Tesla Keeps Poaching Prius Buyers, and It’s Not Slowing Down

It is obvious to some extent, Prius was the badge of honor for many &quot;bleeding green&quot;, now the mantle has been taken by Tesla and rightfully so.<p>Electric cars have many advantages - because the fuel is now electricity which can be produced from multiple sources. If you are motivated customer, you can produce it on your roof (in limited amounts usual max is 10kW plant) and of course if you have land, you can add some small medium wind devices.<p>But most of the people have to remember a one very green option available to them, that is use your current car till it goes into the grave and while doing so drive sparingly and only on need basis. The biggest problem with carbon footprint reduction is life-style and behavior every thing else is a symptoms of it.

A bunch of rich people bought Priuses because it was the best environmental status symbol available even though it wasn&#x27;t as luxurious as they would have preferred. Now those rich people are buying Teslas because it is both luxurious and a notch up as an environmental status symbol.<p>People that are not as rich but still want to have an environmental status symbol edge over Prius drivers are moving to the Nissan Leaf or Chevy Volt.

Prius emissions: some value<p>Tesla emissions: 0.00<p>You could say that Tesla is just moving the problem to the power plants. Well, they solved the problem, now it is time for the power plants to do the same.

I was talking to some folks at an environmental conference this weekend and they made a great point about people who buy electric cars.<p>&quot;I wouldn&#x27;t have been able to buy my Nissan Leaf if Bob here hadn&#x27;t bought his Chevy Volt, and before that the people who bought their Prius models.&quot;<p>It&#x27;s more important people are buying electric cars, then who they&#x27;re buying them from. With increased demand, more people can see the benefits of going this route instead of the traditional gas vehicles. This will hopefully expand the market making it more attractive for other companies to develop add electric cars to their lineups.<p>I realize many car companies are dead set against electric, but you can only bottle up demand for so long.

It really surprises me that the rationale behind the switching from a Prius to a Tesla doesn&#x27;t involve something along of the lines of &quot;Tesla is an American company&quot;. I mean, I&#x27;m a foreigner and all, so there&#x27;s nothing nationalist about that comment, but I would expect some form of economic pride and patriotism on the par of American buyers in these times of economic downturn.<p>Also, were I American, I&#x27;d be really proud of what Tesla pulled off with the Model S. It&#x27;s American muscle car meet new economy meet green energy meet entrepreneurship. Seeing France struggle with their attempts at electric cars, I really envy America on this one.

Tesla is a status symbol, Prius is not.<p>They have different goals it would seem, Toyota wants to make fuel efficient cars available to the everyman.<p>Tesla wants to make the fully electric car cool enough that people will aspire to own one.

Yuppie Prius buyers got tired of slumming. With a Tesla, they can be self-satisfied and ego-satisfied at the same time.

I don&#x27;t see Prius and Tesla as comparable products. The Prius is a low-performance econobox but it does have unlimited range due to being a hybrid and is practical for most everyday transportation needs. The Tesla is a high performance, expensive, limited-range specialty vehicle, impractical for many uses.

Why isn&#x27;t there a Lexus version of the Prius yet? If people are buying someone else&#x27;s car for $70k instead of yours for $30k then you need to make your car just a little bigger with a larger screen and sone nice wood trim PRONTO!

If only I could drive long distances (300+ miles) in a Tesla.