how things are. i find i must now alter my belief that the people of Americans are idiots and have no genuine concern for the environment. My new finding is that people are idiots and have no genuine concern for the environment.
i just see Americans on a daily basis so my anecdotal observations were limited to my sample base. Upon looking with a larger world view it is indeed our species that is the problem. Americans just tends to be in a better financial position (although possibly not for long) to flaunt consumerism, but given the opportunity it seems to grab all bald monkeys.
i will take my beloved Prius as an example. i bought mine in late '03. Since then i have just sat back and watched.
Gas prices have been rising sharply and, of course, more and more people are looking at hybrids as a serious option. The Prius happens to be the best designed and best selling of those hybrids. Too many have gone from crying about gas prices to crying about waiting lists for hybrids. To all you crybabies: buy a fucking box of tissues, buy a fucking bus pass, and while riding the bus call your parents on your overpriced cell phone and ask them why they raised you to be such a whiny pussy. They were probably hippies who sold out their beliefs to earn more money.
The shortage is not due to the auto companies trying to raise the prices like some Cabbage Patch Kid scare. The problem is that people are idiots. Toyota's original first generation Prius was smaller and did not sell all too well. They completely re-designed it and a cult was formed. It sold better than they had predicted and with those of us who got them acting like strange fanatical evangelists the lust was contagious. It took Toyota some time but eventually they not only were able to get production to catch up with demand but even started to introduce incentives and lower prices on select packages.
Sales leveled out and at times even dropped. Suddenly gas prices start rising at a quickened rate and the easily excitable bi-peds migrated away from their metal dinosaurs and started to hunt for the smaller, quicker hybrids. A lot goes into car production, especially hybrids which have batteries to take into account. Production cannot shift gears that quickly. Auto assembly lines can in time be shifted around to produce more of a given line of vehicles but battery manufacturers also have to juggle around production to attempt to match auto line assembly. Throw into the mix that Toyota has strict sense of quality control. When upping production you must be extra careful that quality is not compromised.
Even more variables come into play. Toyota has been exploring both switching hybrids to lithium ion batteries (which are smaller and lighter for the same power) and plug-in hybrids. With rumors of a dramatically redesigned Prius coming out soon, maybe even as a plug-in model, the current model may soon be outdated. Why up production on a model that will soon be discontinued in it's current form?
This is not even getting into the real problem causing the shortage: car companies make what's selling. When Americans have been snubbing anything smaller than a mini-suv/cross-over vehicle our counter-parts across the Atlantic have been mocking hybrids because they do not use their beloved diesel (which gets better gas mileage but produces more pollution per gallon). Car companies are not philanthropic agencies looking to improve the human condition. They are for-profit producers/sellers. They'll make whatever you buy.
Conclusions get jumped to. Fingers get pointed. Yelling. Tears. Excuses. If our fur covered, poo flinging relatives could talk they'd call us all idiots. Then they'd ask for a banana. In the movie American History X they say to end strong with a quote because someone else has probably said it before, and better than you could. So i will conclude with a quote from the wise old Gwen: Shit's bananas.
Long live chimp-chimp.
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