Attacking masculinity + Toyota.

I noticed this article at  CBC.CA on how a Canadian is heading up Toyota’s Risk Management group.  I see this as a good thing for Toyota, and score for Canadians working in Risk Management.

I couldn’t help but notice the comments being quite derogatory towards Toyota, especially attacking someone’s masculinity for driving a Toyota.

WTF?  My Prius is a seriously cool car and, at this point, it is my dream car until we get long range electrical vehicles.  And the looks when I had my two Echoes when we had 4 guys my size or bigger coming out of the car was priceless.  Honestly, all three of my cars have been pretty zippy, certainly more so than the Nissan Sentra I was driving earlier this week.

Here is my response to the article as posted:

I’ve owned three Toyotas – Two Echos and now a Prius (2nd gen). Personally, the fuel efficiency of the Echo is what won me over relative to the other manufacturers, and it’s what I could afford at the time.

I LOVE my Prius. It has great get up and go, the styling is great and the features are pretty much ahead of it’s time.

While Toyota was slow to respond initially, I have no doubt that they are working hard at changing. I was concerned about the braking issues, but Toyota also worked with top notch organizations to confirm and pick apart their design. They’ve addressed the issues (adjusting the pedals where appropriate) and also confirmed that it wasn’t a fault in the software of the vehicle.

As far as I am concerned, Toyota has addressed the issues and I will buy a fourth one in the future. As for attacks against my masculinity for driving a Toyota, grow up people.

Gasoline bullshit

This is the most expensive tank of gas I have purchased.

And what were the profits of the various petrol companies, last year?
What dictatorship are we in bed with these days?

At one level I’m glad I drive a Hybrid (2009 Toyota Prius – LOVE IT!) and I have been known to get 800km in a tank, but it doesn’t seem enough.  No, I’m not going to rush out and get a GM Volt – I can’t afford it for one, and I’m not willing to be a test guinea pig for that kind of new technology.

I’ve always chosen cars that sipped fuel – two Toyota Echos (2001, 2004) and the Prius.  I full admit, I am cheap when it comes to buying gas – why should I line the profits of the gas companies in bed with governments of questionable  reputation?  I also do care, somewhat, about the environment – and I agree it can be argued that simply by having a car that I’m not being very green.  I do what I can, and have had a few initiatives at home to help green my own world.

Welcome!

Hi Everyone – Welcome to my new website updated for the 2010s.

I plan on being considerably more active these days blogging, etc…  It looks like the import feature from my staging site did not quite work as well as I had hoped, so I will need to do a bit of cleaning up.  Oh well!