If you thought Consumer Reports didn't like the c, wait till you see what the wingnut reviewer and commenters at the Wall Street Journal have to say! The reviewer obviously has very little technical knowledge of hybrids, and the commenters even less.
Actually, the guy was not that hard on the car. He things the car is boring and too slow. It is faster than the 2002 MY Gen I Prius that I owned, which was too slow. He complained that you have to mash the throttle to merge with interstate traffic -- so mash the throttle. He drove the car for a few miles and made up his mind. Too bad he did not know that "B" = brake and not "Battery". In my opinion, if you want a boring ride, buy an SUV that weighs 4,000+ pounds and would never be confused with the term "agile" or "nimble".
Actually a decent review if you get past the bored wise guy tone. I think he got it right but he has a different value judgement on the result. I think Toyota did well lowering the price of a hybrid so people with less money who want to use less oil have a shot. That's why they drive it and why they like their C's.
From Toyota. Head of service at our dealership said the same thing at an owner's meeting. Toyota factory rep was there that night also and concurred that "B" engages the battery regen more aggressively. I was playing with it today and can confirm, coming down steep winding road that "B" caused the regen indicator to show more regen (off on off on off on) in addition to using the engine.
Leaving it in Drive and applying the brakes without filling the regen indicator fills the battery far faster than "B"! That mode is specifically designed to waste energy, not recharge the battery! It's what you would use when the battery is full and the friction brakes are being overused to slow the car on a steep descent.
I can only answer the question of where the journalist got the information that the B would more aggressively engage the battery and that is directly from Toyota.
Yes, the "30%" quote, which most beleive to mean 30% of what can be recovered if the car was in Drive and regen braking were used, not 30% more! You ever read a Toyota manual? Not always the best written document!
Well, the guy does have a pedigree, regardless of who he writes for: Dan Neil Auto Columnist, The Wall Street Journal. Dan Neil is the author of the “Rumble Seat” column which runs Saturdays in The Wall Street Journal.Previously, Mr. Neil was the auto columnist for the Los Angeles Times from 2003 to 2010. He also wrote the syndicated column “800 Words,” a column about pop culture that was syndicated by Tribune media in 2005 and ran until it was discontinued in 2008. Mr. Neil began his professional writing career with the Spectator, a local free weekly, and began working for The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., as a copy editor in 1989. In 1991 he began the paper’s weekly automotive advertising section. In 1994 he was recruited by AutoWeek magazine as a senior contributing editor and in 1995 he began contributing to The New York Times which continued until 2003. He went to work as a contributing editor at Car and Driver. In 2004 he won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism for his column and to date, is the only car columnist ever to win a Pulitzer. In awarding Mr. Neil, the Pulitzer board praised his “one-of-a-kind reviews of automobiles, blending technical expertise with offbeat humor and astute cultural criticism.” In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize, Mr. Neil also won the Ken Purdy Award for Excellence in Automotive Journalism, from the International Motor Press Association, in 2001. He also was selected for Houghton Mifflin’s Best American Sports Writing, 2002. Mr. Neil received a B.A. degree in Creative Writing from East Carolina University and an M.A. in English Literature from North Carolina State University. He is married and has twin daughters and a son.
Obviously Mr. Neil was expecting the "c" to be some sort of pocket rocket, but as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it wasn't an inaccurate review, he just needed to lay off the snark...
It's actually a really good review. The c isn't made to accelerate like a beast, and he is one of the few writers that seems to somewhat accept that - his preference is clearly pocket rockets. Most other reviews expect it to behave like a muscle car and try to make that comparison.
The Wall Street review is describing the Prius c so those who want a 50 MPG under $20,000 car know what they are getting. His 'snark' is close enough to humor to pass and let folks know this car isn't for everyone. In contrast, Consumer Reports uses a poorly described ranking and thresholds to make their "buy" recommendations. Consumer Reports doesn't try to match cars to drivers but applies a poorly described, algorithm to make a hard threshold, a 'pass/fail' ranking . . . and they don't even have snark. Bob Wilson
Dear Jimbo -- Ah! well that explains why it doesn't seem to do anything. That you for the corrective. Yours, sincerely chagrined, Dan ________________________________________ From: JimboPalmer Sent: Friday, June 22, 2012 4:20 PM To: Rumbleseat Subject: Prius c Review: B is NOT for Battery, it is for engine Braking. The B mode is useful to avoid over heating the friction brakes on very long downhills. Because the c has a relatively small HV Battery, you want to run the engine as an air pump to slow the car without constant brakes, since boiling the brake fluid would be bad. US law requires a gear with increased engine braking in automatics, this is often labeled L or 2, but someone at Toyota was too honest to call it L as the gearing does not change. Sadly, they called it B for braking but that seems to have confused every automotive journalist on the face of the earth. To recap, use B anywhere you would usually use L, (almost never) especially on descents of over 500 vertical feet. Your gas mileage will always be worse in B (using the engine as an air pump never regenerates energy like the motors do) but the safety factor of cooler brakes makes it worth while. One more non-intuitive aspect of B mode, the more you hit the brakes, the faster the engine revs, the less you hit the brakes, the slower the engine revs. This is not usual 'car' behavior. (Entirely as an aside, the Plug in Prius can recharge its battery going downhill for 3500 vertical feet, regaining the entire 13 mile EV mode, you almost never want B mode in a plug in)
Dan Neil is definitely not a wingnut. He's actually one of the best auto journalists. It's just that like other auto journalists he cares about enjoying driving itself which tends to sports car, which have power, torque, good handling and feedback and is therefore anathema to those of us who want an efficient, reliable device that gets us from place to place without causing a lot of pollution, violent oppression or death. Note that it was boring to drive, not difficult. Note that he mentioned reliability, high mileage and relatively low price. Note the lack of D**t to D**t nonsense in his article.
The review is largely accurate. what i got out of it was that the low price portends that the car can be no more than an appliance. he called it a "martyr". the car could have been much better, but it would also be much more expensive...
