2023 Toyota Prius

i like it too

 

Another perspective....

I'm old enough (59 y.o) to know no society should peg its hopes on one technology, fuel source, or belief system. The one thing we can be assured of is change (planned/unplanned). I recall 4 decades ago a science journal had an article about globalization and clearly unequivocally spoke of the inevitable leveling (not rising) of the North American lifestyle level to allow newly global economies to rise.

I've owned every possible drivetrain (petrol, hybrid, diesel EV. etc.) and looking forward to my next new vehicle purchase. I am narrowing down where I would like to live and what vehicle makes sense. There seems to be a strong push for pure EVs but my gut tells me that a hybrid is the more balanced approach.

The Netherlands is sitting at the top of my list as it points to where I believe other nations will be forced to follow this model as we hit 8 billion people on earth. The North American model is simple unsustainable.

-- Unified transportation system (air, rail, sea, cars, bicycles, motorcycles) where all are truly designed to exist in an integrated form but priority given to cycle and walking. Netherlands Car Ownership: Compact 3/4 cylinder @ $approx $35K

• Tax/VAT - 21% of purchase price
• BPM Tax - Based on the Co2 emissions of the vehicle (i.e. BMW M5 tax = approx. $48K)
• Petrol converted from liters to gallons, euros to dollars in 2022 = $8.00/gallon
• To park on the street in most cities requires a permit $$$$
• EVs get exempted from some taxes but are more expensive that small petrol vehicles

The long term global strategy to get us out of our private cars will be to make the cost of ownership expensive that the noting of owning multiple cars will be financially prohibitive.

While a Prius makes perfect sense to me, it appears the 'market' is pushing us to a single solution: Battery Electric Vehicles

 

while there are a lot of ev entusiasts here, i don't think the market is pushing anything. we still buy a lot of gassers, and the rate of change is minuscule

 

as far as following countries like the netherlands, i don't see it happening because of our constitution and history.
we might collapse under the weight of our own debt, and something totally different could rise from the ashes

 

And I believe that Toyota's engineers did a great job rethinking the design of the Gen5 Prius and the Prius Prime v2.0. They even went so far as to have a hashtag for "hybrid reborn," which I found amusing. With the new reveals, I am reminded that Toyota thought and produced the hybrid first, and then the others followed. Both new reveals are more practical and more energy efficient than the previous generation, and the prices are not much higher, inflation considered. Petrol will still be available, and gas prices will continue to fluctuate. Who knows what will follow these new reveals. But hey, speculation, saving money, and sharing in the experience are all part of the fun of having a hybrid, isn't it?

 

Do you know why no one is using biodiesel? I saw a truck running on it and it smelled like French fries. Remember when Willie Nelson was touting it?

Yep, for every EV and hybrid here, combined, there are at least five huge trucks. I call em gasholes. People don't care.

 

that's for sure. outside california especially. in my reasonably large circle of acquaintances and family,
mrs b and i are the only hybrid owners. guy down the street, has a tesla, that's it.
every other house is an suv, mini van or pickup

 

There are 5 people in my band. 4 of us drive Prii. the other gal drives a little suburu. IMHO, that thing is a POS compared to the Prii. There is one other Prius on our street. One household owns three huge pickup trucks. I won't discuss who they voted for.

 

LOL

 

Many see the headlines about places banning ICEs, but don't read the fine print. Ten years of ICE still for sale means a healthy used market for years after.

There is drawbacks to biodiesel. The second gen/HVO doesn't, but renewable fuels for any engine type have a cost and supply issue. Need a lot more plug ins on the road for the fuels to be viable.

 

Meh, making vehicles more expensive alone wont push people to not use them. The entire country needs to be rebuilt to be more pedestrian and bicycle friendly. In much of the country this will require radical rebuilding and new paradigms of planning. Maybe you live in city areas. Try living in a suburb like Long Island or a rural area. Walking and biking is impossible in those areas as a primary form of transportation. People do it for exercise, not to get from point A to B. Cities are the exception.

