Editorial: A Blind Squirrel Finds His Nut

Happy B-day, Chris.

 

A round the world trip in a Boeing 777 - Freighter would use 2 maximum loads of fuel, that is 2 x 181,000 litres of fuel making fuel used 362,000 litres and that Boeing 777 - Freighter would carry the mass of 78 Prius at that fuel usage.

So if the Prius was made in the yard of your next door neighbour then freighted around the world to your home it would use 4641 litres of aviation jet fuel. So far we are 4681 litres behind your locally made SUV at delivery.

I expect my Prius to drive about 300,000km without major failure, I have no idea what you will get from a Jeep but I suspect less, lets call it a wash for argument's sake and for argument's sake I'll use the official fuel consumption for each even though Prius owners always brag about beating EPA while Jeep owners whine about not being able to make EPA mileage. So over 300,000km my Prius will use 4.3 litres per 100 kilometres while your Jeep will use about 12 L/100km.

Prius 12,900 litres while the Jeep is 36,000 litres meaning the Prius will use 23,100 litres less on the road, subtract from the difference the 4641 litres used to freight the Prius around the world to you and the Prius would have used 18,459 less litres of fuel in the 300,000 km lifetime including that round the world trip to get it to you.

Emissions roughly equate to fuel consumption of fossil fuels so which car is greener?

Oh lets not get into material acquisition emissions, when I last checked the Wrangler was heavier than Prius so it has more material in it to acquire. And if you want to talk about the emissions to freight 36 kilograms of nickel from Canada to Japan via China, then take maybe to be generous 100 litres off the total difference.

 

Geo Metro comparison

Regarding the Geo Metro, many of the points I was going to post have already been posted at 2011 Prius vs 1993 Geo Metro | Tundra Headquarters. I've had the misfortune of driving a 4 cylinder Chevy Metro before (Geo brand went away and they became Chevys). It sucked as it is with its ~70 hp 4. It was noisy, slow, very weak, had a poor ride and heavy (no power) steering. I couldn't imagine the 49 hp 3 cylinder engine.

Besides the Metro being much lighter than virtually every car on the road sold today, its also much smaller than Prius with it being 147.4 inches long and 62 inches wide (1990-1994 Geo Metro: Technical Specifications - Consumer Guide Automotive) and classified as a subcompact. The Prius is classified as a midsize car, is 175.6 inches long and 68.7 inches wide. Even the Honda Fit is 14.7 inches longer than the Metro and 4.7 inches wider.

The Metro would be a deathtrap on US roads now with monstrosity class (full-sized) SUVs running around with well over 5000 lb. curb weights. For comparison, here are some curb weights:
90-94 Metro hatchback: 1650 lbs. (1990-1994 Geo Metro: Technical Specifications - Consumer Guide Automotive)
2011 Civic sedan: 2640-2831 lbs. (2011 Honda Civic Sedan - Specifications - Official Honda Web Site)
2011 Fit: 2489-2615 lbs. (2011 Honda Fit - Specifications - Official Site)
2011 Accord: 3217-3605 lbs. (2011 Honda Accord Sedan - Specifications - Official Honda Site)
2011 Chevy Tahoe: LTZ 4WD 6029 lbs.(http://www.chevrolet.com/vehicles/2011/tahoe/features.do?styleIds=324399^324400^324401&tab=tabHighlights)

IIHS news release and IIHS-HLDI: Video shows how the Fit (already 800+ lbs. heavier than the 93 Metro) did against an Accord in a frontal offset crash.

http://www.epa.gov/otaq/cert/mpg/fetrends/420s10002.pdf says that the average weight of light duty vehicles for model year 2010 in the US was 4009 lbs.

You might want read up more on the Metro at Save Gas or Die Trying - Feature - Auto Reviews - Car and Driver and 1998 Chevrolet Metro2 - Car and Driver (although I disagree w/where they ranked the poorly reviewed Insight vs. the Prius).

You would laugh at the performance figures at http://www.caranddriver.com/var/ezf...lication/c25f91204b3af2dd071f848fa067bde7.pdf (1/4 mile for the Metro in 20.3 seconds @ 65 mph and 0-60 mph in 15.9 seconds; their sound readings are clearly transposed for the Insight vs. Prius).

