NY Times feature article about 2010 Prius

It's an interesting article! I found it online at
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/automobiles/autoreviews/29AUTO.html?ref=automobiles&pagewanted=all

Behind the Wheel | 2010 Toyota Prius
Hybrid Superstar Shines Brighter

Published: March 26, 2009
FEW cars on the road today have been genuine game-changers, but the Toyota Prius is certainly high among those that are.



Not only did the Prius help to prove that hybrid gas-electric powertrains can be feasible, reliable and desirable, the car has become the object of cultlike affection and a social statement. In the decade since the first Prius was introduced in the United States, more than 1.2 million have been sold worldwide. According to Toyota, 8 out of 10 Prius owners say they would buy another.
In keeping with its plans to increase hybrid sales to one million a year in the next few years (from 241,405 in 2008), Toyota is introducing a third-generation Prius in May. Will the new version of this iconic vehicle sustain the respect of its admirers? Will making the 2010 Prius slightly bigger and slightly faster add to the appeal, or will the upsizing backfire?
Or is it enough to say that the new Prius — regardless of how many adults it seats comfortably, how much luggage it carries or how the battery pack is now expected to last the life of the car — is rated at 50 miles a gallon?
Ratings, you say, are one thing. What kind of mileage can an owner expect, on actual roads and in real driving conditions? That is a good question, but there is more than one answer.
Toyota says the new car completed the government‘s test cycle with an economy rating of 51 m.p.g. in city driving and 48 m.p.g. on the highway. Combined mileage came out at an industry-leading 50 m.p.g. In much of the nation these days, you can fill the Prius’s 11.9-gallon tank for less than $20.
But get this: in my road testing of the new Prius, I managed 69 m.p.g. That happened on a 34-mile route of mostly stop-and-go driving, at an average speed of 27 m.p.h. A journalist who drove the same route averaged even better — 74 m.p.g. — although he admitted to driving so far below the speed limit on public roads that he considered himself lucky to have survived.
Will you, the prospective Prius buyer, have any chance of matching those numbers, at least while observing all traffic laws?
With practice, yes, but you will probably have to alter your driving style. My best mileage came when my foot moved on and off the accelerator like a teenager on the first day of driver’s ed.
Earlier, Akihiko Otsuka, the Prius’s chief engineer, had claimed to average 62.9 m.p.g. on the same route, and issued a challenge to top that. When I and my fellow auto writer crushed it, he asked what technique we had used. “It seems to respond well to pulse-and-glide,†I said.
He grinned and nodded.
Pulse-and-glide is the technique that I recently used to achieve 65 m.p.g. in another new hybrid, the 2010 Honda Insight. Basically, it consists of goosing the gas pedal for about 10 seconds to bring up the speed and torque efficiency of the gasoline engine, then gliding with your foot off the accelerator for a few seconds to bring in maximum benefit from the electric motors. You can monitor the effect this style is having by watching the “instantaneous fuel consumption meter†and the new “hybrid system indicator†graph on the information-laden dashboard display.
The previous-generation Prius did not respond as well to this herky-jerky driving style, but the new car certainly does. My co-driver for this exercise, Rick Kranz of Automotive News, drove a steady, conservative speed on the route and averaged 56 m.p.g.
“Now try doing it with pulse-and-glide,†I suggested.
His average immediately jumped to 65 m.p.g. “It works,†he agreed. “But it’s a good way to make everyone carsick.â€
The Prius now offers three performance modes that the driver can select: EV for or electric-only, ECO for economy and POWER for, well, you get it.
In EV mode it is possible to travel up to a mile — at 24 m.p.h. or less —on battery power alone. But that discharges the battery, and it takes 20 to 30 miles of subsequent driving to recharge it.
ECO moderates a driver’s more erratic tendencies. It can be left on all the time, as it was for my 69 m.p.g. run.
The POWER setting takes its toll on mileage, but enables runs from 0 to 60 m.p.h. in 9.8 seconds. That will not induce whiplash, but it is four-tenths of a second quicker than the 2009 Prius.
One of Toyota’s goals in redesigning the Prius was to minimize the disparity between the city and highway mileage. The difference was 7 m.p.g. with the original Prius of 2000-3. City averages were better because the car’s Hybrid Synergy Drive system provided more electric assist in low-speed, stop-and-go operation. (In contrast, Honda’s Integrated Motor Assist system provides electric assist to the gasoline engine at all speeds; hence, its hybrids get better mileage on the highway.)
The fact that the difference is so small for the new Prius has much to do with a more efficient system for recirculating exhaust gases. “To keep catalytic converters from melting, all conventional engines periodically richen the fuel mixture to cool things down,†Mike Michels, a Toyota spokesman, explained. “But that’s wasteful.†Cooling the gases helps, particularly on the highway.
Emissions are also cleaner, although California still rates the Prius as a Super Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle. (It’s a Partial Zero Emission Vehicle when running in electric-only mode).
Perhaps more significant, the combined city-highway rating is 50 m.p.g. That easily beats any other car sold in the United States — it is 8 m.p.g. better than the No. 2 contender, the Honda Civic Hybrid. It is also 400 percent better than the nation’s thirstiest car, the Lamborghini Murciélago Roadster.
Consider, too, that the Prius is slightly larger than its predecessor, weighs 122 pounds more and has a bigger engine. So how can it get 5 more m.p.g. than the model it replaces?
For one thing, the car’s fractionally greater girth is put to better aerodynamic use. Sharp creases on the corners streamline airflow over the body, as does a longer spoiler, flat underbody panels and an optimized roof arch.
Moving the roof’s peak farther back also created more headroom in the rear seat. A bit more leg and shoulder room has also been carved out.
The Prius weighs a bit more (it’s now 3,042 pounds) because of added crash protection measures. The car would have been heavier if the drivetrain hadn’t been lightened by 20 percent.
Also, the Prius’s 98-horsepower gasoline engine (a 1.8-liter Atkinson-cycle in-line 4) is more powerful than the previous 76-horsepower 1.5-liter motor. Net horsepower, including the boost from the electric motors, has jumped to 134, from 110.
Efficiency is further improved by eliminating drive belts for the air-conditioning compressor and the water pump, which is now electric. The nickel-metal-hydride battery pack is smaller and more efficient, as is the power control unit, electric motors and transaxle.
The electric power steering unit is more precise, and changes to the front suspension also improve steering control and on-center feel. As a whole, the Prius, which now rides on a version of the midsize car platform shared with the Camry and the Lexus EX and RX, handles more like a real car and less like a science project.
How much will this markedly improved package cost?
That is another good question that has more than one answer. Prices have not been announced, and the most basic version, to be called Prius I, will not be available until later this year. It is likely to be priced comparably to the base 2009 model, which was $22,600. (Toyota said last week that it was planning a hybrid version of its Yaris subcompact that would compete more directly with the less expensive Honda Insight.)
The mainstream version that goes on sale in May will be the Prius II, in the mid-$20,000 range. From there, there will be Priuses III, IV and V, with additional luxury features and higher prices.
But wait, as the infomercials say, there’s more. Stand-alone options like a navigation system, solar-cell roof ventilation, pre-collision automatic braking, radar cruise control, lane-minders and automated parallel parking are all in the works. Fully loaded, the Prius will easily top $30,000.
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INSIDE TRACK: When gas prices go back up, you’ll wish you had one.

 

The best line:

"When gas prices go back up, you’ll wish you had one."