I've Been Converted, I want a Prius
Last week my daughter flew in to spend a week with me. We decided to go to Lake Tahoe and up to Reno for two days. My car is great for local driving, but it only gets 22mpg (gas is over $4 a gallon here). Also, it is starting to have some issues. We decided to rent an economy car. The local Enterprise didn't have anything but SUVs, a pickup, and a Prius. The Prius was more expensive than I wanted, but he gave me a deal (20% off). The Prius advertises it gets 60mpg. Well, we didn't get that kind of mileage, only got 48mpg. We went from San Francisco to Tahoe, to Reno, back over the ski lift areas (over 10K feet climb) back to Tahoe, then back to Reno and home to San Francisco. All in all the trip was 600 miles. The Prius used 12.4 gallons to make that trip. If we hadn't crossed the Sierras twice and the ski lift mountain once, we'd have gotten the 60mpg. All in all, renting the Prius only cost me $25 a day over taking my own car and buying gas for it.