Hybrids in California

[johnmc]

Hi Folks,
I’m on business travel again, all over the West Coast of the USA.

I was bored today, and decided to stop in at a Toyota dealer in San Diego to find out why every tenth car here seems to be a Toyota Prius. The salesman, Dave, was very knowledgable. Turns out that the cars have a 6.5ampere-hour, 270V battery pack, and it is designed to be never less than 50% charged. EG: net usage 3.25AH. The reason that the battery never goes below 50% is that the life is greatly shortened if you do go below it.
With a 50% charge minimum it should last 180,000miles before the battery pack needs replaced, at a cost of $7,000. A few key points came out in the discussion:

1. If you run out of fuel the car will attempt to run on battery. But, the puny 6.5AH available will last 30seconds at 40mph. A car running at 40mph needs roughly 15kilowatts of power to move it, about the same as ten ovens. Not much life in this little Prius then. It’s designed to partially assist the petrol engine, not replace it in any way.
2. If you do run on the battery for 30seconds you’ll either kill the battery pack on the spot or seriously reduce it’s life.
3. US Government is reducing the quoted MPG of all hybrids (including Lexus etc). Prius is dropping from 65mpg to 48mpg and quoted emissions are going up too. It’s now not better than a Corolla hatchback.

The reality of hybrids is that they don’t deliver on emissions or fuel economy in the real world. So, why so many hybrids in California? Dave told me that Prius hybrids are the only cars in California where you are allowed to use the car pool lane with one person in the car. I can understand why, traffic in LA and San Francisco can be a real pain. But, he also mentioned that this special status is also being lost with the reduction in fuel economy (car needs to be 60mpg to use the pool lane). So, he reckons that hybrid sales will plummet, not really worth the extra money. Most of them are bought by people with big trucks or cars so that they can use the car pool lane to commute faster.

So, take care if buying a hybrid. What happens in the US comes to us soon enough.

Meantime, I’m in LA tomorrow, heading for the beach. It’s 90deg here..!

Bye!
John

 

[Rory]

Very interesting.

I read somewhere that battery hybrids are an environmental disaster due to impact of having to dispose of the batteries at the end of their life.

Didn't Jeep Cherokee come out as one of the best whole life environmental impact cars!

 

[Blobcat]

The other name for the Prius is the Toyota Smug. There is a very funny South Park episode on them if you like South Park that is.

 

[eric242340]

The other name for the Prius is the Toyota Smug. There is a very funny South Park episode on them if you like South Park that is.

I dont want to sound stupid, maybe I am, but what is South Park. Sounds interesting.

 

[Blobcat]

I dont want to sound stupid, maybe I am, but what is South Park. Sounds interesting.

A very badly animated cartoon series by Trey Parker and Mat Stone. Just type 'South Park' into google and you will see what I mean.

 

[daveenty]

A very badly animated cartoon series

Though extremely funny at times

 

[Blobcat]

Though extremely funny at times

I said as much above ^.
Repeated very often on lots of sky channels.

 

[Iwantpies]

A Prius Rant

3. US Government is reducing the quoted MPG of all hybrids (including Lexus etc). Prius is dropping from 65mpg to 48mpg and quoted emissions are going up too. It’s now not better than a Corolla hatchback.

The reality of hybrids is that they don’t deliver on emissions or fuel economy in the real world.

This is an interesting point John.

My wife and I are renovating a house in Liguria, in Italy.

The last two times we've been down to check on progress (slow) we had, as hire cars, a BMW 318D and a Prius.

The fuel consumption on the 3 series was far supeirior to that of the Prius, bearing in mind we were doing similar journeys under similar conditions.

Another problem with the Prius is with the auto stop/start and battery life (as John mentioned above). This is supposed to be an ideal city car, as I understand it. But if you get caught in slow traffic (quite common in cities), it runs almost entirely on the petrol engine, briefly cutting out after moving for a short distance.

The petrol engine runs continuously (and noisily) when on the motorway, so the only conditions where the battery drive comes in is going downhill from up there to down here!

Talking of motorways - this is probably the most dangerous car I have ever driven on a motorway (and I learned to drive in an 850 Mini with door latches fashioned from string). You simply cannot get any power out of it to overtake, so confidently pulling out to overtake a lorry, to find actually the lorry has more ommph, and then an RS4 screams up your tailgate, can be quite hairy.

Oh, and starting the thing requires a checklist a 747 pilot would scoff at.

OK, the Prius might well be cleaner (in CO2 terms) than the 318D (which wasn't exactly a peach itself), but if I was going to spend the best part of £20k on a car that is cheap to run, give me the Beemer. I'll pay the higher road tax.

 

[johnmc]

The South Park hybrid episode is a great, especially when the cloud of smug from the hybrids creates a perfect smug storm with George Clooney's oscar speech smug. Great stuff! I've always enjoyed South Park.

Had a nice day at the beach here, better than the rain hammering Scotland. Slight downer was that I'm Anaheim, and the car is covered in big spots of ash from the brush fires in the nearby hills. Ah Well! Back to work here tommorrow.

I'd take a diesel any day over a hybrid. The new Mini Cooper Diesel does a genuine 65mpg and is really fun to drive.

Bye!
John

 

[angus falconer]

This is what Sniffpetrol has to say about the Prious (scroll down the page)

http://www.sniffpetrol.com/issue080.html