Featured Leaf vs Prius

Interesting article, which I can relate to as we have a 2006 Prius (for now) and a 2016 Leaf. Except the Prius is mine and the Leaf is my wife's. For those who read my other thread, I am getting a '14 PiP this weekend to replace the 2006.

I can relate to the interior pictures above, the cargo area in the Leaf is mainly vertical (with a rigid tonneau cover, I might add), while the Gen 2 Prius is more horizontal (as everyone here knows), with an easily stowed roller style tonneau cover (which I often "fold over" to instantly add more vertical space to the hatch glass).

I know the Gen 3 is virtually the same in this regard.

 

it's interesting how nissan decided to go convex with the hatch door.

 

Agreed, I always thought it was wasteful in terms of space usage. The same for the 2004-2009 Nissan Quest minivan which had a similar design a few years ago with the slanted rear hatch.

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Yep, very wasteful. It seems like Nissan's "thing". I mean it is the same company that brought us the "Cube"...

See, you can't leave. Priuschat, the drug for people with alternative fuel vehicles of any type.

 

Do catalytic pots wear?
I drive regularly a 1993 Toyota Carina on the original cat, currently over 285k miles, and CO measurements are still within limits.
Not much of a rise in 23 years service, that's a very very long term prediction.

 

It's ok to park at airport, charge and sit on the space whole time while away? Guess have to cause car isn't going to move itself.

Leaf wouldn't work for me because it's intolerable to sit in. Same is true for Prius, including the new one. Funny how Nissan and Toyota have another thing in common: Corolla and Sentra both have lousy driver's seat(ing), cockpit. Honda and now Hyundai are getting it as Civic and '17 Elantra are more like BMW inside than thrown together eco-cr@p boxes Corolla and Sentra.

Just looked at hybridcars, wow, Nissan has sold only 4,700 Leafs to date through May, down 40% from last year. So, if it can work for most city dwellers, what's really off about them such that most don't want them?
New Civic outselling Prius 4 to 1 YTD. Why? Toyota Sunnyvale already discounting/rebate Prius' $2,881 off sticker while Anderson Honda quoted only $1,400 off sticker for Civic. Wait til Civic Si, TypeR, hatchback and 1.5T / manual shift options arrive by Winter, might outsell 5 to 1.
New 2015-2016 Toyota Sunnyvale | Camry Hybrid, Prius V, Corolla, Sequoia, Tundra and Venza For Sale in the Bay Area Serving San Jose, Fremont & Palo Alto

 

Yes, but if a fair comparison is only possible between exactly the same car, then what we doing with all our here?

The EPA specs between the two for volume is the same, but the Prius has 2cu.ft. more cargo. Which means the Nissan has 2cu.ft. more passenger space. That said, the Leaf's cargo space is worse than it should be. I thought it had an independent rear suspension at first from those photos. Nissan themselves might have been surprised when the Leaf was classified as midsize in the US.

I'd have used the Juke for the example. The Cube was trying to snag some of the original xB sales. A useful little hauler, and then Toyota decided to really bloat it up.

I'm still here, and I don't even have an alternate fuel vehicle now. Well, the Sonic can take E15, and switching it to everyday flexfuel would be technically easy, but I think most wouldn't count that.

High temperature gases do cause wear as they travel over the cat's honeycomb, and deposits can occur. The regulations allow for this. Cars with more miles have higher limits on their emissions. The difference between bin 1 through bin 5 US emission limits is only in the amounts at the high mileage category.

So your Carina is in limits now, but it could be exceeding the limits for when it was new.

 

Yes, but if a fair comparison is only possible between exactly the same car, then what we doing with all our here?

The EPA specs between the two for volume is the same, but the Prius has 2cu.ft. more cargo. Which means the Nissan has 2cu.ft. more passenger space. That said, the Leaf's cargo space is worse than it should be. I thought it had an independent rear suspension at first from those photos. Nissan themselves might have been surprised when the Leaf was classified as midsize in the US.

I'd have used the Juke for the example. The Cube was trying to snag some of the original xB sales. A useful little hauler, and then Toyota decided to really bloat it up.

I'm still here, and I don't even have an alternate fuel vehicle now. Well, the Sonic can take E15, and switching it to everyday flexfuel would be technically easy, but I think most wouldn't count that.

High temperature gases do cause wear as they travel over the cat's honeycomb, and deposits can occur. The regulations allow for this. Cars with more miles have higher limits on their emissions. The difference between bin 1 through bin 5 US emission limits is only in the amounts at the high mileage category.

So your Carina is in limits now, but it could be exceeding the limits for when it was new.

