Autoblog posting false information about Prius

Huh. So who is Joel Arellano?

 

This is nothing new. Autoblog "editors" and especially the rabble that frequents the comments are very quick to latch onto the common Hybrid and Toyota myths that make hybrid look like a technology for suckers.

A bunch of luddites if you ask me.

 

It must be true I read it on the internet.

 

Nope. Seeing Toyota succeed would not make them happy either.

Really, if you read between the lines, they don't want hybrids to succeed at all. They want Toyota, the entire hybrid movement, and any kind of alternative fuel push to fail miserably and be totally marginalized as "greenie."

They want to maintain the status quo. That means conventional cars that burn more and more fuel and get more and more horsepower needlessly. They want that because they are "car guys" who know about that kind of stuff, and somehow technology like hybrid threaten their manliness.

 

I read that article by way of a tinyURL link, and the comment about Toyota losing money was not there, so it is autoblog editorializing.

It used to be very common to read in the mainstream media parroting of the GM executives that Toyota was losing some 3K per vehicle and it was a side show PR stunt. But after Wagoner backed off, and Toyota has kept going full blast and has now sold 500,000 hybrids, even auto writers have for the most part refrained from that bit of stupidity. Just goes to show, that even a car writer knows how to use a calculator

500,000 cars * 3K/car = a 1.5 Billion dollar advertisement, not including the R&D. NOT.

Truly, I don't know which nightmare GM prefers: that Toyota makes a profit on hybrids, or that it is happy to produce a three billion dollar commerical, and ecstatic to grow it as much as consumers want LOL

Only in GM land can someone spin a mild hybrid that loses money on a unit cost basis as a positive development. Maybe they hope to lose /less/ money than their other offerings.

 

Keep in mind that that's the Dealer that makes it -- not necessarily 'Toyota the car company'. Think of the dealer like the middle man; much like a retail store -- Xbox sells their units for cheaper than it costs to make them. Even though the retail stores make money, Xbox doesn't (though they ultimately make it back on game sales).

 

Do you really believe that Laughingman or are you posting for effect? Do you post on autoblog too?

I know that management at GM is frustrated about the treatment Toyota gets form the US media. If you read the last 100 stories published about GM and Toyota, you would think Toyota walks on water sells the most vehicles in the world, and all the vehicles they build are fuel efficient and don't create any environmental hazards. The complete opposite would be gathered from the articles about GM, they sell very few vehicles anymore and they build only huge gas hogs theat are ruining the environment.

 

Paying too much attention to investors is one of the main reasons that GM is in this mess. Toyota producing hybrids was genious from a pr standpoint, I give them all the credit in the world for that. It has been a great diversion for the media and the 'green' movement as they build bigger and bigger vehicles which get worse mileage every year.

 

Stockholders are like sheep--google is a great example. Does the stock price have any correlation with the value of the company? It will crash one of these days, and all of the 'experts' will continue going on giving folks advice on what are great stock picks.

 

Ha, there's a coincidence. My google alert for Prius today pointed me to this autoblog article,
http://www.autoblog.com/2005/12/26/hydroge...s-tests-in-u-s/
that's wrong on another two counts. The project they're talking about is right here in Burlington, VT (not Connecticut) and it's not a fuel cell car - it's a hydrogen burning engine. The poster apparently didn't bother to read the article. It's a front-page article on autoblog, so maybe that's a sign that their info isn't so reliable.

 

Oh, and I notice now that it's the same poster on both of these articles. Not a surprise.

 

Welcome to Priuschat, vortx Nice to see another Vermonter on here.

 

Thanks! I'm on the list for an '06 in January - getting excited...
-Carl

 

I guess Joel Arellano's info is old. http://www.caranddriver.com/article.asp?se...6&page_number=2 mentions that near the end of the 1st gen, Toyota did start turning out some profitable Priuses.

http://www.caranddriver.com/default.asp?se...IUS&agYear=2004 mentions Toyota has started to turn a profit too (unclear on the generation). Toyota was definitely losing $ on the second gens as Toyota acknowledges at http://www.toyota.com/about/environment/te...004/hybrid.html. It's unclear if those have turned the corner yet.

 

I wasn't talking about the mainstream media by any regard. Don't try to drag this into a discussion about Toyota vs. GM in your typical fashion, and please stop whining about how GM is becoming this huge martyr of a company because of the media. Give me a break.

I was talking about the attitude by *car pundits* toward anything that isn't conventional car technology... in short, they are not only skeptical of alternatives, but they are threatened by them because it threatens to sweep away something old and familiar... the conventional ICE.

And yes, I believe this. Take all of the MYTH about hybrids you've heard since they've become popular... I *KNOW* you've been exposed to some because you've personally spouted that trash here as well. Much of it is simply UNTRUE, but no matter how hard reasonable people try to quash those myths, they continue to be written about and spouted by car pundits and anti-hybrid folks because it's not about the facts... there is a bias among car pundits against alternatives, especially Hybrid technology... and many times they stretch the truth or flat out lie.

 

I won't let you hijack another thread and turn it into a whine-fest by you about GM being martyred by the evil media and about how Toyota is an evil deceptive company, and how hybrid technology is a smokescreen.

I've said this seemingly a million times: IT MAKES NO SENSE FOR TOYOTA TO INVEST IN DEVELOPING A TOTALLY NEW DRIVETRAIN, AND ALL OF THE REST OF THE TECHNOLOGIES AROUND HYBRID TECHNOLOGY SIMPLY AS A PR BLITZ.

From an engineering effort expenditure point of view, it doesn't make any sense to just drop the technology on the floor after selling a few trucks.

The primary purpose of developing hybrid technology is to eventually go into EVERY single Toyota vehicle. It's represents PARADIGM shift, not some silly PR blitz.

You're getting your panties all in a knot from a *secondary* purpose of Toyota's push for hybrid technology, the PR and mindshare gain, while seemingly completely dismissing the primary purpose... TO HAVE A REPLACEMENT FOR ICE FOR ALL OF THEIR FUTURE VEHICLES