still astounded by the amount of ignorance and misinformation by anti-hybrid/anti-Prius folks

I treat Prius Haters the same way I treat gas stations. Smile, whistle softly to myself, and move on . . .

 

so prius will get 32mpg and jetta will get 60mpg.... but Camry is small car death trap and so is Highlander?

 

I hear you. I've owned the car for a week and people are still claiming BBC's Top Gear is LEGIT to my face and on facebook. LOL

 

Yeah that show is purely focused on entertainment and so is just about fully devoid of any serious motoring journalism. Unfortunately the Prius (because it's different) is still the car that a lot of people love to hate. So that's the line (prius sux) that they're going to take, because it will offer the greatest entertainment value to the greatest number of people. The fact that it's all BS is really irrelevant to them.

 

Actually in my first week in the Prius, I've noticed it gets blown around a lot more by the wind than my previous cars (Subaru Legacy & WRX). Nothing I can't handle but noticeably worse. Either that or its been the windiest week ever!

 

I'd say that mine gets blown around less than my Legacy wagon, which has terrible aerodynamics and is only 200 pounds heavier. But the Legacy often has a ski rack on top too.

 

Mine was a 2004 sedan with the big wing on the back. Must be the wing gave me that extra stability in wind :rockon:

 

While stupidity is a part of it, it is short-sightedness that is mankind's biggest hurdle.

 

I wish people would ask me that. I DO plug mine in!

 

I think Prius counts as "most", since 3,000,000 is quite a large number. oh well.

 

Re: still astounted by the amount of ignorance and misinformation by anti-hybrid/anti-Prius folks

I had a Corvair! It was in 1967, but I don't remember the model year. It was tan and I can't remember why I go rid of it. I know it leaked like a sieve and had trouble with winter starting, but it was a really cool car otherwise. And I do remember that shifter. I also remember stuffing seven friends inside one Saturday for a ride from the football field back to the high school, about a mile away. It actually dragged against the road all the way. Most were cheerleaders so it was all good.

Thanks for the walk down memory lane....

 

!!! No one has ever told me any of these (or anything else bad) about the car in the past 5 years. People have been curious and have asked me questions (mostly what my MPG is).

 

I generally get good feedback about my Prius. That said, I live in Boulder and work for a tech company. Engineers love the Prius because it's so technologically advanced.

As for the few idiots, my attitude is now "screw you". If you don't want to drive a Prius then I'm not going to force you to drive one. But I'm not going to waste time arguing with you about the merits of my car.

Don't fall into the trap of believing that they want to have a discussion on the merits. Because if they did, they would lose badly. Every serious lifecycle comparison (including one done by a friend of mine at NREL) has found that lifetime emissions are vastly lower on the Prius than a comparable conventional vehicle.

Typical strategies of these idiots are to overestimate the energy in production/recycling/disposal (the vast majority of energy costs for any vehicle are fuel), to compare the Prius to non-comparable vehicles (like the Smart, which seats two and has basically no cargo space), or to just make facts up.

I paid $14500 for my 2007 Prius about 18 months ago, and since then I've put 15k miles on it. It has required basically no maintenance (oil changes, air filters, I replaced the tires), I get 45MPG despite my leadfoot driving, it's comfortable, and it's practical.

The Prius is reasonably safe, low-maintenance, comfortable, and practical. For someone who buys a car for going places rather than driving enthusiasm or sexiness, the Prius is an awesome car. I just spent a week in the Bay Area driving an Eclipse Spyder, which is a very cool and very fun car. But you know what? Not having trunk space, having to climb into a low vehicle, being unable to see out the back, and dealing with the (clearly designed-to-be) noisy engine grates on you. After a week of driving an Eclipse I was glad to have my Prius back.

The Prius is not an SUV, it is not a sports car, and it is not a supermini. It is a practical, medium-sized car like the Ford Fusion or Honda Civic. Like other cars of its class, the Prius is designed to take 1-4 people wherever they want to go with a reasonable amount of cargo, to do it comfortably, and to do it with a minimum of fuss. Anyone complaining that it's 'too slow' or can't haul lumber is missing the point entirely.

I have driven a lot of cars and there is nothing I would rather drive than the Prius. Anyone else who wants to tell me that my decision is wrong based on some made-up BS is going to be ignored.

 

Good posting... but, I have hauled lumber in it.
Sacks of cement. A chest freezer. Sacks of top soil & compost. Grown kids - it's great for those, as there is plenty of head and legroom in the backseat for our 6'5" son!

It's a hatchback, so it does work well for hatchback things. And, it does them while having near zero emissions, and getting great MPGs.

It's also cute.

 

We put 500lbs of bags of sand in the back of ours this weekend and still got 45 MPG.

 

I've had mine 4 weeks, have hauled soil, compost, and lumber for my new food garden in it, not to mention children, musical instruments, and all the other stuff of daily life! There must be at least one Prius-hater in town, though, as I discovered yesterday that some fool had keyed my passenger side, front to back.

Also just went to my community's brand new co-op market in the Prius. The co-op opened this weekend, and commenters on the newspaper's website are dissing it for customers with "greeny attitudes". Sheesh. Those of us with greeny attitudes, greener cars, organic gardens, and more-sustainably built homes are trying to slow the human-generated destruction of the planet for our children. They really don't want to get it.

 

Based on what I've read I do not need to plug my Prius in at night? The how does the battery charge?

 

There is no way (without expensive modifications) to "Plug-in"" a Prius. The motors (there are two) are operated as generators to either:

1. Use Regenerative Braking to charge the HV battery while slowing down. This has the added advantage of making the seldom used friction brakes last a long time.
2. Usually run the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) at a high efficiency operation point and use the excess energy to charge the battery, If the battery gets full at low speed the ICE will stop and the Traction Motor-Generator (MG) is used to drive the Prius. Note that reverse is also powered by the traction MG.

JeffD