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First, Jeremy Clarkson poo-poos most normal cars...
Of course, when you get to try all Ferraris and such, the Prius IS quite a bore...

The VW he mentions is the VW Polo BlueMotion. It is a tiny car (smaller than Golf/Rabbit), so it cannot really be compared to the Prius. Many small cars can get great FE, but the Prius combines similar FE with a normal, family sized car.

Some people here in Norway says that the Smart ForTwo has lower emissions than the Prius, but the Smart is a 2-seater with cargo space for a toothbrush and a MasterCard!

People who don't like the Prius seems to love to compare apples and oranges.


Stein

 

Agree about Jeremy - all is black or white - very little grey, but this is what makes the show fun!
The VW Polo Bluemotion is a supermini , so a fair bit smaller. To achieve the CO2 readings to make it 'better ' than the Prius, VW have stripped it out including removing A/C. With A/C, it scores worse than the Prius. It is however a perfectly reasonable answer to the same question that the Prius answers, just from another angle. I have just changed from a small auto diesel - a Mercedes A170 CDi LWB, which was a great design, but nothing like the build quality of my Prius. It also didn't do the same mileage, is noisier and had less toys! I did like the size though, and the space.

 

Look Brah, Prius no ka oi.

None bettah...

Battery get hot, but not hot enough for huli huli chicken.

All da BLALAS know dat...

Prius with traction control probably not good for sandy roads and beaches, slip too much for off road travel on dirt roads and hills.

Ask someone on da rock that owns one.

I've been to Kauai, snorkled Lehua rock. We can't wait to go back someday and kayak the Napali coast.

Late

 

I'm a great fan of Top Gear - it's good, entertaining TV and Clarkson's journalistic wit adds a considerable flavor to it. Sadly that doesn't mean it's FAIR and unbiased journalism, nor necessarily all that accurate.

He says, for example, that the Prius is slow, with a 0-60 time of 13 seconds. Actually 0-60 is 10 seconds, and while it's no Ferrari, it's as good, or better than most similarly sized family cars - including the small diesels that Clarkson typically recommends. Thus if the Prius is worthy of condemnation for it's performance, it is in very good company.

He also says he got 45mpg out of it in his commute and wasn't driving particularly hard. I find that hard to understand, since that's imperial (meaning it equates to little better than 35 mpg (US). There are a few here who report similarly poor fuel efficiency, but most get notably better than that. Mine returns just over 56mpg (which is around 70 imperial).

It must be said though that in many respects he's right. For someone used to the build quality of cars costing 3, 4 5 or even 10 times the price of a Prius (and which Clarkson tends to like), build quality is poor. Comparing it to other vehciles in the same sort of price range is a different matter of course, but doesn't make for good TV. Also, since fuel prices in the UK have been significantly higher than in the US for many, many years, while we were happy here to buy vehicles capable of little better than 12 or 20 mpg and never much thought about the cost of a tankful of gas and how often we had to stop to fill up, much of the rest of the world were very concerned with fuel efficiency and thus developed dozens of vehicles, such as the VW Lupo Clarkson refers to, which were typically small(ish) but got great milage. Of course most of these weren't ever sold in the US because we were far too hooked into SUVs and land-yachts by marketing hype.

The result is that in a very real sense, the Prius is not a remarkable vehicle in the UK since it sits within a category of cars which get similar fuel efficiency. Here there is very little to compete with it at the present time, since we are really only beginning our awareness of fuel efficiency - basically 20 years or so behind Europe.

 

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<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Spoon @ Aug 7 2007, 12:58 AM) [snapback]491730[/snapback]</div>

Don't forget that the Prius does not rely on the ICE alone. It also has an electric motor that provides plenty of torque. There's no need to tinker with it as it works just fine as it is for the purposes for which it was designed. It's not a race car so there's no need to do 0-60 in 5 seconds or go 130 mph.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Aug 7 2007, 08:42 AM) [snapback]491840[/snapback]</div>

I like to say, - Zero to Sixty in 50 watts...

