Prius envy has taken an ugly twist in California with violent anger and vandalism aimed at the hybrids and their owners.
Following a recent Prius fire on the streets of Los Angeles, investigators concluded that the inferno that consumed the new hybrid parked on a residential street was the result of arson.
The owner of the Los Angeles Prius told investigators that she heard an explosion early in the morning in July, followed by the sirens of fire engines. "I went outside to see what was going on and saw it was my car," she said.
An earlier investigation of violence aimed at Prius owners by police in Petaluma near San Francisco reported that at last seven Priuses were damaged by vandals during a two-week period in April.
One Petaluma Prius owner told police that she heard banging sounds in the middle of the night. She found that someone had taken a hammer to the body and windshield of her Prius.
A second Prius owner suffered car damaged from vandals twice during a two-week time frame. While the first hybrid was in a shop for repairs, a vandal threw a large rock at a Prius the owner was renting, causing substantial damage to the hybrid.
The attacks all occurred at night while the cars were parked and unoccupied. Vandals used large rocks and bricks to damage the hybrids. In one instance a Prius was rammed by another vehicle.
The Prius is not the first vehicle to serve as a target in the sea of disdain and resentment that is flooding U.S. roads as commuters jam highways and gas prices linger at historically high prices. The Web site IhateHummer.Com encourages motorists to give Hummer owners a one-finger hello. Vandals in Washington D.C. smashed a new Hummer last year and left environmental messages painted on the side of the large SUV.
A Toyota spokesman said the violence may be motivated by people angry with the environmental movement in the U.S. since the Prius is now a symbol for greens and environmentally conscience consumers. In California, many hybrid drivers can legally drive in carpool lanes without any passengers as a reward for burning less gasoline and producing fewer environmentally harmful emissions.
"For people who are sitting in traffic in an SUV, to see a Prius go by with just a driver in it , maybe there's some resentment there as well," the spokesman suggested.
One new Web site, PriusDrivers.Com, proclaims "I hate Prius drivers. 'I'm better than you are! I drive a Prius,'" underscoring the harsh highway relations polluting roads across the country.
The violence against Prius owners is now a topic of worried discussion on Internet sites like PriusChat.Com. "Unfortunately, some of the hatred directed against Prius drivers doesn't end with words. In the most brutal of a spate of violent attacks against the hybrids and their owners this year, someone torched a six-month-old Prius parked on a residential street in Los Angeles seven weeks ago," one contributor wrote.
The atmosphere of anti-Prius violence is a cause for concern among many owners of the fuel efficient hybrids. "My Prius was hit in a Costco parking lot with large parking spaces. My right rear bumper was smashed in. I was at an end spot against the curb. Of course no one saw anything and no name was left. The next time I went to Costco I was shaking as I headed out the door," wrote one Prius owner.
"Sure, there are small minded people out there that probably target Prii. They will probably be the last holdouts to drive their perfectly good trucks to the junk yard and sell them for $200 worth of scrap metal when gas goes up to 8 bucks a gallon or more," replied another Prius owner.
