Tomorrow's 56.2-mpg technology showcased today in Toyota Highlander Hybrid

I think you are entirely missing my point. The article was about what a great thing it is that this mid sized SUV is using less gas. Well the problem with that is that person that wants to use less gas, likely does not need a mid-sized or full-sized SUV. These things are a recent invention, and marketing driven. The proof to this is the shift in vehicles. Since large SUVs peaked in 2004, they have only about 1/3 of the sales today. Some of the shift from medium is masked by big moving to medium. When the "report" came out in 2003, the escape hybrid was already developed. You will shift more to hybrids by building a juke hybrid and a rav 4 hybrid than improving mid sized SUVs. The RX is the cheapest luxury hybrid SUV so its in a different category. Lexus can sell the hybrid as part of the luxury. The midsize SUV market for hybrid is different, if most care, they will shift, not pay more for hybrid. I'm not saying don't give the fleet better economy, but the make the midsize SUV more efficient doesn't really reduce nationwide fuel consumption.

 

No, the only way to "start with none" is to go back in time a few centuries, before the use of fossil fuels became integral to keeping society running. We start with where we are (lots and lots of oil being burned) and measure progress by how much closer we get to our goal (no more oil being burned). That's why improving the current gas guzzlers is more beneficial than improving the gas sippers (but both are still good to do).

 

The current highland hybrid is a bit of a joke price-wise, truly ridiculous. It's reliable, but when it does break it's unbelievably expensive to get fixed, based on what I read of the last gen.

For all that, though, its fuel economy is nothing short of amazing. It is a 7 seater, AWD, tow-rated SUV getting 27 mpg city. That literally is right on the very best small cars out now with two wheel drive, smaller back seats, low power. It's awesome, we just need to see costs come down from the moon.

 

The HiHy has:
- 3 rows of seats
- Better fuel economy than every minivan in the USA.

 

To reduce consumption by the same amount the Prius would have to go from 50mpg to 1050mpg. The impact of improvements to gas hogs are significant.

It's better when you can get people to downsize (which has already happened) but we still want progress on fuel economy in each vehicle.

The next step is getting people to stop people wasting so much gas through inefficient driving.

 

+1
The fallacy of looking at shifts to another vehicle the same size that is more fuel efficient is that people are very likely to shift to a smaller vehicle that is even more fuel efficient.

The reason for this is that people have gotten vehicles with a greater capacity than they really need, so when push comes to shove they are likely to go to something smaller.

Most of the massive Suburbans and the like prowling around here are carrying 1,2, or maybe 3 (mother and two kids). People got them because they might occasionally need to carry the entire family, a bunch of kids, or tow something. But rather than pay even more for a hybrid version of the same thing, they may equally well decide to get something smaller (which would also be cheaper and give better mpg than the vehicle they have now) and use more than one vehicle on the few occasions when they need to carry more people.

 

Yes, but shifting someone from a hulking SUV to say a Prius would be like improving the Prius to maybe 6000mpg.

Why? I'd rather see more progress in smaller vehicles to encourage downsizing, because it's quite clear that many people have much larger vehicles than they really need. And I'd rather see a hybrid van come out than yet another hybrid SUV.

+1 on that. It gets remarkably little attention here and elsewhere.

 

Oh, it's absolutely preferable to get people to downsize. But ultimately, people have utility requirements and buy vehicles of different sizes, so improvements within each segment are of value.

Recent surveys are showing that US consumers are prioritizing fuel economy. Naturally, the larger or more powerful the vehicle they buy the less the priority, but it's increasingly a higher priority even in larger vehicle segments.

The only problem with this is that the minivans that are popular in the USA are heavy. To put it in perspective, the Sienna has a higher curb weight than the Highlander. Hybridizing the Sienna won't be significantly more beneficial than hybridizing the Highlander. Americans aren't buying small vans.

You'll need something for those 3+ child families.

 

Let's separate light trucks from SUVs for a moment, and pretend that the government will actually close the loophole that created SUVs in the 90s. Without the incentives to produce SUVs from cafe, the larger ones will quickly fade. GM made the same mistake you are, people will pay more for big SUVs so they can charge more to hybridize them. The problem is, when those buyers start saying hmm I'll get a hybrid SUV they instead decide to get a smaller vehicle.

Trucks are a different matter, and could use a PHEV approach to get the towing torque many need without the huge engines. Here buyers actually may see a need and pay more.

