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Umm, they have already delivered over 100 to customers, they started building them last year. So, fictitious? No. Over $100K? Yes, so not many folks will be able to take advantage of this "green revolution" just yet. ;-)
gagrice: I would not count on a lighter more fuel efficient vehicle. One of the most fun vehicles I ever drove was a friends CRX. The EPA pretty much destroyed that car with all the crap you listed above.
But let's face it, if you had the chance to buy a brand new CRX this year, 1800 pounds, 100 hp, 0-60 in 7 secs, hunkered down, with a 92 inch wheelbase just like the CRXs of yore, would you buy one? I think you might stick with your SUV, and the problem in general for folks like me is that there are a lot of people who prefer big, heavy, and remote to small, light, and involved in the drive. Now electric propulsion looks to make a big go of it in the next 20 years, and even the engine note will go away in favor of a distant hum....
:-(
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
You can still fly down the highway on 10 through Texas but a SUV does that as well if not better than any car. Who doesn't use cruise control?
I believe the future will be all about comfort and functionality. EVs, Hybrids maybe small diesels will become the norm and driving will less intensive.
Push come to shove, I will restore an older vehicle just to have something that has a sense of being. Hybrids don't do it for me. Bland econoboxes that require you to shift down two gears and pushing the throttle to the floor to get enough power to climb it without holding up traffic behind you also doesn't endear me to something.
I have been in highly comfortable vehicles. They are just a thing. I have been in and owned vehicles that had character and were responsive. Those are the kind of vehicles that make driving more enjoyable and give me a reason to be engaged.
If someone wants an electric only vehicle, they are welcome to it. I don't want one. Even a hybrid must have something more than just a high fuel economy rating to make it worth buying. Diesel engines in vehicles that have a sense of being would be nice. Then again, give me a diesel Kawasaki KLR650, as are made for the United States military, particularly the Marine Corps, and I would be rather happy to ride it. With a fuel economy rating of 90 to 100 miles per gallon one of those bikes beats the capabilities of every hybrid made today and allows one to enjoy the trip from point A to point B.
Anyway, I went to pick up my daughter from school. A charter elementary that does not provide transportation. Parents proceed through a kiss-n-go line before and after school to drop off and retrieve their little angels. Usually the teachers in the afternoon have the kids waiting for the cars as they pull up, but of course this afternoon no one recognizes the car I am driving. They recognize me and get my daughter up to get in the car. It only takes a few extra seconds, but in that time 2 teachers walk over to the car to look. I hear one of them say "That's a Prius, one of those hybrids." Now I love my wife and all, so don't think too ill of me, but this teacher is cute. She leans over and asks me "Did you just buy this?" I explain no, just borrowing it. She says, "Well, it's a cool car to borrow. I've always wanted to drive one."
I felt like I was 16 again. Good looking girls looking at my car. Talking to me. Telling me my car is cool. Suggesting a ride.
That was enjoyable.
Then my daughter asked for a drink.
Yup, and then she wont feel so excited about it. :sick:
lol, most likely.
For what it does I suppose the Prius is not horrible. I kinda look at it as proof of concept.
lol at yuppie chick magnet. I don't need one either. It was just a funny moment.
What "noise" did you think you heard?
If your Camry is as noisy as a Prius, Toyota needs to head back to the drawing board. Every little joint in the pavement gets radiated into the passenger compartment. I personally thought the first Prius I rode in was much quieter. Then that was about 9 years ago and I went from a 1990 Camry to the Prius. Plus our roads have gone down hill since then with little to no maintenance.
Would I drive one running errands? Why not, they have a nice big hatch area to put stuff. Would I head out to the desert or over to Phoenix? Not in a million years. Your blindness to the facts on these attempts at being green is showing.
It's just not.
