Going pale green

My new car is on the Internet list of “Things White People Like.” I’m not ashamed.

I was at Manhattan Toyota, having just brokered the deal on a spanking clean white hatchback, when I found myself sharing an elevator with a total stranger. A familiar awkwardness was lifted by the stranger’s question. “Here to pick up a car?”

I nodded yes.

“Whadya get?” stranger asked.

“I’m a 55-year-old white woman. What do you think I got? A Prius, of course.”

The stranger giggled weakly and the doors opened. “Where do you live?” he taunted.

“Tribeca,” I said, “where else?”

Okay, I’m a little self-conscious. But when you live in Tribeca and have a second home in the Catskills, it’s easy to feel typecast in your own reality show. But this isn’t about me, as my narcissistic mother used to say. It’s about saving the world, one Prius at a time.

One could argue that owning a second home is inherently anti-green. We use nearly twice the electricity, oil and gas that one-home owners use. So, as conscious earth-dwellers, we do our best to conserve. We also try to spend less than the GDP—not easy these days. Because whatever our demographics say about us, we are really just middle-class people living above our means. And the oil bill for filling our home heating oil tank last week would cover in-state tuition for a year at City College.

You could say, if you were being catty, that the Prius is an attempt to preserve our extravagance as much as to save the planet. But save the planet it does, to some extent anyway.

For one, it sends a message to car manufacturers to offer more cars like the 45-mpg Prius, the highest mileage car on the market. And hybrid cars cost less to maintain overall. Saving us some of that rare cash-on-hand.

For another, it offers perks like the Clean-Pass that waives the occupancy requirement in High Occupancy Vehicle lanes. It is also the only car that qualifies for a discounted E-Z Pass that lops 50 percent off the tunnel and bridge tolls in off-peak hours.

But the Prius isn’t just about discounts. After all, it costs a few thousand more at the dealership than a comparably sized car might. Contrary to popular myth, it wasn’t even close to 30 grand. I got the dealer to take 300 bucks off the sticker price (we shared the same birthday), bringing it in at $23,625.

For my husband, who is sort of a geek, the best part of the new toy—I mean, car—is the energy feedback screen. It’s something every car should have, because it makes you a better driver as well as a more conscious energy consumer. The dashboard screen monitors the kind of energy you are using, gas or electric or both, as well as the mpg you are enjoying.

This is a huge wake-up call for jackrabbit starters like him, and leads to more harmonious family relations and lower blood pressure. I don’t have to tell him to slow down, the car tells him, via his wallet.

The Prius, meanwhile, is true to its word. Ours comes in at an average of 45.5 mpg. We use it minimally in the city—to get in and get out—moreso on the highway and around the countryside. It feels like a full-size car inside, with plenty of pack-rat space in the hatchback. Now, when I’m driving the mini-van, with a full retinue of teenagers, I feel like I’m floating in space with no place to land my elbows.

I sold the older second car, a spiffy little RAV4 that once sported my RIVRMUSE license plate (there’s that hereditary narcissism I told you about) to a neighbor whose Ford Explorer only gets 10 mpg. A trip to Honesdale will cost him half as much in gas in the RAV.

In a few weeks my new Prius may be sporting something extra—an Obama bumper sticker to proclaim my predictable liberalism.

- Cass Collins