UK PC Pro Columnist Swaps Hummer for Toyota Prius

IsrAmeriPrius · Nov 14, 2007

Jon Honeyball [PC Pro]:

[Excerpts]

So when I'm abroad, I tend to rent interesting vehicles, because there's so much to learn from them. A Hummer H2 might not be the most eco-friendly thing to drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and back, consuming more than 96 gallons of gas, but no-one would dispute the fun. This time, though, I decided to go green. I'd heard so many things about the Toyota Prius (or "Pious" to its detractors), I had to give it a go.

After all, when it comes to technological solutions, this baby has more techno-whizz than most. Two power sources - one petrol and one electric - regenerative braking for charging the batteries and some mind-boggling software to drive the whole thing, knitting together the power outputs through the constantly variable-ratio automatic gearbox. You wouldn't want an Excel-style miscalculation while driving down the motorway and end up having the electric motor arguing with the petrol.

First impressions are impressive. Starting the car isn't like your usual gas burner. Press the Power button and hold it in until the fascia boots up. Then wiggle the small "gear lever" into the drive position. Still, nothing has happened and the car is silent. Press on the accelerator and the car slides away silently, except for the quiet patter noise of the tyres on the tarmac.

The petrol engine kicks in seamlessly and you get more power on demand. It's a very refined unit, and almost silent in operation, too. In fact, the air-con unit was the noisiest thing in the car. Sit in static traffic, and a smugness comes over you - no petrol is being consumed, it's silent and there's no vibration either.

Unfortunately, it's impossible to accelerate in any meaningful way without the petrol engine kicking in. The engine runs all the time you're on a motorway, except for the rare occasions when you might be doing a long downhill stretch. Go uphill, and the engine can make a weird "mooing" noise as it slides around on the infinitely variable gearbox ratios.

And then there's the crushing reality of the fuel consumption. In several thousands of miles, spread between mooching around downtown Vegas and Hollywood and then long motorway drives between the two, the average fuel consumption was 41.1mpg. I'm sorry, but a major technological application of this nature can surely do 80mpg? Or even 120mpg?

My sisters get almost 40mpg out of their Audi A2s, cars that have an aluminium spaceframe and bodywork. The A2 weighs in at 895kg. The Prius comes in at 1,325kg, and the difference is due to the stuff that's been bolted onto the Prius to make it work as a hybrid. That's nearly half a tonne of weight difference.

The one thing the Prius should do well is the regenerative braking; that is, slowing down is achieved by using the motor as a generator to charge the batteries. However, even here I smell a rat - the brake pedal is definitely connected to the brake discs. When you lift off the throttle, the motor generates power into the batteries. And there's a B mode (for engine braking) on the gear lever.

What's more, the on-dash display assured me the engine-braking feature managed to generate only 100Watt-hours for my last half hour of driving. Slowing down over one-and-half tonnes of car and passengers using a true regenerative breaking system over quarter of an hour of driving will surely generate more than the energy required to run a table lamp for an hour?

I'm left with the feeling that the regenerative system is there to top up the undersized batteries, which allow you to sneak around in traffic queues in maximum smugness mode. Sometimes great technology isn't enough.[/b]

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UK PC Pro Columnist Swaps Hummer for Toyota Prius

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UK PC Pro Columnist Swaps Hummer for Toyota Prius

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