From various sources on the web:
In general, most family sedans, minivans, and midsized and large SUVs have very good noise isolation, including CR Top Picks like the Honda Accord, Acura TL, Infiniti M35, Honda Odyssey, Honda Ridgeline, Toyota Highlander Hybrid and Toyota Prius. Smaller vehicles, such as the Honda Civic and Subaru Forester (also Top Picks), score a step below for noise isolation. The noisiest cars we’ve recently tested include the Lotus Elise and Pontiac Solstice. These two sporty cars rated Poor for noise isolation and were even noisy enough to make listening to the radio a challenge.
And from an Edmunds review:
Once under way, though, the Prius rides tranquilly, with a pillow-soft suspension and good sound insulation.
And:
Ride quality is generally very good, most bumps and ripples not coming through to the cabin.
And:
Toyota Prius
Besides the superb gas mileage, the Toyota Prius is a quiet vehicle. It starts on its electric motor so there is no churn of a starter motor or engine revving noise. In addition, the aerodynamic car produces little wind and road noise.
Maybe the one road you took a Prius ride on was a bad one.
But no one anywhere in any review calls the Prius "noisy."
It's relative. That's all.
Gary compared the Prius to his Sequoia. Found it noisy.
I own a Saturn wagon. Not exactly a quiet car, and a car do not like very much. I found the Prius more noisy, especially on the highway.
Others may have a different experience.
Our friend went from a noisy GM PU truck to a noisy Civic to a noisy Camry. So it is relative to what you are used to. Myself I like to be able to hear the subtleties of an Itzhak Perlman piece while riding down the highway at 70 MPH. I like to be isolated from all the noise while in the city as well. While the Sequoia is not perfect, it is better than my Suburban and most other SUVs including my tax man's RX. Part of it are the crappy low profile tires that have become so popular. Give me quiet balloons any day. I think that is why the X5 I demoed was not as quiet as my Sequoia.
But classifying a Prius as a "noisy car" is just incorrect.
I think the fun factor fnor hybrids is coming. The For Fusion Hybrid's write ups indicate a fun potential including essentially a dashboard that makes nailing the best mileage sort of a game.
On the road, I found the Prius ride and handling to be hesitant, while the steering was slow-reacting. Acceleration and passing are not the vehicle’s strong points, but it does contend with traffic at acceptable speeds and it can pass slower-moving cars. Performing and riding in a manner one would expect from a sub-compact, road irregularities are felt within the cabin, and there is more road noise inside than I would have expected, but there was never a feeling of instability during my tests.
http://www.greatcarstv.com/reviews/2008-toyota-prius.html
Steering feel is artificial, the regenerative brakes are only average, and the ride can get bumpy and noisy. Blame the low rolling resistance tires and the lack of sound deadening to save weight.
http://www.thecarconnection.com/bottomline/toyota_prius_2009
There are more complaints of noise than praise for a quiet ride with a simple GOOGLE search.
I hope so, and I assume we're talking about driving dynamics. There are those who have found some fun factor in other ways. They find the fun in squeezing out the MPG's. With my dad it is a game of one upmanship. Quite a few of his friends have gotten into small fuel efficient cars and brag to each other. Almost all of them can afford to drive whatever they want, but they are gaming each other on this.
The Prius is not unpleasant to drive. It's just not very exciting. As a grocery getter or around town runabout, it works quite nicely. It takes a little getting used to. When it cuts off at a full stop, I keep finding myself thinking "Gee, I sure hope this thing goes when the light turns green."
The fact that the VAST MAJORITY of review shows Prius as quiet, as do the vast majority of owners (check greenhybrid.com if not believing me) do also proves the point.
The Prius is not a noisy car. Found a Swedish test which showed the Prius in the top 10 of all cars tested.
Keep saying it and you are just passing out incorrect information.
As such, gagrice is bound to notice a big difference when transitioning from his truck to a Prius.
But there will be soon be very few BOFs left on the market, even among non-"green" models, so the BOF frame of reference is becoming obsolete.
And in this discussion, we are still falling for that fatal flaw in our arguments: the Prius is somehow "all hybrids". It is one car, built until now on a subcompact chassis (that of the Yaris) with the engine from that subcompact. Will it be different beginning with the 2010 model? Yes (to be built on the Auris/Euro-Corolla platform using the 1.8L engine from the existing Corolla).