You say the market is pushing people to BEVs. If that is true then why is there still a paucity choices of BEVs at price points equal to or lower than the Prius? You just have the Leaf and the Bolt. Neither of them are as reliable as the Prius, they have many flaws and have had major safety recalls.

The market for BEVs is just not there yet. The Tesla is the only decent one, and it costs nearly double the price of a Prius. The fuel savings that a Tesla provides compared to a Prius will not be very great, perhaps $1k per year at *most*. You would have to keep your Tesla a decade *at least* to make it cost equivalent to a Prius. It is not worth it from a cut and dry cost perspective. The market is certainly not pushing people to buy Teslas. Some tax incentives are pushing people to buy BEVs, sure, and theres a massive advertising campaign extolling their many virtues. But IMO, as a real person who actually wanted to buy a BEV but will be buying a Prius instead, BEVs that are as practical and affordable as a Prius are still a dream, not a reality.

 

I don't understand why this started out as a political rant. EVs do not need to be politicized, nor should Climate Change be. I personally wouldn't own a Tesla car, but I won't go into my reasons. They would likely be called political anyway.
Let's just say that they cost too much, and hybrids are a good segway into EV ownership, while our infrastructure is being upgraded to accept them as more mainstream.
It is a crying shame that Chevrolet discontinued the Volt. I almost bought one when I got my Prius, but i was wary of GM product quality and trusted Toyota. There are a few Volts around here, and to me, a plug in hybrid is the way to go, for now. We would trade up for them but for the expense of the purchase. We could charge right off our solar panels!
Riding a bike here is at best, dangerous and risky. We live in the #1 bike rider death county in the country. People do ride them to work, and the homeless that are lucky enough do own them. Every week, more and more of them are electric, and those are for transportation, except for a few "hybrid" ones that pedal AND e-glide.
There is one very annoying pest here that rides a homemade "Whiizzer", a bike with a chainsaw engine attached. I don't want him on the bike/walk trail with me, but there he is, Monday through Friday. It smells awful and scares away the wildlife.
Enough of my rant. Sorry if I bored you.

 

Yeah honestly the Volt looked like it could have been the Prius killer.

If they just made it a tad nicer looking but more important ensured it was a reliable vehicle, it would have been my next car for sure. But GM killed the Volt and the Bolt is on fire, not in a good way. This isnt to say theres no hope for them, there were a number of eyebrow raising toyota recalls in the past too. But there just aint any EVs reliable/dependable as a a Prius right now

 

The Volt was one of GM's best built cars in terms reliability.

It was cancelled because Americans stopped buying sedans. The Volt was made at the same plant as the Impala, LeSabre, and CT6. Sales for those dropped as people switched to SUVs, thus GM cancelled them and closed the factory. Volt sales weren't too far from the Prius Prime, but they weren't high enough to justify the cost of moving production around to keep it.

Ford recalled over 500k cars this year for fires. Hyundai did almost 400k the year before. None of those where plug ins. Go back to 2018, and Toyota recalled 200k Prii in the US for a fire risk; it was over a million hybrids worldwide. A short in the 12V electrical system is enough to torch a car, and there have been plenty of recalls for just that. If GM had recalled the Trax, we might not have heard about it.

 

The Volt looks like a decent sized car on the outside but it’s cramped on the inside. I drove one in 2020 and the legroom and headroom in the backseat was terrible. When the Prime runs out of EV range it’s still a hybrid with excellent fuel efficiency. When the Volt battery is depleted you’re left with a super small gas tank (200 miles, I think) and 40mpg if you’re lucky.

 

They should have upsized the volt into a nice cuv, would have sold a million

 

The tank was 8.9 gallons. Good for over 350 miles of range. For daily use, it could be starting with 53 miles of EV rnage.
The Clarity PHEV had a tiny tank with 7 gallons. Gas only range was under 300 miles.

If most of your daily use is on electric, you don't need a gas tank sized for a non plug in.

They did...for China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buick_Velite_6
Has a smaller battery than the Volt, but it has a BEV sibling with two battery options.