The O.C. Register gives Kudos to the Prius

I don't think there is a more conservative newspaper in the country, than the OC Register. They would never blame the US automakers for their problems. I am not surprised that they would come up with such a roundabout excuse for their failure to produce a competent hybrid.

 

So let me get this straight . . .

KAREY WUTKOWSKI from Reuters News Service writes the article, yet, somehow, the OC Register is gets branded for it being a homegrown conservative hack job?

Is this another example of that Vast Right Wing Conspiracy?

It's Reuters dude. Not known for being a bastion of conservative thought.

Oh Nooooo . . . Other bastions of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy:
Scientific American
ABC News
Yahoo! Green

 

Yeah, I saw this elsewhere. Here's the part in question:

One complication for car makers has been inaccurate market research. In research groups, car buyers have said they would consider buying a car that looked just like established models, with just a badge on the back to identify it as a hybrid.
But George Peterson, president of consulting firm AutoPacific Inc. in Tustin said that is where everyone except for Toyota have missed the mark.
"Our respondents are lying through their teeth," Peterson said.
"The dramatically different look of the Prius is something that's appealing," he said. "The Ford Escape and Toyota Camry hybrid have not been as successful because they don't look as different."
Toyota questions that analysis.
"The buyer is not necessarily trying to make a statement," said Toyota spokeswoman Denise Morrissey. "They're trying to make a smart choice."
​

I haven't heard of AutoPacific Inc. but it seems a competent consulting firm would be able to find the right questions to ask to get the correct answers, other than to just chalk it up to consumers "lying through their teeth". That's just irresponsible, I would be worried if I had hired that firm to do research for me.

Funny how it seems it has nothing to do with the Prius having the highest mpg in a convenient form factor (form factor was the problem with the now-defunct Insight, which was even more distinctive as a hybrid than the Prius, but somehow never gets mentioned in these articles). And the second most popular hybrid, is, imagine this, the hybrid with the second best mpg!

 

don't you love that "blame the victim" mentality?!

of course, they would never mention another cool car, EV1 and how owners loved it and were ready to buy them out for 24K apiece but GM decided to smash them and smelt them at GM's loss.

Nor would they mention how successful was electric RAV4 before the Texaco/Chevron criminals took hold of E95 battery rights and forced Toyota to stop making EV RAV4's.

That kind of thing and suppressed technology that can benefit us all will never be mentioned, nor will they mention that fuel additives that they add actually lower the mileage.

Isn't it "funny" that internal combustion engine is at the same efficiency level as it was over 100 years ago. even though we have better technology and advanced materials -- somehow our fuel economy does not seem to improve, it dwells in 20 Mpg range for an average sized car.
If OTO motor efficiency is at 25 % -- that means we are using one quart of fuel out of one gallon, with 3 quarts being wasted.
Now, that does not seem right, to waste all of that energy... unless you are an oil company or a car company that is controlled by sleazy oil men.

 

Althought I agree with the tone of your post I think you should reconsider that quoted part. I do not think the ICE was just as efficient 100yra as it is now. MPG may be the same in some comparisons but weight and HP/TQ levels have changed pretty dramatically yes?

 

Here is an example of how marketing surveys can be misleading:

In the early days of cake mixes, P&G's marketing group was trying to decide what cake mixes to bring to market. Customer surveys clearly showed that yellow cake and chocolate cake were by far the ones most often baked in American kitchens. Angel food cake was a very distant third. P&G introduced yellow and chocolate cake mixes, but sales were disappointing. Failing to understand the reason for slow sales, P&G went ahead and marketed an angel food cake mix. The angel food mix took off like wildfire, outselling yellow and chocolate by huge margins. When marketing went back and asked more questions, the results suddenly made sense. Very few angel food cakes were baked from scratch because they are difficult to make, not because they are unpopular. Yellow and chocolate cakes were considered easy to make, so a mix was not as attractive. The marketing people had asked the wrong question. The real question wasn't "What type of cakes do you bake?", but instead should have been "What type of cakes would you like to bake if they were easy?"

I suspect the car companies did the same thing with their research. They didn't get consumer information about Prius-like cars because the option was not even on the list.

Tom

 

I think that's a very important point. Personally, I'd like to have a hybrid that looked like a regular civic or camry, but with the caveat that it must not sacrifice practicality, and I wonder if the market research firms are forgetting that point. I came quite close to buying a civic hybrid after my car was stolen, and it was only the tiny trunk that held me back. Now I've come to my senses a bit and am biding my time, extracting every last bit of value I can out of my current car... but I know that the Prius is the only car I'm considering for my next one. It's unparalleled in its practicality.

 

yes, but that is a small improvement for 100 years, isn't it?
considering what tools and knowledge we have now and what we had one century ago -- we should be having now 80+ percent efficient engines, not 25 % efficient (minus all extra crap that they need to drive)


I worked on cars professionally when first fuel injection systems emerged, as a matter of fact i learned a lot about FI systems and how inefficient they were, even though electronic FI systems were a huge jump compared to standard carburettors, not to even mention SU carburettors.

problem with existing fuel systems in all standard ICE engines is that we are not vaporising the fuel, if we did we would have lot more efficient engines.
basically what we are doing in an standard ICE engine is we are trying to ignite fuel droplets (liquid) and that is so wasteful, so inefficient.

my point is that if existing fuel systems are modified to burn more fuel and produce less toxic waste and less heat that would be recaptured and converted to usable energy -- we would have incredibly clean engines and long lasting vehicles now, that are very, very fuel efficient. Conversely, gaps between regular maintenance intervals would be in tens of thousands of miles, not 5 to 7 thousand as there would be lot less stress on engines and therefore less waste accumulated in engine oil.

then, unnecessary emission crap will not be needed and cooling system could be lot smaller as heat loss would be very small. This would allow us to downsize the cooling system, decrease the weight of the vehicle that would help
us improve fuel efficiency of the vehicle.


as a former car mechanic i always hated working on hard to service, poorly designed engines that wasted lots of energy
and that required extra fuel to turn all that crap at all times while engine is running.
Why turn AS compressor at high speed when you do not need max cooling? same goes for power steering and other accessories, that can all be electric driven by variable load.

it took Honda, Mazda and Toyota to come up with leaps in technology pertaining to engine innovation and improving of efficiency while other American car companies did not even care of improving the quality of their products.

