Recent Comments:
Are these things really worth it? - What if you made a regular car with all the tricks of a Prius? {Autoblog}
Dec 29th 2006 2:38AM Prius is an engineering marvel unmatched on this side of the Pacific. If far outshines any other car in its class available for sale in the U.S. for mileage and low emissions. It does so while being a very practical and affordable mid-sized sedan, with all luxuries and features common in that class and then some. Choosing a Prius over any another new sedan in its class is economically justifiable and environmentally rational.
These are facts. The rest is just sour grapes.
More Prius body styles on the way {Autoblog}
Nov 19th 2006 12:49AM LaughingTooHard: the folks who are best at doing the math have done the math and bought a Prius. If you consider the Impala to be the epitome of a car, of course you don't like the Prius. Why don't you go and criticize SUVs and Minivans and family sedans while you're at it? Why are you taking to the time to knock a car that isn't even in the market segment you'd consider buying? Got a bug up your butt or what?
Prius demand dropping along with prices {Autoblog}
Nov 15th 2006 1:06AM #19: So why don't you just drive a dump truck? I mean, if safety is your only measure, those SUVs are awfully prone to rolling and a lot don't do very well on collision tests. Maybe an old army surplus tank?
Toyota, Honda dominate U.S. fuel economy ratings {Autoblog}
Nov 15th 2006 12:45AM #11: Good question, but yes, you're wrong.
The electricity comes from:
1) The gasoline engine (idling, coasting, etc.)
2) Regenerative breaking.
If we were talking plug-ins, you'd have a point, and a good one. Even then though, it's easier and more cost-efficient to control pollution from a single source than a thousand sources.
But current hybrids get most of their efficiency by: being efficient. They store otherwise wasted energy in the battery, and re-use it.
Jon
More Prius body styles on the way {Autoblog}
Nov 15th 2006 12:28AM Vexation
So, you're surprised that there aren't many 75k+ cars of a model that makes up a tiny percentage of the market and that hasn't been around for many years? I'd have to know what year you bought and how long it took you to put 75k on it, but right off the bat I'm a little surprised that you're surprised.
Patrick Bedard, eh? Would that be the same one who lavishly praises hybrids in a Dec. 2005 article ("Hybrids are really fun for me.")?
http://www.caranddriver.com/columns/10260/patrick-bedard-page2.html
Or is he the one who said "The Toyota Prius will change the way we think about cars and engines"?
http://www.caranddriver.com/columns/7894/patrick-bedard.html
Dennis Simanaitis? Not the same one who said, "By whatever measure, I was highly impressed with the new Prius?"
http://www.roadandtrack.com/article.asp?section_id=6&article_id=828&page_number=1
Frank Markus? Not he who said: "Get an automotive engineer talking about fuel economy, and most will admit that, when designing a vehicle to meet certain size, weight, and performance targets, changing from a traditional gasoline engine to a smaller engine boosted by an electric assist motor and battery with regenerative recharging will net a fuel savings of about 25 percent . . . [other technologies] are rolling out or in the works, but few promise to top the hybrid's 25-percent improvement."
[I can only include three links, you'll have to look it up yourself]
Vexation, is it possible that you haven't read a new word on the Prius since the release of the 2004 edition? It's looking that way. Yes, they all had complaints about the first edition Prius, but the 2004 edition has met universal praise . . . from knowledgeable sources anyway. Yes, it doesn't perform like a (much more expensive) performance car, duh. But the technology is sound. End Of Story.
Disposal of batteries a problem. Hmm. So you aren't aware that auto battery recycling is one of the most successful recycling programs in existence? Or that the NiMH batteries in a Prius are substantially less toxic than lead batteries in conventional cars? Or that the nickel in them is worth a lot and thus eagerly recycled? Or that Toyota has a $200 bounty on each battery? And yes, if everyone drove a hybrid today with the current technology, there might be problems . . . except that the huge investment would drive vast improvements in battery design even faster than they are already happening. But ok, let's all stick with poorer mileage and worse batteries because, what, it's better for the environment? You are aware that gasoline production and emissions have their own environmental issues, ones that are more dispersed and harder to control then automotive battery recycling? I mean, environmentalists are generally fanatical about issues like this and they all seem a-ok with the concept of hybrids. It's usually Detroit press folks or the WSJ that suddenly become environmentally conscious when considering the grievous damage that might possibly in theory be caused by the hybrid batteries of Japanese imports.
So, all you do is bitch about them, then you complain that they don't sell enough? With all you nay sayers, it's a wonder any sold at all in the first generation. You're one of those people warning Columbus not to sail off the edge of the world. Mistaking limitations in the earliest models for a permanent judgment of the worth of the technology, then not noticing when the technology improves and opinion changes. Tell you what, with a new technology (not a new chassis or body), you look at the sales growth of hybrids, not the total sales compared to established models. You look at owner satisfaction. You look at reliability and total ownership cost. So far, on all counts, hybrids are cleaning up. It will take a while before they make up a substantial portion of the market, and new developments may supersede them, but technologies like regenerative breaking just aren't going away. Right now, for achieving maximum efficiency in a practical design, there just isn't a competitor in the U.S. market.
