Oh c'mon! The C isn't even an EV and they had to throw it in this bs stew because of the CR hatchet job! I give up!
They left out the Mitsubishi i-Miev...which is available NOW, and beats the Leaf in price, and probably battery longevity. OK, it's a little smaller and funny looking, but it is a fantastic city car. MM is a solid established car maker. I love how the media only talks about debt-ridden Tesla and Fisker and they don't even have a product that people can afford on the market NOW.
... completely ignoring the fact that the Prius c has sold over 3.5k in the USA in all 3 months since its launch, has had a significant impact in Canada and the Prius c/Aqua is the top selling line in Japan. OMGZ, Epic Fail!
^^^ Yeah, back to the c, if they're going to include non-PHEVs, they should put all the Honda hybrids in the list instead since they're getting decimated by Toyota in sales and every Honda hybrid scored too low to recommend by CR.
Was really a terrible piece of "journalism". When I read it last week I thought it was weak and when it started taking out the c I knew it nonsense. CR may be totally spot on with the c, but it's not a stall, miss, or crackup when one looks at sales.
Hey most of us have some XOM, anyone that has a large cap or index fund probably does, and it really won't get hurt by plug ins. There is insanity in the article. It starts out by picking on tesla for not having cars to ship, but that was their business plan. The tesla S is actually ahead of schedule. I don't think tesla stock is a great bet, but the company is performing extremely well. Fisker is also wrong, it got funding in april. Fisker is underperforming, and they should have talked about why. One reason was they seemed to push the karma out early when they were late, and this was partially to not default on the DOE money. They also allowed cars to leave without proper qa, and had troubles with their battery suppler a123. I doubt fisker will make it as a stand alone company, but they may make it as design division of a larger car company. The karma and atlantic might not sell well, but they will bring folks into the show room. A123 is the dog of the stock market. Paying off for bad battery q&a has the stock price very low and them running out of cash early. It may be a good takeover play, especially by one of the battery makers - LG, Samsung, Panasonic, or JCI. They have good technology, good R&D, factory assets, but poor manufacturing experience. One of the bigger guys could fix the flaws. Then the prius C. How did that even make it on the list. It makes no sense.
I don't understand why people think the Consumer Reports review of the C was critical. I mean it is a cheesy little econobox. That's exactly what it was meant to be - and it hit the target. It is a boxy little hatchback that is inexpensive (if you prefer that word to 'cheap'), small, light, based on the Yaris - which is due for a redesign, itself, and it get over 50 mpg! It's not a fail - it is an extension of hybrid technology even farther down the automotive ecosystem. Bravo! Is it as nice a car as the Fisker? Probably not - and who cares besides a couple of movie stars.
The problem is... The CR reviewer said you are better off with a used Prius than the Prius c... That the Prius c's steering is 'dead' and 'not fun'. The review, in and of itself is, to liken it to 'movies'... A person expecting a fast pace, explosion filled, action movie from a low intensity thriller.