 

bob, i sense a business opportunity. let's hook up with an aftermarket body kit manufacturer. you supply the brains and financing, and i'll kibitz.

 

2 things that are not so good with the prius's back end

1) Visibility
2) Attractiveness

Now it is fairly aerodynamic. Not quite as good as

but close (.25 versus .24) ;-)

On the leaf the design gives
-better visibility, but
its worse in attarctiveness and aerodynamics.

Here I think the prius design choice is clearly better than the leaf, but .. the prius tail end could have improved

 

i won't argue with corner visibility, out the rear is fine though. no idea about leaf.

 

AFAIK, deposits and wear are two different degradation mechanisms.
Thank you for the bin US clarification, but in this case Portuguese tests prevail, and limits back in 1993 were the same as tested now.

 

It's worth noting that most cars that aren't squareback hatchbacks (like the Leaf) are moving to fastback configurations instead of notchbacks, for aerodynamic reasons.

The trick is, most of those fastbacks (whether they're sedans, or they're liftbacks like the Model S) have the high rear window of the Prius... but no low rear window, meaning rearward visibility is extremely poor. And, even in squarebacks, rear windows have been getting smaller and smaller, due to the prevalence of higher beltlines (both for side impact safety requirements and to try to hide the high trunks in modern aerodynamic sedans based on the same platform).

I'll take the cross bar that the Prius adds to the rear window, to get overall rear window size that hasn't been available in conventional configurations since the 1990s or early 2000s.

 

+1

I would call the design element with or without trunk for the prius, civic, model S a camback. With the 5 door this used to be called a fastback. I don't like the term liftback that toyota ues, but yes, the camback/liftback design is more aerodynamic.

The leaf has a more bubbled hatchback look. This is not as aerodynamic or attractive as a camback design. It allows for more cargo space, but for most of us the prius has a great deal of space, the prius v more, and of course if that isn't enough there are SUVs and minivans.

I think rear/back corner visibility has a lot to do with driver position. For me the model S has much better visibility here. Part of the prius split is for more cargo space. Its a trade off. It think visibility and attactiveness goes without a split.

there is size versus quality ;-) The rear window design also hurts a little at least as I drive Hey I added a back up camera so I could back up more safely. Many cars are worse when it comes to rear visibility. Few cars are better when it comes to aerodynamics.

 

City dwellers- yes short commutes, but B'more is the city I know most intimately right now, I mean its all street parking and you never know if your car will be parking 3 doors down or 3 blocks down for the evening.

Believe Leaf's EPA cargo space is 24-ft3 vs. a measley 21.4-ft3 for Gen3 Prius. Here I am intending to bash the EPA cargo space as a useless spec for hatchbacks. NIssan engineers found a way to inflate the cargo space numbers even more than Toyota, congrats to the Nissan spec engineers.

 

Yes, and both are going on with the exhaust system.

At a glance, the Euro limits are equivalent to US full useful life. Our 5yr/50k mile limits are stricter. But that doesn't really say much. Where ever to car is sold, it will have lower emissions new than used. Even without a new or intermediate life set of limits, the manufacturers have to make the car's(or not if diesel) to get under the Euro limits by a low enough amount when new, so that they don't exceed limits within the useful life, or at least within the warranty period.

Useful life for Euro appears to be 5yr/80k km for Euro 3. Euro 4 increases to 100k km, and 5/6 to 120k. For the EPA, useful life is 10yr/120k miles. The US is stricter on NOx, but Europe stricter on CO, but I'm not sure how the Euro limits go past the useful life point.
Emission Standards: USA: Cars and Light-Duty Trucks—Tier 2
EU: Light-duty: Emissions - Transportpolicy.net

That can't be. Euro 1 is more lax than Euro 6. Are you saying your Euro 1 car is held to Euro 6 standards now that they are in effect?

I think you get the values flipped.

 

Euro 1 car is always tested to perform Euro 1 standard. How could it improve to stricter limits?

 

What I thought, but your wording allowed a different interpetation. Just wanted to be sure.
When emission tested do you get the actual results, or just a pass or fail?

 

Different needs/wants/incentives/markets/vehicle availability. The U.S. may be the anomaly, but not sure why. Worldwide, the Nissan Leaf is doing much better:

 

Surely you jest.
Leaf has always claimed astronomical cargo space (by EPA method).
That's basically how I got idea several years ago that the EPA cargo space spec was not true.

Also above I said Gen3 Prius compared to Leaf, for Gen4 Prius I feel Toyota learned from Nissan how to quote a higher than real cargo space by the EPA method.