Toyota November Tops US Electric Plug In Vehicle Sales For November

They are not ignoring the range, it is in big bold numbers on the EPA sheet on every new EV/PHEV..
I would agree with you IF the range was indeed ignored, but it isn't.
If you are going to start making standard measurements take into account specific cases,I don't see how you get anything close to meaningful.
Combined mpge is already close to meaningless for plug in hybrids as it depends entirely on how long you drive between charges.

 

FYI, updated my earlier highway MPGe estimate for the old Rav4 EV plus trailer.

See: Toyota November Tops US Electric Plug In Vehicle Sales For November | Page 7 | PriusChat

Using old (pre-2007) EPA estimates for the 2002 model year I figured 59-60 MPGe. This would then need to be adjusted downward by some unknown amount to be consistent with the post-2007 MPGe values for Volt, PiP, and Energi.

In any case, it's no where near SageBrush's 80 MPGe.

 

Compare Side-by-Side
72 mpge combined/ 64 mpge on the highway

If you are doing this though, I'm sure you will be dragging a trailer on highway type miles. So lets be fair to modern tech and look at the new rav4 ev
76 mpge combined /72 mpge highway.

If the trailer adds no more drag (but it does) @7.7kwh/gallon we get 17 mpg on the new rav 4. This is oposed to a c-max energi that gets 41 mpg in CS on the highway. Now YMMV, but if you can put that engine in the car you will do much better. I'm not sure how much you would need to hurt that 41 mpg to put the same drive in a rav 4, but surely it would be much better than 17mpge the RAV4 + trailer gets in CS mode highway. Now some of you may want to say, but, but, the rav 4 gets X what about Y. The correct way to look at it is a single vehicle, since you are moving in CS mode. You can add the gas used in the trailer + the electricity at the plug from the wall to get CD and CS figures.

Yes if we are driving it from a generator MPGe = MPG, and it needs to drop compared to charging from a plug. In this case its quite a bit worse. If you only need the trailer 5% of the time that could be worth it, but anymore and its not a good tradeoff unless you are trying to skirt some government regulation (ZEV credit, battery waranty) but pulling that trailer instead of adding an engine to the car.

 

Bob, your're right, I also have to fill five seats on short, medium trips, couldn't do that in a Volt.

I tried the Volts' back seat, found it too cramped, and lacking.

DBCassisdy

 

Wow, just looking at Treehugger.com, I didn't realize that the Leaf (which came in 2nd for Nov.2012 sales) bumped the Volt down to 3rd place.

Interesting trend.

DBCassidy

 

You, by chance wouldn't pet a pet on the Volts' roof when traveling, do you?

DBCassidy

 

Since when has $30k been considered luxury? It's been just shy of $40k for at least a decade. Those entry-level ones at the lower price are far from typical.

 

Really, everybody been using free electricity?
What planet are you from? Oh, O.K, then the electric meter attached to the side of homes, are merely decoration only.

No one plugs into and charges on the average grid??? What do plugs in use then, their own coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear micro grid.

Your statements are full of holes, not at all realistic, but very amusing, comical to say the least.

DBCassidy

 

...I am curious if Gen1 Prius is really 6-ft3 less cargo space than Volt.
I see 11.0-ft3 cargo space for Gen1 Prius (CarMax) vs. 10.6-ft3 for Volt (GM-Canada).

Somewhere around 2010 in the USA the EPA apparently re-defined cargo space to include more than just the trunk, so I go to sites outside of USA to get trunk cargo space numbers for newer cars. If you notice for Toyota USA, Gen3 Prius cargo space is like 21.6-cu ft versus 14.4 cu ft for Gen2. The actual difference I think is closer to +1 cu ft, but the measurement basis has been changed. By comparsion, Toyota Canada reports approx 15.6-cu ft cargo space for Gen3 Prius.

 

Again

1) Why is $30K the price for a plug in, that seems arbitrary and capricious
2) Mid market are cars like the camry, accord, fusion which cost in the mid 20s not $30K unless you option them out and buy the biggest engine
3) Entry level luxury car are like the lexus es or bmw 3 series depending on how you define luxury and start in the mid 30s.

No reason to pigeon hole the prius phv or any of these other plug-ins. There is no reason a tesla S needs to be $30K to be successful. Mid market makes no sense when we are talking innovative cars. Do they provide value to their purchasers is the important thing.

 

When you have a hatchback you can stack things high If you pile things in the volt it really has much more space than the gen I prius. If you don't then the sizes are comparable.

 

wow, 8 pages of back and forth about the volt and the prius. "priuschat" huh.

 

It happens. In the past we could easily find similar duration threads (not just here) about "diesels." The political forums are even worse. I'm pretty sure the roots of this pattern are buried in human behavior.

One 'tell' is finding folks who go out of their way to advocate their point of view in the wrong place . . . like SPAM e-mail or the door-to-door missionaries. Having been on both sides of the doors, I can observe the behavior but it isn't clear that 'out of place' advocacy is terribly effective. Often it just hardens positions.

Eventually the 'out of place' advocates realize 'it isn't working' and wander off. Peace returns and Prius advocates return to our ordinary affairs . . . finding out what we can do with these marvelous machines.

Bob Wilson

 

Well as a non-Prius owner, you have to realize that this forum is one of the more active talking about new efficient cars.

I am shopping now and the back and forth has some value - particularly regarding cargo space.

On the other hand, I think very few people are buying cutting edge EVs and not fully understanding the pitfalls.

 

What part of "$3,000 to $5,000 option" needs further explanation?

 

sure, it has some value. but having the same arguments repeated again and again ad naseum for 8 pages – and this isn't the first (or the last!) thread that has them – tends to just get tiring after a while.

i mean honestly, i clicked through on the story from the front page to see the numbers and perhaps get some commentary on them. instead, i found (sorry) pissing matches that i've seen before and have very little desire to see rehashed again and again.

 

Actually, you found commentary

I do agree though that a ton of the same information has been gone over again and again.
This might be a bit of an odd suggestion. But perhaps we should make a Volt discussion a sticky in the other cars forum?
This way you could direct all of those comments to that one thread and not have to regurgitate it over and over and over again?

 

No need for a sticky. There's already a dedicated forum!
Chevrolet Volt | PriusChat

 

Indeed there is:

I'm amused that the title of this thread,"Toyota November Tops US Electric Plug In Vehicle Sales For November," was enough to restart the discussion. In reality, we have three(?) data points on the market today:

• Volt
• Ford C-Max Energi
• Prius Plug-in

	Column 1
0	[th]model[th]size[th]EV range[th]MPG (gas-only)[tr][td]Volt[td]compact[td]38 mi[td]37 MPG[tr][td]Ford C-Max Energi[td]fullsize[td]21 mi[td]43 MPG[tr][td]Plug-in Prius[td]fullsize[td]11 mi[td]50 MPG

Source: Fuel Economy

So there are options and buyers have choices. The most recent Ford is more appealing because it comes closest to our existing 1.8L Prius with a little more gas engine power for towing and the plug-in range matches my 10 mile, one-way, commuting distance. But the Prius Plug-in is not bad either. The Volt is a nice small car but has the least attractive features for someone with our driving and towing requirements.

Bob Wilson

 

One of the reasons these subjects tend to get rehashed is because of the biased mis-information constantly reposted. The above is another example from a respected poster.

I'm sure most Prius owners correct any mis-conceptions about a Prius, like that it requires a plug, or the battery is only good for 3 years, or that the battery is horribly bad for the environment, or that the high-voltage battery causes cancer in child passengers, or that it really gets 40mpg, etc ...