Do you think the oil companies are angry about me buying a Pruis.?

Question

I fill up with about $30. It has a 11 gallon tank. I can drive it for a week no problem. I don't really drive more because after I commute to work and back, there isn't much time to just go driving around. Just the usual things around the house or the nearby store. I am afraid the oil lobby will want to take my car away.

Answer 1

First of all, it's a Prius, not Pruis, and secondly, I doubt the oil companies are going to take your car away. They get plenty of business from all the Hummers out there :-).

Answer 2

how many miles are you driving in that week. If I want to I only have to fill my car once a week. I also walk alot but I really do not think the oil companies care, they seem to be making lots of money.

Answer 3

no, why would they your still buying their product!

Answer 4

Sell the prius and buy a full electric golf kart

Because now your still at the pump 1 time per week.

Add that to the other prius and other hybrid owners, and your at the pump still - daily.

So it really makes no difference.

Answer 5

nope.. they are in the battery business as well..you are the biggest customer they have had in some time...

Answer 6

They don't care, they raise price if sales get slow.

Answer 7

I work for an oil company managing fuel inventories at stations around the country.  I can tell you we're all about conservation of resources.  We encourage our employees to use mass transit, arrange discounts on fuel efficient cars, maintain car pooling groups at our larger locations.  We applaud your efforts to use less fuel.

Our businesses, like all oil companies, are diversified enough that we don't rely on gasoline profits to drive our bottom line.  Nobody is making money on selling gasoline right now (refining is a different story).  We're into car care products like wash and wax products, seat  and steering wheel covers, air fresheners, and of course, motor oil, just to name a few.  

Besides, while there were maybe 1000 high mileage hybrids sold yesterday, your neighbors bought about 20,000 low mileage SUV's and pickups.  There's no danger of our running out of people to sell fuel to, my friend.  Toyota sold about 250K Prius last year, while the #1, 2 & 4 selling vehicles in the US were Ford, Chevy and Dodge pickups, in that order.  The total sales of those p/u's were 1.8 MILLION units.

Let's do some math.  Using an average mpg figure of 17 mpg for the trucks and 46 for the Prius, pulled from the EPA average ratings, let's see how much of an impact the Prius has on economy.

1,800,000 trucks @ 17 mpg + 250,000 P @ 46 mpg = 20.5 mpg.  Sounds like an impressive effect, except, this is based on all those trucks having the highest mpg available for that model ( 2WD 6 cyl with manual trans.) and only includes the top 3 trucks, not the SUV's.  This is also just 2006 vehicles, no prior years are included.  Larger engines pull the truck number down to 14.5, giving an average of 18.3 and that doesn't even start to include 4 wheel drives.

Now don't get me wrong, even though I work for an oil company, I still drive relatively high mpg vehicles (27 & 31 mpg).  Free gasoline is NOT a perk of the job, trust me, I'm standing right beside you, paying the same price.  I wish people would stop buying those monstrosities and ESPECIALLY turn them off when there's nobody in them!!  You want to talk about pulling down mpg numbers?  That's what kills me.  These fairies don't want to get into a car with an uncomfortable temp, so they run the engines while they're in the store, picking up the kids, whatever.  While your Prius is "off", those pigs are sucking up gasoline sitting still...

The oil companies want to be selling fuel a long time.  You're helping them to achive that goal, so no, we're not going to take your Prius away.  We're going to pat you on the back and thank you for doing your part to keep us in business!!

Answer 8

They don't care.

Answer 9

Yeah...Lock your doors. They are coming after you as you sit at your computer! Are you serious?