Its Toyota's money and they can hybridize everything, but no, the hyhi isn't really likely to save much gasoline. The mercedes hybrid S400 and Infiniti M hybrid might, but the Lexus hybrid LS also seems to get the mix wrong. Maybe with a redesign in might sell more than a trickle.

 

For reference, when I was a kid our family lived in England for a year. For the five of us, we had the 1954 model of one of these:
[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Zephyr]Ford Zephyr - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
It's probably smaller than the smallest of today's cars, except the Smart Car. We even took a 3-week trip around Europe in it. Nobody died. But it was made very clear to us that bickering was NOT an option. When I look at the infotainment system to placate my niece's three kids in her Odyssey I just shake my head.

I think that the one-vehicle-that-does-everything model distorts the discussion. I suspect that families wanting mpg may opt NOT to replace their monstrous SUV with a hybrid version of the same thing. Instead, they may get a smaller cheaper high mpg vehicle to handle most of their travel and simply keep the monster (if they can afford to) to use when they really need all those seats. The monster may not be worth much anyway when gas prices breach $5/gallon.
It sounds as though you may be doing something like this.
I did a small-scale version of it. In 2006 I grabbed an Insight-I specifically for commuting and longer trips. In mostly highway use in my hands (some other people get more), it yields 84mpg overall (100+mpg in the summer, 80mpg in the winter), more than three times the mpg I had been getting in my 2003 Subaru Outback. I kept the Outback for cartopping rowing shells 10-20 times a year and for local use. The shells are far too long for the Insight-I. This spring the Subaru was getting creaky, so I decided to replace it. Initial thought was a VW TDI Wagon, but then I saw a friend of mine carrying rowing shells on his Prius. The Prius was cheaper than the VW, has better EPA mpg rating than the VW, probably better mpg locally than the Insight-I (which I'm also trying to preserve as a collectors' item), and I'm finding the extra space (vs the Insight) useful for some trips with my GF, dog, and our luggage. So I'm in the odd situation that my Prius is my "gas hog".

 

That would make a great signature line!

 

Perhaps a bit inflammatory??? And misleading?? I am very pleased with my Prius.

OTOH, it's a little bit true. Best I've managed in the Prius so far is 65-70mpg actual. Today I did a 115 mile trip partway across CT and back in the Insight at 106mpg actual. And that's not even a PB for that run, my PB for it is somewhere around 115mpg. So I'm burning roughly 1.6X more fuel in the Prius??

 

I hate to be the one to tell you, but the Earth has not promised you the current society, nor to allow it to keep it running indefinitely. Yesterday we may have burned a lot of fuel. If we burn more today, we are making a new choice. Each of those choices has its consequences. A simple consequence of burning oil, is that it brings us closer to the day when there will be no more oil to burn. At that point, you will no longer have a choice about burning oil.

 

Its easy to separate them, its the CAFE and safety laws that were written for the loophole. I don't think many people looking at or buying a F150 thinks it looks like a highlander or suburban.

Then we are in agreement on this matter. I'm n

I wasn't talking about your individual choice, but more of the choice of the car buying public in general.

HiHy had just improved mileage to be almost as good as the Escape hybrid. CR seems to really like it. I don't like the article because its misleading and market dynamics say people are shifting away from these vehicles and if they care about fuel economy that will continue, as they won't pay the premium

Sales of Compact SUVs Skyrocket

 

I don't know why toyota hasn't done it with the RAV4, and honda with the CR-V yet. GM's 2 mode system is simply too expensive. This is the low hanging fruit. I would expect more hybrids in this segment.

The highlander hybrid is the blue print for an expensive hybrid system that is destined to sell in small quanitities. The gm 2 mode has similar problems. The price and weight of the components needs to come down. The sonata hybrid gives one possible method for hybridization, that has the potential to be cheaper and lighter while realizing the bulk of the energy savings. For full sized pick-ups, gearing real or virtual manually selected is needed and much higher capacity batteries. Here a flywheel clutched motor attached to the engine and traditional transmission, a plug in pack, and an additional motor for 4wd on the other axis may be the blue print.

I

I'm not against choice, but ... Full sized SUVs have already dropped 66%. Its important to not overestimate the savings. If you build hybrids too expensive for a declining segment, its not going to save much gas. I expect the mid sized SUVs to drop to less than half current sales by 2020 and full size SUVs to go the way of 8 track tapes and buggy whips..