From the 1st C&D article:

 

I was stopped next to a 1992ish Geo Metro hatchback a couple of hours ago and it made my Prius look like a Tahoe. I was stoked that someone was still driving one though. I generally see a few each week but I have never parked next to one so I was kind of shocked. My memory was of a slightly larger car. Man I'm getting old. lol

 

I was this || close to buying a Metro, but the dealership tried to add tax to my $6000 OTD price so I walked

Kudos to PC members for writing really good rebuttals and critique for Chris. I try to remember that the overwhelming majority of blogs are 1/3 diary, 1/3 rant, and 1/3 self-agrandisement. Journalistic integrity and fact checking is not implied; heck, the norm seems to be for bloggers to laugh off errors as 'entertainment'. So I don't feel any need to be harsh with Chris, but I also don't take him seriously.

Many young people write that the Prius is not exciting, which always makes me laugh. How exciting can it be to drive legally and safely down a paved road sitting on a cushion ? May I politely suggest a broader horizon ?

 

Since the Focus was mentioned in the "gas 2.0" piece, C&D at 2012 Ford Focus SEL Test test got:

EPA rating was supposed to be 26/37 mpg on this non-SFE model. 2012 Ford Focus Gets EPA Rating of up to 38 mpg Highway Even Without SFE Package - Car and Driver Blog which is newer mentions official EPA estimates of 28/38.

Edmunds at 2012 Ford Focus Titanium Road Test got 27 mpg.

Great, huh? This post is just as appropriate as as a response to the misinformed Washington Post story...

 

This subject bugs me more than I should allow it to. I was thinking of this thread and these so-called 40mpg conventional ICE cars while driving to work this morning. I couldn't help but cringe as I drove up the hill, a 1100ft. elevation gain, and watched my average mpg drop from 48.6mpg to 47.9mpg. Without this damn hill on my commute I could easily average 53mpg like I used to before switching jobs. Granted when I drive back down the hill I'll regain most of what I lost but still. Then it occurred to me, what the hell am I complaining about? I am still averaging 48mpg during the winter, with 128,000 miles on the odometer, mostly freeway miles (85%) and a 1,100ft. elevation gain. No other car in production can accomplish this. These new so-called 40mpg ICE cars are a great substitute for gas guzzlers like the Dodge Magnum SRT8 or an SUV/Truck but they simply cannot be compared to a good hybrid like the Insight, Civic or Prius. 48+mpg average trumps 33mpg average and no amount of marketing spin can change facts.

 

Yea . . . one really looses credibility by claiming the Geo is on par to a Prius. Hard to believe folks can't connect the dots . . . . but duh, there's a REASON, the Geo Metro of yesteryears is no longer being made.

 

There is really nothing I can disagree with, except the exciting car part. My Jeep is slow, but in the snow, oh-so-much-fun. Hell, if Toyota made the Prius rear wheel drive, I'd probably own one. Yes, I know FWD is better. But RWD is, at least for me right now, more fun.

Also, when I wrote "objectively" I really did mean to write "subjectively." I started that sentence originally with "objectively, the Prius is a slave to its aerodynamic design..."

I swear I know the difference...and I do not know, I just don't care for the looks. It really is a subjective thing. And I'd like to see more than 50 mpg. But I've read everything written here, and most of it was well worth reading, even the stuff one normally does not like to read about oneself. And if I didn't laugh some of this stuff off, well I would have given up on writing back in 2007. I always say "don't believe anything you read on the Internet."
Anyway, I understand a bit more about why you like your cars. Its cool. Enjoy them. I'll try to enjoy mine, different though they may be, before gas gets unfordable, but hopefully by then I'll be driving around on something other than petrol.

Cheers mates, I'm officially over the hill now, time to buckle down and get back to work.

 

Sorry, but I have to agree with Russell Frost on this. What you are doing now is making statements then slowly backing away from them.

I don't believe you "get" why most Prius owners like their cars. If you got it? You wouldn't make some of the blanket statements about the looks, excitement and reality of owning a Prius that you have made.

You can have YOUR opinion, but you can't have ALL opinions.