Could any automaker out there build a hybrid with COMPLETELY DIFFERENT RIDE AND HANDLING CHARACTERISTICS? Emphatically, yes.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Check out the Insight at your local dealership! :surprise:
To people who comment and accuse you of being something you are not, merely say, "I like spending less money on gas and more money on having fun."
The Fusion and Prius have gizmos to show you how how economically you are driving. Those that get their kicks seeing how much you can squeeze out of a gallon of gas (that would appeal to me) will have fun. Neck snapping acceleration it ain't.
I suspect that we're just starting to see hybrids that will feel as comfortable as a regular car.
Is there really some type of categorizing of those who buy hybrids as such? I would be of the mind that its my money, I can spend it how I see fit, and I may or may not associate with the labels being given.
I appreciate those that drive hybrids and the sacrifice they are making for the greater good. Far be it from me to judge them, I am certainly not willing to do what they did at this point.
It just depends on wants and needs. If all you need/want are power windows and a ride to work and back, then for that lifestyle its not a sacrifice at all...well, except for the cost premium over a non-hybrid vehicle.
As it pertains to this forum, will they be exciting and fun to drive, my answer so far is a resounding NO, and as I said, I appreciate the sacrifice. I have a lot of seat time in a current gen Prius, a fair amount in a current get TCH, and some in a previous gen Prius. Of course, it could just be that Toyota can't make a fun car anymore...
"Anymore" implies that there was a time when Toyotas were fun. I can't recall that Toyotas were ever the choice for "fun." Well, okay, maybe the MR-2 and the Supra were fun. Kinda, sorta. And now there's Scion. I think Scions are supposed to be fun, but since I've never even ridden in one I'll leave it to someone who's at least driven one to comment on whether Scions are fun.
Don't suppose anyone's tried an Altima hybrid? I figure I'll check teh Fusion when that appears, It gets good write ups anyway.
People sure get excited about hypermiling and they seem to have fun scrolling through those endless menus on the dash readout checking the various readouts.
I'm mostly joshing with you, but maybe we need to define "driving."
I was primarily thinking of the cars you mentioned, the 84-95 MR2 (1st & 2nd gen), the Supra from inception till about '86 or so when it became a cruiser, and then again in the mid-90s when it became a psuedo-supercar, the 22R powered Celicas (and the later Celica all-trac turbo, although the Eclipse GSX was cheaper, more powerful, and faster), and the AE86 Corolla GTS, the Toyota fanboy poster child.
Its been pretty lean the last 10-15 years from Mr Watanabe though at a time when Honda went through 3 Civic SIs, the S2000, RSX, Integra, and even the NSX isn't that far gone (of course, they did kill the RSX, Integra, had a total miss with the Del Sol (high school girls don't care about vtec) but that still leaves a fun Civic SI in coupe or sedan... Even Nissan resurrected the Sentra SE-R and the 350Z, killing the lame duck Infiniti Maxima in favor of the G35.
That said, look at how sales are tanking for all the "fun" cars and the Camry is a sales leader...as the Toyota marketing guy said at the auto show, the number one selling flavor of ice cream is vanilla.
If so we can expect them to get more expensive and perhaps less plentiful, I think. And we will probably see few if any "go green", although Tesla certainly proves the exception to that rule.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
What if it were faster off the line and offered better fuel economy at the same time? That is the case with the Camry hybrid, for instance, vs the regular Camry 4-cylinder.
Of course the downside is weight gain. But the Li-IOn battery packs are much smaller and lighter than the NiMH packs that hybrids are using today. So maybe Porsche could limit the weight gain by developing Li-Ion for their hybrids.
I agree with you: for Cayenne and other large crossovers and SUVs, diesel is the way to go, not hybrid.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Nissan is developing several in-car technologies that warn, prompt or help a driver consume less fuel. One is a touch pad on the accelerator pedal that pushes back slightly if the driver increases speed too much.
So how much is "too much??!! LOL!
http://www.autoweek.com/article/20090421/CARNEWS/904219989
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Could a new malaise era be brewing?
