Toyota Prius v. ??? (fill in the comparison)

midnightcowboy

Troy,

I'm with you all the way, manual shift only for me. BTW aren't you an EE also ?

Cheers,

MidCow

midnightcowboy

Hills, Mountains and inclines come to mind! It is hard to flatten out the Rockies, it they happen to be in your trip path.

And then ,there is the potential future problem, Battery failure! Maybe just a cel or module, but failure of the traction battery system. Most cars are too new to experince this yet, but fast forwre to 2010 or 2015 and this will be a big discussion topic.

In fact, you might not see a total failure, but you might eperince the partial charge sysndrome, wherby the traction battery under the best hyper mileage conditions will only maintain a partial charge, maybe 90%, maybe 80%, Maybe 70%. who knows. If so, then maybe it would deplete under normal driving.

Anyway why worry, if it happens it happens, I heard one Prius advocate expounds that the battery will last for ever becuase it is almost never used! Maybe it will and maybe it won't

Good Luck and best of wishes,

MidCow the Manual Shift Man

backy

OK, I guess there are lots of times you will climb a mountain, then at the top (before you've gone downhill and recharged the battery), you need to floor the accelerator do a full-throttle 0-60. That happens all the time, right? ;-)

midnightcowboy

You asked how a battery could get completlely discharged and I stated: 'up a hill , mountain or incline.'

I said absolutely nothing about what you would do with the car following a depleted battery. I said nothing about flooring the accelerator or doing a full throttle 0-60 mph on a depleated battery.

However, as pointed out before, maybe too subtlely, when you have a depleated battery state, then you are vulnerable to extremely poor acceleration and potentially this could be a safety factor.

Again, I was only answering the question "How could one ever get a fully depleated battery?"

YMMV,

MidCow

P.S.- My Honda battery just gave out and I had to get it replaced $21 with tax and installation. Now I can start my 5-speed , becuase it is mowing season and the grass needs to be cut

backy

I didn't mean to imply you said anything about flooring the accelerator or doing a full-throttle 0-60 on a depleted battery. But that's exactly what MT did in their tests with a depleted battery--did full-bore 0-60 tests. I was just questioning how realistic that is. Especially in the Midwest, where even big hills are few and far between. From reading the hybrid discussions here for the past couple of years, I get the impression a fully depleted battery is very uncommon under normal driving conditions.

electrictroy

How realistic are 0-60 numbers, period?

troy

backy

Good point. How often does someone really need to go 0-60 at full throttle? I can count on one hand, with fingers left over, the times I've done that that in over 30 years of driving. And I'll bet I really didn't have to do it, when it comes down to it. Passing acceleration is more important in the real world, I think.

gagrice

I totally agree with both of you on this one. I guess that is why I question all the hoopla over high powered hybrids. The HAH has as much HP as my Suburban, that is twice the weight. A Waste of energy IMO.

misterme

When I was researching hybrid vehicles back in '03 my father showed me a car magazine, I don't recall if it were C&D, R&T (etc) but it had a 3-1/2 page review on the Prius and the HSD system.
The review was mostly glowing, but also noted some minor "issues".

My confidence in car magazines "unbiased" reviews was shattered when I read, in magnifying lens type:
"Paid Toyota Advertisement"
I thought it interesting that they'd toss in a few quirks to make it look like a legitimate review.

I'm sure all car MFG's do this, and the magazines make a killing. To me, these magazine reviews are nearly meaningless since they're often paid off.

backy

This clearly wasn't a magazine review. It was an ad. Companies do this kind of advertising all the time in magazines, and not just with cars.

Anyway, all reviews in car magazines are biased in one way or the other, depending on the bias of the editors of the magazine. The better mags, like C/D, at least are honest and upfront about their biases.

If you want to read car reviews in a magazine that has no support by third-party advertisers, there's always Consumer Reports. Which, by the way, (to try to get back on topic), is very favorable towards the Prius.

Sylvia

There was a discussion about Consumer Reports and other car mags in the News & Views board. I'll see if we can't get that revived if you want to continue to debate how car mags operate.

Thanks!