How Can You Tell Someones Drives a Prius?

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If you know the answer to this joke ("they'll tell you") then consider this for a moment: one thing I notice from monitoring social networks and watching tv/movies is that the Toyota Prius seems to catch a lot of humor from people who enjoy making cracks at it. It's almost as if you're instantly tagged as an environmental awareness extremist, an egoist, or a goofball if you drive or support one, because mainstream media is telling us to think that way. For the record, I thought "Horrible Bosses" was a hilarious movie, though I personally blame it for the amount of times I've had to hear "You were drag racing...in a Prius?"

Here's the thing- the people who want to joke about or bash this car know that deep down inside, if they could get 50 MPG and a built in navigation/infotainment system (Entune), they'd jump at the chance. There's a reason the Prius has been around so long and is seen as the flagship hybrid vehicle of the entire automotive industry!

The desire to want to tell everyone about your new car is pretty natural too, so why is it any different to geek out over efficiency rather than performance? As I discussed previously, there is still a notion in some people's heads that you can't buy a car unless it's from Ford, GM, or Chevy, and if you do, it has to be a gas guzzler that goes from 0-60 in less than 6 seconds. Is that really something to be proud of, and yet getting great gas mileage isn't? It seems like a double standard in this case.

As this video from CNET shows, you can recoup the cost of an average car with the gas saved by purchasing a Prius in about 5 years. It's even faster if you drive more than 15,000 miles a year or if you practice hypermiling techniques. On top of that, it has a built in sensor that shows you the average miles per gallon you are attaining on a monthly basis. How cool is that?

Do you think we're too quick to lump drivers of certain vehicles into stereotypes these days? What other shows or movies have you seen where the character is defined by the car he/she drives?