Mazda solved rotary engine seal problems, Honda was leader in fuel efficiency and lowering the engine friction, Toyota with their hybrids and so on.

but, the fact is -- we are still using inefficient OTTO engines
as that is the only engine available, and we are still using friction discs to stop the vehicle and we are still wasting kinetic energy.

so, to me it looks that older cars of ford T era and "modern" cars still use the same engine, just marginally improved.


compare that with other technological advancements in electronics and you will see how far behind we are in car engine arena.

 

Agreed. I don't really care that the Prius looks different from other cars. Originally I was interested in a hycam, since I was replacing a Camry that I had been very happy with. But the trunk was too small so I looked at the Prius, and was pleasantly surprised at the cargo space as well as the added flexibility from being able to push the rear seats down flat. Add in the better gas mileage with the Prius and it was a no-brainer.

 

Excellent point! The biggest problem by far with market research from what I have seen, is that the researchers often already know what they want the answer to be. Their bias (subconscious or otherwise) tends to lead them to ask the questions that get the answers they expected to get. Its not so much that people lie, its that they think of things in terms of the market and products available today. Its hard to get them to think of things in a new way, without showing your bias towards the solution you already have in mind.

As far as the Prius goes, I think many people still completely miss the point. They get all wrapped up in the "people want to show off how green they are" which frankly I don't buy. What they miss is that the Prius is designed for utility. Its form follows its function if you will. As a result, when you compare it against the competition there really is no competition. Because its design is optimized for what it does, it does it better than other vehicles. You can say people buy it because it looks funny, I say it looks funny because its optimized to be the best at what people want. There is really nothing else like it.

TCH: great car, quiet, smooth, roomy, but more expensive, much less mpg, small trunk, not really that much more space.
HCH: great car, but smaller, less efficient use of space, slightly less mpg, less gadgets, expensive for what at the end of the day is still a civic.
Insight: great car if not a great hybrid, perfect small commuter but for everyone else Prius has almost as good performance with much more space/comfort/utility.
HiHy: Nice if you need a third row and/or some towing capacity/4wd, otherwise Prius is much cheaper, with much better mileage.
Escape Hybrid: Nice balance if you feel you need the extra space, awd, or clearance. Otherwise minimal utility gained for big mpg penalty.
Malibu/Aura Hybrid: Not a particularly great car to start with IMHO, almost no availability, not very impressive mileage, seems expensive for what you get.
Vue Hybrid: The size and price of an Escape with the MPGs of the larger HiHy. Why would anyone want this over the other two? Almost no availability.
Yukon Hybrid: Not even going to really go there. 20mpg land barge (decent mileage as land barges go) at the price of an Escalade. Paint it green and someone idiot will buy it. Almost no availability.

Is it really such a mystery to the marketing "experts" why the Prius outsells all of these vehicles by a huge margin? Seems to me, the type of person who is going to consider any of these vehicles is already of a certain mindset. They are going to be looking for the vehicle that meets all their needs in the smallest, most efficient package. For most people, the Prius fits that bill to a T. Must be because it looks funny

Rob

 

This is a repost of a Reuters article I mentioned at http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-hybrid-news/45313-car-makers-try-copy-green-halo-prius.html.

 

Gee, I wonder what the answer to this question would be.

"Would you be likely to purchase a mid size car that gets 50% better mileage than other mid size cars and costs the same" "oh, and it will fit in same size parking space as most compact cars"

 

Zeeman, I must take issue with a lot of your statments.

1. There is no Holy Grail of fuel efficiency availible from "vaporising gas in the combustion chamber" You are still stuck with the limits of efficiency inherant in an OTTO cycle engine.

2. There have been dramatically significant improvements on maintenance cycles of todays engines. Basically todays engines would run just fine to 100k miles with 2 or 3 oil changes and one air filter change. No need to change; spark plugs, wires, points, coolant, nothing. The 5-7k service interval is just a bunch of hogwash to get you into the dealer to be upsold.

3. The big techonology improvements were not all done by the japanese. Chrysler invented electronic ignition, fuel injection was invented by American auto racers, long life coolant was invented in the US. Synthetic oil was invented by the Germans and popularized by Mobil.

 

"...problem with existing fuel systems in all standard ICE engines is that we are not vaporising the fuel, if we did we would have lot more efficient engines.
basically what we are doing in an standard ICE engine is we are trying to ignite fuel droplets (liquid) and that is so wasteful, so inefficient...."

It drives me nuts everytime I read something like this, yes the FI or carb when poorly designed can effect efficency, but the real problem is the engine design. The day will never come that you drive an Ottocycle ICE down the road 10 mikes, stop, get out and wrap your hands around the exhast header without disintegrating your flesh. Regardless of how good the FI or carb are.

Just think of the wasted energy going out of the red hot exhaust, the gallons of pressurized water exchanging the engine heat into the air. The several hundred pound chunk of metal that makes up the ICE raising its temperture by 100 degrees or more in just a few minutes.

The energy waste is just staggering...insane.... Yet there goes another Escalade down the road.