Toyota's long term sucess with prius will be short lived.

[jeremy wayne wilson]

Toyota is embracing parallel hybrid approach for its future. When gas hits 6 dollars or more a gallon that approach will be worthless as the Prius car will most likely cost 600 or more a month to drive in fuel cost. All the fuel economy features will be negated by high oil prices. The word fuel needs to come out of the equation for any long term success by any auto manufacturer. A BEV car does not have any fuel economy numbers, just a simple price to drive per KWH. I have already spent 2.5k to recharge my future BEV off solar. Please share your input for my thoughts on this issue. I hope Toyota thinks about this serious issue that will become a fact before long and enables a long term approach or solution to real driving cost. Who wants to pay 25k for a car that cost 100 bucks or more to fill up. I hope Toyota brings back their BEV technology like they had in their 2000 RAV4 EV. We need to get off gas completely. I rode in a Rav4 Ev recently and the owner drives it 600 miles per week for 8 dollars worth of electricity.

[finman]

Amen. I agree. If not Toyota getting "back" to EVs, then a smaller up and coming pioneer will sell me an EV in the not so distant future.

[richard schumacher]

Hard to say. It should be possible to retail artificial non-fossil gasoline for about $5 per gallon, and batteries are not cheap.

[john1701a]

Originally Posted by jeremy wayne wilson

When gas hits 6 dollars or more a gallon that approach will be worthless as the Prius car will most likely cost...

Yawn.

In a world still ruled by vehicles that don't have electric motors for propulsion, those 50kW in Prius are far from worthloss.

.

[Ichiro]

Eh. Viable plug-in conversions for the Prius will soon be relatively cheap.
I'll just carpool more often, drive a lot slower, and get >>100mpg with my future PHEV prius.

[viking31]

Originally Posted by jeremy wayne wilson

Toyota is embracing parallel hybrid approach for its future. When gas hits 6 dollars or more a gallon that approach will be worthless as the Prius car will most likely cost 600 or more a month to drive in fuel cost. All the fuel economy features will be negated by high oil prices. The word fuel needs to come out of the equation for any long term success by any auto manufacturer. A BEV car does not have any fuel economy numbers, just a simple price to drive per KWH. I have already spent 2.5k to recharge my future BEV off solar. Please share your input for my thoughts on this issue. I hope Toyota thinks about this serious issue that will become a fact before long and enables a long term approach or solution to real driving cost. Who wants to pay 25k for a car that cost 100 bucks or more to fill up. I hope Toyota brings back their BEV technology like they had in their 2000 RAV4 EV. We need to get off gas completely. I rode in a Rav4 Ev recently and the owner drives it 600 miles per week for 8 dollars worth of electricity.

I disagree. Most of Europe has nearly always been paying double or even triple what Americans pay for fuel. They seem to be doing just fine with ICE's and high fuel prices. Yes, they do have better mass transit, but in most any European cities traffic is commonly jammed with 100's of thousands of cars going here and there, just as the US.

I don't think Toyota is shortsighted as you surmise...

Rick
#4 2006

[john1701a]

Originally Posted by jeremy wayne wilson

will most likely cost 600 or more a month to drive in fuel cost

$6 per gallon / $600 = 100 gallons * 48 MPG = 4,800 miles

Claiming people drive that much per month sure doesn't look objective.

That's 57,600 miles per year.

.

[dogfriend]

Originally Posted by jeremy wayne wilson

When gas hits 6 dollars or more a gallon that approach will be worthless as the Prius car will most likely cost 600 or more a month to drive in fuel cost.

$600 @ $6/ gal = 100 gal of fuel * 50 mi / gal = 5000 miles.

You really drive 5k per month? Even if you do, you are better off with a 50 mi/gal vehicle than a 15 mi / gal vehicle.

If you are driving an EV 5k miles per month, then 5000 mi/30 days = 166 mi per day or if you are just driving on working days 5000mi/25 days = 200 mi per day.

What is the range between charges on your Rav EV?

Also, I agree with Rick above, the Europeans are paying > $6 per gal right now.

[pyccku]

At $6/gallon, I would be spending $240 a month on gas.

[dogfriend]

Originally Posted by jeremy wayne wilson

. Who wants to pay 25k for a car that cost 100 bucks or more to fill up.

My typical fillup is 7 - 8 gal. $6 * 8gal = $48


Don't misconstrue my post as anti EV - I think that is where we are headed, but you need to be realistic in your justifications.

I think you should check out this website to see where Toyota may be headed:

http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/tech/envi...ain/index.html