10 things you need to know about the Toyota Prius

Interesting.

 

skip the plug in? skip the plug in? 12 miles ev on a good day? $5,000. more? am i making lemons out of lemonade?

 

Most of us have had our shots so we aren't rabid.

 

Thanks for posting the link.

I read this on my iPhone that still has an old freebie CR app on it that functions even though I think it has been abandoned by CR. The app doesn't have sharing options and I wasn't sure about simply cutting and pasting... or whether anybody here would be interested as some take exceptions to some of the CR comments on things near and dear to our hearts.

Roland

 

Yeah but many of us took our shots at CR!

 

The same journalist wrote this CR blog
Hypermiling – Evaluating common fuel-economy tips on the road

Well done, and well written. Too bad it does not get more exposure.

 

I can appreciate these articles are trying to bring in a touch of 'reality' to the earlier, CR articles:

I wish them luck but not enough to subscribe because CR still does not provide the details needed to replicate their results. Just post a GPS ephemeris record of their urban testing showing velocity and altitude and we can do the rest. This is important because some of the CR high-mileage, vehicle results show evidence of something that is not controlled. I don't know what it is but the variability of the CR high-mileage vehicle MPGs means 'something is wrong here.' Plotting CR MPG versus EPA City MPG shows there is a non-linear effect that especially hurts the high mileage vehicles.

The same problem is evident in the second article. Instead of doing a quantitative analysis of each technique, many were listed without the numbers from an A-B-A test. The tire pressure in particular was poorly handled because claims about safety and wear were made that does not match SAE and other engineering data results. For example, stopping distances in both dry and wet conditions are improved with higher pressure. So if there is a problem, document it, don't just claim it exists.

Basic engineering testing is not that hard to do and gives results in quantitative numbers so we can make informed decisions. I just don't care for 'because I wrote it, it is so.' The scientific method, empiricism, does not work that way and CR continues to fail in a way I can't afford to support.

Bob Wilson

 

That is a high bar. Does *any* magazine reach it ?

 

I agree with 8 out of 10. Number 8- I think the plug in is the right car for some people. Number 9- What's wrong with the C?

 

• Autoweek - a paid subscriber, their articles have good content without being over the top. Excellent coverage without 'making stuff up.'
• GreenCarCongress - free, more of a technical collection, well worth scanning to get current announced technology and pointers to where to get follow-up. Sad to say, they sometimes post 'press releases' from sources of dubious quality.
• Edmunds - the "smackdown" series was brilliant although their primary business model appears to be sales leads. Still, they appear to be hybrid neutral and that is all it takes.
• cars.com - another sales lead site, their blog collects and sanely report factual data without going overboard.
• hybridcars.com - Jeff Cobb's site reports monthly sales and factual articles about hybrids.
• autospeed.com - a spotty, weekly, Australian web magazine, I've paid to support them in the past. His articles are fact based with good engineering content.

CR has a methodology they follow that pre-hybrid, appears to be perfectly fine. But something is broken in their "urban" mileage reporting which would be OK if that were it. As for their "scoring" of cars, I don't think they are aware of how badly their evaluation criteria is failing. My statistical analysis of their scores suggests CR puts too much weighting on:

• driver comfort
• low cabin noisea hard, unpublished acceleration requirement
• completely ignore even their flawed "urban" MPG

Perhaps when their current auto team leader retires, someone with new eyes can fix the CR problem(s). For now, I can not pay for flawed, poorly documented methodology.

Bob Wilson

 

Do you think the weights are being applied inconsistently ? I have always just figured that CR preferences do not mirror my own, not that their presentation is corrupt.

FWIW, I canceled my subscription last year and do not have plans to renew. Pity, really, because CR has been a consumer revolution and continues to inform on many fronts. I had learned to ignore the subjective opinions. The last straw for me was actually the offset collision test brouhaha for cars. I don't like bullies.

 

....I've come to agree something is wrong with CR MPG ratings on Prius.

The CR rating on 2010 Prius is:
32 MPG City
55 MPG Hwy
44 MPG average

Obviously the City MPG is completely bogus at 32 MPG ...the only thing that makes sense is they are not getting the car warmed up, somehow reporting that first 5-minute low MPG period.

 

I agree but also suspect they have a driving profile that exacerbates the warm-up penalty.

Bob Wilson

 

I found some data points that could be 'inconsistency' but the real problem are the sharp-edges for their criteria. For example, acceleration:

• <11 seconds - gives approximately 15 points
• >11 seconds - gives nothing (primary killer of Prius c poor score)

So instead of using a scaling function to award points, they use a PASS/FAIL so it gives the illusion of being arbitrary. The same applies to driver comfort and cabin noise.

There are legitimate PASS/FAIL criteria but their reviews do not define the rules in a fair and open place.

Bob Wilson

 

I don't think there is anything wrong with the Prius C.

But if you remember, Consumer Reports initial review of The C was so negative, my guess is they are kind of stuck backing their initial evaluation, even if they would realize they were off base.

Consumer Reports has never been a fan of The Prius C...and that kind of forces them to continue NOT being a fan.

I personally think their criticism's of the vehicle....ridiculous. But I wouldn't expect CR to suddenly recant and come out and admit that for a relatively low priced hybrid...it's a great sub-compact.

 

Re: the Prius 'c'
CR is actually being consistent -- they pan the Yaris, too.

Personally, I think both cars are excellent choices if your priorities match the trade-offs. And there-in lies one problem with CR: they tend to take a position that matches their mainstream reader and ignore everybody else.

 

We agree about the Prius C but it illustrates the problem of having an 'objective criteria' that has aged out of relevance.

Here we'll have to agree to disagree. Having an objective standard is good but it is not written on stone tablets. If the EPA can 'recalibrate' their standard and the IIHS their crash standards, then CR can too!

They can document what they have; invite peer (and customer review), and; publish a new, open standard. There are ways to 'tag' them to reflect which standard or just have a cut-off date.

How often should their standard be looked at . . . I like every 10 years. Putting it on a regular schedule will keep it current without having a major change in the values. Since the average age of the USA fleet is 11 years, the numbers are 'close enough.'

Bob Wilson
former Consumer Reports subscriber

 

Sorry, I messed up the quotes.....not even sure how I did this.

 

I think this article/thread reinforces how important it is to always review multiple sources when researching anything.