ugly body of the prius

Your blatant troll attack wasn't well thought out.

Obviously, you haven't heard of CAMRY-HYBRID.

Geez!
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You took the words out of my mouth, John.

 

I've never understood remarks that put down how the Prius looks. To an unitiated eye my Prius looks like my old Ford Focus. I didn't buy my Prius for its body style (except that it has a very low drag coefficient), but I really love how it looks. I like the Camry and new Honda Civic body styles but the Prius is truly in a class by itself.

 

wow

 

Hi Trivial...,

Well, the body on the Prius is there, because the car is not designed to be trivial with respect to fuel economy, and the need to package the battery inside the passenger compartment. In early Prius developement, they found the battery needed temperatures similar to humans for a long life. So, with the battery behind the rear seat, the seats are all more upright. Which required the very good coeficient of drag for good fuel economy, as the frontal area of the car was larger than say a Corolla or Camry. Other car companies are adopting the more upright seating too. I think I have heard the term "Command Seating" to describe this from Ford.

You know we have no control over the physics of the air. That is in God's hands. You may remember the Rusian Buran space shuttle looks just like the Nasa Space Shuttle. This is because of those same physics, and the same operational envelopes of the two shuttles.

Back in the 1920's and 30's there was an art movement called the Art Nouveu. It was based allot on the streamlined shapes of airplanes, trains and cars of the time, which were again designed to deal with those very same air physics. The Prius is just the 21 st century Art Nouveu. It does away with the very busy forms of some 1990's cars, and it does it for a functional reason.

 

Hi Trivial..,

Well you are wrong onthe Camry Hybrid. People often confuse it with the I-4 Camry as it has the same engine block. But the Camry hybrid has the accelleration performance nearly on par with the V6, and compared to the V6, the Camry hybrid has dramatic fuel economy performance improvement.

 

Form follows function. The Prius looks the way it does mostly because of aerodynamics. Sure, it could look like a Pontiac, but it wouldn't get the same mileage. As for hybrid sales, the distinctive Prius has done far better than the 'regular' looking Honda.

 

New and better takes getting used to. I felt the same way when I was researching a new car. That is so different. But the stats sold me and now my baby's body style looks beautiful. I wouldn't have her any other way. Well, maybe with a plug in.

 

I have to say, Trivial, that the Pontiac G5 looks like...well...a Pontiac. A long time ago I got a college degree in Aeronautical Engineering (in a galaxy far, far away). The materials, weight, and form of the Prius tries to minimize the amount of horsepower it takes to move the car through the air. Drag on something traveling through the air is not linear. Go 50 MPH and you might have 100 lbs of drag (that is a guess) -- go 60 MPH and you might have 150 lbs of drag. Go 65 MPH and you might have 300 lbs of drag. The Prius can't escape basic physics but it can pick a body style that causs the least amount of drag.

Truth be told, it actually isn't the most aerodynamic design. Car manufacturers have to meet safety guidelines that cause the Prius shape to be less than perfect for drag purposes. Look at some of the MPG contests where you get some truly alien shapes if you want to see things approaching perfection, but they aren't easy to build and the crash-test ratings might not be that good either. Interesting compromises the automakers make.

 

Realistically, the argument of "ugly" is pointless.

Prius is a hatchback. So of course, it looks nothing like a sedan.

Look at how silly the FUV looks. With the aerodynamics of a brick, those drawn to the curves of a sports car want nothing to do with them.
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Who wants a hybrid that looks like everything else??? That's one of the many reasons that I did not seriously consider a Civic Hybrid! The Prius is beautiful!!!! Who could ask for more?????

 

And I thought that my Prius was nice looking. What am I going to do now?

 

I like the body style. It is vaguely reminiscent of the pregnant rollerskate body style of the Honda CRX, which was one of the first high-mileage ICE cars, BTW.

 

First, the Camry hybrid actually gets 33/34 MPG which is considerably better than most cars.

Second, you may have answered your own question as to why Toyota chose the unusual shape of the body. The Prius used to look more conventional as shown below...



It didn't sell as well back then, nor did it get as good of gast mileage. One of the reasons it changed is because the kamback design of the more modern Prius is a lot more aerodynamic which boosts the MPG. Thus when you ask, "Why don't they make a more normal looking car that's just as efficient?", well, for practical purposes they can't! The unique look is one of the keys to efficiency.

That said, I love how the Prius looks, and its styling is often cited as one of the primary reasons the car sells so well vs. other hybrids.

 

Yes, it did. Every one of them was snapped up quickly.

Toyota limited production until a profit was possible and the market figured out what hybrids were, then stuck to a quota due to a pending battery lawsuit.

As for the efficiency, it was only a few MPG lower than the current model. With my experience, that comes to a difference of about 3 MPG.
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eye of beholder I suppose

slightly "out of the box" design (even other than for aerodynamics) is one thing that appealed to me......

I gave up my 03 Ford Mustang convertible as image is becoming less and less important....an illusion one might say grasshopper........

but then again I'm only on day 3, honeymooning and so in love

 

Maybe because 1,000,000 + Prius owners aren't crying about its look?
Maybe the 1,000,000 + Prius owners think Camrys & Pontiacs look dumb?
Maybe the Camry MPG would be closer to the Prius if it had less drag like the Prius (due to it's subjectivly ugly / beautiful appearance) ??
Maybe you can get a cardboard cut out of a Camry and place it over the Prius, if you ever sell your hummer and buy a Prius.