George Will recycles "Prius loses money" untruth
2010 Toyota Prius - Click above for a high-res image gallery
Regular AutoblogGreen readers are well aware that there are a number of wide-ranging hurdles facing eco-friendly transportation choices like electric vehicles and hybrids. With so many real honest-to-goodness issues to choose from, we wonder why anyone needs to come up with fake ones, but here we go again. Speaking on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, conservative columnist George Will said:
[The Prius is] affordable because Toyota sells it at a loss, and it can afford to sell it at a loss because it is selling twice as many gas-guzzling pickup trucks of the sort our president detests. So as an auto executive, he's off to a rocky start.
Sigh. We've been hearing the line about the Toyota Prius being a money-loser since it was first introduced. It was likely true a few years ago, but not any longer. Toyota has repeatedly denied claims that it loses money on the Prius, and the Nikkei newspaper in Japan estimated just last week that both Honda and Toyota make over $3,000 of profit on each hybrid sold. Someone needs to take George Will to school.
[Source: ABC News via Treehugger]
