I just traded up from a Honda Fit (was very small) and I used to love it, but the space, mpg, and tech of this Prius makes me never want to switch back down! Haha.
If I can ask one more question, is there an electric car charging system in place yet in Great Britain like there is in the Netherlands? Here in my city of Syracuse we have a small but growing electric charging system for plug-in cars.
The Honda Jazz as it's known here is very popular and probably nicely sized to park in cities. If you haven't visited Blighty, then you should. London is a great place to start and you'll crave for more.
So, out of curiosity, is there an electric charging grid in place yet in London or Great Britain? Here where I live the charging ports are beginning to pop up everywhere for plugin and electric vehicles. The Netherlands has a their whole country on board with it. I wish we were the same, I would have bought a Plug in Prius.
Well I can certainly speak for my city, Milton Keynes. An agreement was made between the city and Nissan who have their European technical HQ located on the outskirts of the city, to set up a network of free electric charge points in the city. The only slight drawback is that these parking places are not exclusive to electric cars so you see non EVs parked up at the charge points making it a bit ridiculous but I feel this will be rectified (excuse the pun) soon. I pulled up at a restaurant last week and they also had two charge points in the car park. Overall there are currently over 3000 charge points in the UK as far as I am aware.
If they think we're smug now wait till gas goes to $5,6,7 a gallon. I wonder how that huge slice of humble pie is going to taste when they go to fill up their guzzlers.
Let's get the US manufacturers to build that segment of car here in the US. GM is doing it all over Europe and so is Ford. Go on their sites and take a look at some of the cars that Vauxhall in England (Opel on the Continent) is building and selling across the pond. Take a look at the line up at Ford.uk.co and see what they offer. You'll notice that much of their car line up is already here, except for the Ka and the B-Max. Most of the Vauxhall/Opel line up is still missing over here, except for a couple of Buicks. GM and Ford are starting to make the attempt at quality small cars with the Sonic, especially in RS trim and the soon to be released Fiesta ST. It's a start. The up coming Fiesta 3 cylinder 1L engine is interesting engineering work, but both companies are going to have to ramp up their technology baskets a bit to catch up with Toyota. Quality wise they are really getting there.
I think that some people that drive Prius' are smug and self-righteous. Just because someone drives a massive SUV a couple miles to Home Depot, can one be sure that SUV gets driven very much? It's possible the SUV owners actually consume less fuel per month in that SUV than a Prius driver who drives 400 miles a week. Conscious about budgets buying a Prius? Hardly. Look at any paper, you will see a base Corolla advertised for about $15.8k . Prius liftback Two does not go for less than $22.8k new. How the heck are you going to make up that $7k in fuel savings? Yeah, yeah, the Prius is a liftback, has more cargo room, has more features, but at the end of the day, it's about the same passenger room with same power and size as Corolla. That's why Toyota sells twice as many Corollas as Prius liftbacks. Climate change is a controversial topic. People hear it mentioned in the news, but most are too busy with daily affairs to think about how the sea levels might rise a foot by the end of the century, etc.... when they go car shopping, climate change is not likely on their mind. Getting the best car (in their mind) for the money is. Looks of a car are huge for many people. They don't want an odd looking car. Frankly, it's amazing Prius has sold as well as it has. Has to be because it works well in so many ways. Best thing is fuel economy, but far as how it drives, it's actually not amazing. Drive a Camry Hybrid and I think you'll see the Prius isn't all that great to drive. But, it's the best on gas.
I for one was suckered into going to a Chevy dealer to look at the Cruze (Starting @ 17,000) "Eco" Auto BASE quickly jumped to $21,000, my reaction? Turned 180 and out the door. OK back to Smug Prius Drivers, I don't really give a about what others think. As long as they do not turn their thoughts into action. My buying decisions and personal budget is my business and mine alone "I treat my cars like my mistresses" quoting my Wife, they are for my enjoyment only. IMO if you treat Prius drivers as a Race, it would be a kind of reverse racism against the non hybrid/alt fuel drivers if we are smug. got this from other thread Stuff I Hate: I Hate Toyota Prius Drivers
Can't believe I came across this video today, what timing. The maker of this video calls Prius owner "smug", around 4:00 minute mark.
We lost a great deal of power train diversity when the emissions standards ramped up. Starting in the '70's the car companies had to perform a lengthy certification on each power train combination, even including different final drive ratios. From that point on there's been less to choose from on this side of the pond. For years the Europeans have had up to half a dozen engines and multiple transmissions available in each of their car models. Another part of the equation is that North America is more price sensitive. Even when we get a world platform car here it's decontented relative to Europe because a few extra $100's will lose sales to a competing model. Take a look at how much Europe (and especially the UK) pays for their car variety. Ford consciously held back on updating the Focus for years in North America because they needed to keep it cheap enough for local expectations. Chevrolet has announced the diesel Cruze coming soon. It will not be available in a cheap trim line. We'll have to see how that works for them.
I get up at 4:00 am every morning. My other hobby is conspiracy research, so I spend 2 hours every morning researching little tidbits of news buried under other mundane news around the world.