With the "speed kills" crowd being permitted to implement their Orwellian surveillance grid, and the greenies bankrupting the first world in the name of environmental causes, it's a possibility. The performance mindset of the past 10-15 years could end up being like the 1955-70 period. However, a world full of Nanos and G-Wiz might be worse than a world full of Vegas and Mustang IIs.
That's why most older people like to drive slower. They have seen the light of the foolishness of excessive speed. It's a maturity thing. ( Sure, some OLD GUYS AND GALS never outgrow their "need to speed" but MOST do. )
Common sense, energy-conserving "green cars" will not be fun for speed freaks, ever.
There will always be cars built for people who "love to drive" but those cars MIGHT someday be priced out of the range of the Average Joe.
Older people drive slower because they realize their diminished capabilities, and are more sensitive to the physical sensations of speed. There's nothing sensible about taking corners at 5mph like the typical old timer will do - it's all about not liking the sensations made by gravity and physics hard at work.
Green cars will likely not be fun for anyone save for LLCs and hypermilers who merge onto 60mph roads at 30. All we have so far are Teslas and a few similars who have yet to prove themselves as a viable mass market concern.
If fun to drive cars are eliminated, they won't be priced away, they will be legislated away. Globalized transportation pods will be the mandate. For nonthinking new world order minions under a 24/7 CCTV grid, it will be fitting.
Everyone knows that that group (the 70+ crowd) drives the way they do because of declining capability.
People in the 35-55 range usually have the same capability they had at 20 when it comes to driving reactions, but they "wise up" and CHOOSE to drive slower because after 8,000+ commutes, EXPERIENCE shows them that driving that extra 7-10 mph does not get them there any faster in the long run. Just gets them tickets and grief.
But of course for many, "fun to drive" is not just about the drag race to 100 mph, it is about cars that handle well, do lots of sport-oriented things well. It is likely that such cars will persist into the "green age" IMO. Just because "fun to drive" will always be appreciated by a small, albeit not growing, segment of the population. And because there's nothing that prevents a car from being green AND fun to drive.
I look forward to technologies like twin-charging (a la VW) and various electric and hybrid modes improving the green factor AND the fun factor of cars simultaneously.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Then a story like this comes along:
Tokyo: Underground Street Racing Paradise
(btw, some of the potshot posts have been deleted).
BMW, Mercedes consider return to 4-bangers in U.S. market
Facing stricter fuel economy standards, BMW and Mercedes-Benz are considering bringing four-cylinder engines back to the United States.
BMW stopped offering four-cylinders in 1999 when its 318ti hatchback flopped. Mercedes-Benz had four-cylinder engines on the 2005 C230 and SLK230 but dropped them in favor of six-cylinder models.
BMW of North America is considering a twin-turbocharged, direct-injection four-cylinder gasoline engine for U.S. vehicles, said CEO Jim O'Donnell.
.....Mercedes-Benz is deciding whether to offer the four-cylinder diesel from the E250 Bluetec concept at the New York auto show this month.
The show car, based on the new E-class sedan, has a 2.2-liter four-cylinder diesel with 204 hp and a fuel economy rating of nearly 40 mpg on the highway.
Ernst Lieb, CEO of Mercedes-Benz USA, said the E class may not be the right car for the engine in the United States. But, he said, it is well-suited for the C-class sedan and GLK compact SUV and could be used in the current generation of both vehicles.
http://www.autoweek.com/article/20090427/CARNEWS/904279995
I certainly think they need to do something about the fuel economy of their cars offered in the States, and some 4-cylinder engines, whether gas or diesel, could help in that regard while still providing ample power to be fun to drive. The last 318ti was one of the most fun cars to drive that BMW has sold here, IMO. Big engines just give automakers an excuse to make the cars too heavy and add big bucks to the purchase price. Leading to overweight and overpriced, that most deadly of combinations.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
This isn't about people who dare to travel at speeds still deemed acceptable in most of the developed world. This is about the green car movement and its impact on modern performance cars.