 

Hi Spoon,

The Prius has remarkable accelleration for being as big as it is, and only having 110 HP. There are several reasons for this. First off, the CVT does not need to waste time shifting gears. Power is seamless. Second the CVT has allot more ratio range than a typical four speed automatic. So the engine can get right up to 76 hp at slow speeds - like 15 mph. Most cars cannot develope full engine power to allot higher speeds because the highest transmission ratio is still too steep. The battery supplies the power above the 76 HP directly to the motor, which has the torque of a small V8, but only at the slower speeds. Even at 65 mph, where my old Saturn SL2 was at 2900 RPM, the Prius can be as low as 1200 rpm (level road cruising), or as high as 4500 RPM (climbing a mountain). The 1200 RPM points out the ratio range advantage again, but at the higher speeds. Light weight for the size, and supperior aerodynmic design are other factors.

There is guy who likes to point out the folly of various specifications people tend to get hooked on. His name is Amory Lovins. He has pointed out that people do not buy Kilowatt hours, they buy a a lighted and cooled house. He started the Compact Florescent lighting programs in several areas. Power companies gave away these bulbs, rather than build a new power plant. The result was the same. Similarly with the Prius, people are not buying power, they are buying a functionally quick accelleration vehicle. Doing it with less horsepower by not wasting shift time, and matching the engine to the car with better ratios is just as valid as getting that acceleration with a 60 year old transmission technology and a large DOHC 4 cylinder engine.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Spoon @ Aug 7 2007, 07:16 PM) [snapback]492134[/snapback]</div>

If that's what you're looking for, the Prius does that. It may not be the only option, but it does that very well. And it does have the coolest gadgets.

I suggest you go test drive one. Just don't rely on the salesman to have all of the answers. It is a rare salesman that knows as much about the Prius as some of the members here do.

I know more about my Prius than I ever knew about any of the previous cars I owned. But that is because I want to learn about it and read many different posts here at Priuschat that provide me with a variety of information.

I'm just about to purchase an engine block heater and I can tell you why.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Spoon @ Aug 7 2007, 08:16 PM) [snapback]492134[/snapback]</div>

I think it's a given that if money were no object and it wasn't necessary to produce the Prius for sale at a profit, it could be designed and built to be better, both in terms of performance and fuel economy. There are many technologies out there that could be added or which could supplant, those used by Toyota in that situation. However, practicality dictates that Toyota have to design the vehicle so that it can be built within a cost framework that then allows it to be sold at a price people will pay and which doesn't lose them money, so some of the options that seem obvious ones are simply not economically feasible.

That's why there is great interest in after market improvements, including plug in options and photo cells, along with more traditional stuff like stiffening plates, tires etc. The after market allows those who want the extras to go have them, and since it's only they who pay, the rest of us can get our vehicles at a price we can (hopefully) afford.

To my mind, as it stands, the Prius is a pretty remarkable car though. It drives just about like anything else on the road, so it isn't as if there's anything new to learn to do when you're in one, but at the same time, it really does have an array of cool toys. It is very environmentally friendly, capable of delivering far better fuel efficiency than almost anything else on the market, yet has good acceleration (indeed, excellent acceleration in the mid-band for passing etc) and can cruise quietly at highway speeds all day long. The existence of the battery pack allows for technologies to be integrated which set new trends - electrically driven AC for example, where use neither seriously impacts engine power or fuel efficiency, or dispensing with the starter motor and instead spinning up the engine more gently and with less wear.

Even so, it's not the end product of a developmental line, but the starting point for it. In 10 or 20 years time, the Prius may seem rather antiquated as newer technologies are spurred into development and use. However, given the vehicles out there at this time or in the near future, the Prius is not only affordable and reliable, but among the most technologically advanced - and it still drives like a normal car and carries the same stuff!

Not perfect, not as good as it could possibly be, but pretty darn good even so.