In most of your inflammatory statements you aren't saying " I personally think" ....you are saying "The Prius IS..."...

So I'm not sure your really clear on the difference between subjective and objective either....

It's been a nice debate..and good to talk with you...but whatever you believe I feel a chameleon like attempt here.

You have to stand for something or you will fall for anything? Slow, Ugly, Unexciting...but I "get" why you like them? I don't hate the Prius...but they are their own worst enemy?

You simply cannot have it "all ways".

 

oh SURE he can both ways ... and all ways. It's just that such baseless thinking lacks journalistic crediblity. He DID go so far as to admit it'd be "shooting ... self in the foot" to continue stating (baseless) views ... but lacking an honest look ... that's about all you can expect in the way of "oh ... yea ... I didn't know what I was talking about" ... or "thanks for giving me real world data that I can sink my teeth into".

.

 

Well he's already "morphing" his opinion again. I notice it's gone from " I get why you like your cars" to " I understand a bit more why you like your cars "

24 hours from now it will probably be..."The Bit is I don't Understand why anyone likes The Prius...."

I kidd...it's a joke...

Or is it?

 

How much of high school physics did you take / remember? F = M * A

Toyota has pushed the boundaries of gasoline & a combustion engine. Impossible to get better MPG while retaining sufficient torque (torque as in acceleration).

All that can be done is reduce the weight - Prius C - or an alternate energy source.

Why do you think we're clambering for a Plug and better batteries?

Most motorcycles of 1000cc are in the 50 MPG range. Better than 50 MPG in a car?

Impossible w/o sacrificing weight, or inventing a new combustion engine that is more doubly more efficient than Atkinson cycle yet produces the same torque.

Only one motor out there - Ford's direct injection. So costly it's only on the big trucks & SUV's. Taking a V8 pickup doing 8MPG and bring it up to 20MPG with a V4 and nearly the same torque...or a V6 with -more- torque.

Do your homework...

 

If you like that, you should check out this thing called skiiing. You can slip a little on a gentle slope if you like the car experience, or you can scare yourself sh1tless and every adrenaline rush in between -- as the desire grabs you.

 

Prius blew me away in getting more MPGs than almost every bike I ever owned.

I had a 2003 998cc Yamaha FZ1 for 3 years and it never beat 45 MPG's, not even just cruising highway.



^ 44 MPG 1000cc bike ^

I had a couple 600cc 'supersport' type bikes, and they were also just under 45 MPG. My 2003 YZF600R could get just over 50 MPGs, that was the only one (it was more mildly designed with redline at only 11.5k, unlike 15.5k redline of supersport bikes).

My R1 (998cc) didn't do 40 MPG, more like 36, maybe 39 just cruising, high performance bike though.



Motorcycles are not all that great on FE for their weight, although a Ninja 250 might get you 70 MPG, but that's a 250cc.

 

My 1941 ServiCycle (2.6 hp, 35 MPH downhill/downwind) got about 150 MPG.
It also had a manual CVT (v-belt pulley).

JeffD

 

Most cars source parts from around the world. They do this for a combination of performance (quality of operation) and price. Just see that GM is trimming excess right now because of supply problems from Japan.

This is, I believe, due to a combination of market conditions, cost and safety regulations.

7 seats in a small mid-size vehicle means little rear space behind the 3rd row. That's make the rear passengers more vulnerable in rear-end crashes. The USA has or will have tough rear-end crash testing which would make the headline score look bad.

Then you have the market conditions driven by low fuel prices that make large and inefficient vehicles more affordable. These make smaller vehicles a tougher sell and more cost-sensitive. So, Toyota are choosing to attack the wagon market with NiMH in the USA and the small 7-seater MPV market elsewhere. The market for the Prius v won't be huge, but sales of the VW Jetta Sportwagen TDI show there is a market there, and the Prius v will be the new class leader in efficiency.

Actually, they tried to cash in but were a bit late to the party.

Toyota risk falling behind in ICEVs, because their ICEVs don't make use of many of the advanced techniques that others use to improve efficiency. They're finally making noises about it so maybe by 2015 we'll see some improvements there.

However, in gasoline hybrids they still have market dominance and they are likely to extend that dominance.

