Letter: Consider the source belittling hybrid cars

Sunday, April 15, 2007 | 7:25 a.m.

George Will's April 12 column took a shot at hybrid cars, specifically the Prius, which he compared with the Hummer H3. He said the Prius' life expectancy is only 109,000 miles and compared that with the H3's life span at 207,000 miles. I'm sure drivers of both vehicles are shocked.

Where did Will get his data? Consumer Reports? Car and Driver? Popular Mechanics? Will didn't choose a well-known, respected group of engineers or scientists for this study, he chose a marketing firm called CNW Marketing Research.

My family owned a Chevy Astro minivan and it gave up after 65,000 troubled miles. The H3 doesn't look much better. Consumer Reports rates the Hummer H3's first-year reliability as well below average.

How CNW Marketing determined that H3's are good for 207,000 miles only a marketer knows. Toyota is on its seventh year of the Prius' production and if most of their drivers average 16,000 miles per year, quite a few of these cars are due to die soon (according to CNW).

Any Prius owners want to share stories? None of the car magazines is reporting massive problems and Consumer Reports has rated the Prius as an excellent used car. There are reports on the Internet that Prius taxis have more than 200,000 miles on them and are still going.

George Will is an oil industry hack. Like my parent's Chevy Astro, maybe it's time the Las Vegas Sun trades him in.

David Klamann, Las Vegas