So, CVTs have been running John Deere tractors for years and you're not sure of their viability? Ok. I'll let that one stand by itself. But the point is: with far, far fewer moving parts in a CVT, you're going to be rebuilding your automatic transmission long before I'm rebuilding my CVT, and it's going to be a lot less fun for you. We'll compare our faces if and when we meet in the shop.
So, Vexation: which model Prius did you have? Clearly you were pissed at it, after 75k. If you put 75k on a 2004 model, that's some pretty hefty driving. How long ago did you get rid of it? And what went wrong with it? The batteries? Did it die, or did you sell it? If you sold it, what price did you get? Is it possible that you had a bad experience, and have spent the rest of your life researching problems and feeling gypped and repeating every sliver of bad news you can find in every public forum that mentions Prius? Just wondering. I mean, there are those who irrationally can't say a bad word about 'em, and on the other side there are those . . .
Oh, and I do read factual publications. Those that agree with me, and those that disagree. And then I read folks like you, too.
Cheers,
Jon
More Prius body styles on the way {Autoblog}
Nov 9th 2006 11:50AM To all the folks who keep bringing up the batteries, I repeat my earlier comment: a minimal effort to research the issue in a reliable, factual publication (as opposed to reading self-referential comments bouncing between the merry band of Prius haters) ought to satisfy your curiosity.
The reason this concern isn't bothering Prius buyers is that it is a non-issue, a red herring, with no factual basis. But the charges keep bouncing around the echo chamber. In fact, voicing a concern about the batteries is pretty much sufficient to prove that you know little or nothing about the Prius.
The Prius is more complicated, in a sense, then a traditional auto. But compare the number of parts in the Prius transmission to that in your conventional automatic transmission and consider which is more likely to require expensive repairs in its lifetime?
Accusations are rife about hybrid technology, but really folks, the facts aren't hard to find. There are credible concerns that can be made without throwing around the same old tripe and making yourself look silly and ill-informed.
More Prius body styles on the way {Autoblog}
Nov 3rd 2006 11:28AM It looks to me like it's the Prius haters that crawl out of the woodwork whenever/wherever it is mentioned . . . guess it depends on your POV.
Prius sales down? Hmm . . . yes, as Toyota switched to producing new hybrid models, there was a reduction in Prius SUPPLY, not DEMAND. Note also that ALL car sales were down during the same time periods. For some very up-to-the date info, press releases dated Oct 2006:
"The Prius hybrid sedan posted best-ever September sales of 10,492, an increase of 23.1 percent. The Camry Hybrid, which went on sale in late April, reported sales of 4,044 units in September"
Prius Sales are on the way to matching sales last year, even with a down auto market and the introduction of the hybrid Camry, which directly competes with the Prius. Add Prius + hybrid Camry sales, you get a big increase.
Comments suggesting that the Prius total environmental cost is worse than other cars are all based on the widely-reported CNW Marketing study, which has been seriously questioned. (No published methodolgy, questionable assumptions like that the Prius life-span is only 100k, etc.) Other studies from universities and government labs utterly contradict this study.
Comments about the Prius battery being particularly dangerous, dirty, and/or a huge future cost liability are simply uninformed. The facts about the batteries are available to anyone willing to do a trifling bit of research beyond reading partisan blog rants.
The constant refrain of "smugness" . . . that's an emotional reaction. It has nothing to do with the merit or lack thereof of the car. It has a lot to do with the writer's personal feelings and perceptions.
"Ugly" again is a personal opinion and not an objectively verifiable fact.
Cheers,
Jon
Consumer Reports says Prius best for resale value {Autoblog Green}
Oct 27th 2006 1:47PM Hey, ThwartedEffort:
Total autosales were down approximately the same amount as hybrid sales, so your statistic doesn't show quite what you suggest.
Also, although hybrid sales are still a tiny percentage of the market, they have grown enormously over the last several years both in number of offerings and total sales. So again, this statistic is misleading.
Oh, so a Hummer is NOT greener than a Prius {Autoblog Green}
Oct 10th 2006 12:06AM It's about time that CNW Marketing was publicly spanked for this scam report. They have still yet to publish their methodology. That should throw red flags all over the place, if you know anything about how reliable studies are promolgated.
What's most appalling is the way the press picked up the results of this "study" without any critical thought whatsoever. "Wow, that totally contradicts what everyone thinks. Guess I'll just publish it without checking the facts or comparing it to other similar studies by widely respected research institutions. It'll make a great headline."
Sheesh. And they say we aren't descended from apes.
Maybe conservative commentators just don't get it {Autoblog Green}
Oct 9th 2006 11:57PM Anybody here ever heard of the "Tragedy of the Commons" paradigm? Straigh Adam Smith, for all you free-marketers, out there.