Efficiency excites me so all the improvements manufacturers are making are exciting to me. But while those 40 mpg highway are making headlines the city mileage, although improved, still sucks and when the average American does 60% of their miles in the city, they aren't going to get that 40 mpg.

I'm not a fan of short-range PHEVs, even though I think the Prius PHV 13 will sell in spades. Toyota have crunched the numbers and said it's best right now for them to meet the needs of the Japanese market.

Also, while the Prius v isn't a game-changer it's as evolutionary as the improvements to the ICEVs. But to me, it's the Prius c that's the most interesting. A smaller, cheaper Prius could expand the market in a different direction, as an expanded efficiency advantage has more chance of persuading singles and couples to downsize from the greater utility of a larger vehicle and shake the US market in a way the small Honda hybrids have failed to do.

Like you, I'm excited about the introduction of performance hybrids too. But, it's such a small proportion of the market that the direct impact will be insignificant. What excites me is the potential for new and improved hybrid technology to reach the mass market.

You're directing your venom at the wrong target. You should direct your venom at Honda and others who aim to make cars for people who want exciting cars.

Toyota's aim is to build efficient, reliable, utilitarian vehicles cheaply. It always has been. You target the Prius but much your complaints about the Prius could be leveled at all Toyotas.

The Prius is nobody's enemy. It's an efficient, utilitarian vehicle aimed at a chunk of the market. It makes the job of selling other "green" cars harder only because in the USA it's the most efficient car available and it's a small mid-size hatchback at a reasonable price.

I don't even think it's hard to sell a relatively efficient car in the USA. Honda and Toyota have been doing it for a long time, with the Accord, Camry, Civic and Corolla being the top-selling cars in the USA for many years. The challenge has always been to get Americans to trade utility, comfort and power for efficiency.

There's also looks but many people seem to be happy to buy pick-ups, CUVs, SUVs and mini-vans and none of those are svelte, so I'm not sure how much of a difference looks make. I think many people complain about the look of the Prius because they don't like the Prius rather than the other way round.

In fact, I don't think the Prius is ugly, but even if I did I wouldn't care. I can't see the outside when I'm using it, so the look doesn't even serve an aesthetic purpose to me. But I expect people who care about the look of a car consider such rational thinking to be boring.

Well, that Panamera wouldn't get you 35mpg if you plan to use that power that excites you. That's the thing about automotive efficiency. It comes from designing a car to operate well based on normal driving parameters and normal driving parameters doesn't need turbocharged 380hp.

Again, you're misdirecting your venom at a company that produces utilitarian cars. You're criticizing Toyota's evolutionary, pragmatic engineering that they apply to all of their cars, whether they are hybrid or not.

To add to that you're expecting Toyota to do something with their HSD that it isn't suited for. HSD replaces the conventional transmission and has a small battery. If you want high performance you'll either need a large battery or multiple gears.

If you want to see performance hybrids and electrics don't look at Toyota. Just keep your eye on the others, the ones that are exciting you. Plus, keep watching Tesla. After the tie-up, think of them as Toyota's fun EV arm.

This is the kind of statement I'd expect more from a diesel weasel. A diesel weasel is what I call a diesel advocate who claims diesels are both more efficient and more powerful.

The problem is that is doesn't work that way. It's only the small-engine diesels that can be more efficient than a Prius but they aren't powerful and if you do make heavy use of their available power then you lose the fuel economy.

Besides that the 60mpg you'll see quoted will be in imperial gallons and based on the very generous NEDC (deduct about 18% for approximation to the EPA).

Then larger, more powerful diesels are simply not as efficient as the Prius unless you are driving at illegally high speeds.

I do wish I could buy a small diesel but I can't here. The reasons are manifold, and right now the conditions just aren't right for US small diesel. Perhaps the Cruze and Sky-D rumors will be substantiated and the USA will finally get more and cheaper diesel compacts.

If miles are very low, there are plenty of (mostly) American-made ICEVs that are greener, but a Wrangler isn't one of them. As miles increase the balance tips further to efficient hybrids. Just to put it in perspective, we do 20,000 miles per year and the gas saved every year over a 13mpg car could send my Prius over 2 1/4 times around the earth.