Does this look like a Prius?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Passing Gas in the OC @ May 3 2006, 07:49 PM) [snapback]249422[/snapback]</div>

Ah, Ok? It is a prius...a 1st generation. What's the question?

 

The 1st Gen Prius (2001 - 2003 in the U.S.) are so relatively rare compared to the 2nd Gen Prius (2004 - now) that many people have never seen one. It wasn't long ago that someone saw a Gen 1 and thought it was the redesigned '06 professing that Toyota had ruined the styling.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gippah @ May 3 2006, 08:44 PM) [snapback]249448[/snapback]</div>

blah, blah, blah... The First generation Prius is the Classic Prius IN THE US....It's the First generation US Prius and is commonly refered to as such in all but the most snobbish of Prius circles.

 

The discussions of the three generations of Prius are littered throughout the early days of Priuschat. You can read up at http://www.priuschat.com/forums/index.php

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gippah @ May 3 2006, 08:53 PM) [snapback]249456[/snapback]</div>

guess you don't like reading the details.

I'm fully aware that there are 3 generations of the Prius design. However there are only 2 released in the US. The first one released in the use was called the (drum roll) First Generation by people in the US. Thus, those of us who got the 2nd release of Prii in the US called it the Second generation.



Now, if you want to be completely anal about it you can, indeed, say that everyone's said it wrong for the past 6 years...and you'd be totally correct and could thumb your nose at everyone. But, at the same time, you'd confuse the hell out of people if you started taking about 3rd generation Prius, which, to most of us, hasn't been announced or released yet.



Thus, the standard nomenclature on this and almost every other forum US forum on the internet has been to call the 'classic' the first generation, and the '04+ the second generation. Stating otherwise will only lead to confusion.



I do appreciate you sharing the breadth of your knowledge with us and, in fact, it would be quite confusion in Japan to use this nomenclature, but, amazingly enough, even our Japanese members have somehow managed to adapt to our imperfect system.

 

mmhmm. I'd would treat the version we call the Classic as v 1.5 (i.e. midlife cycle update with new bumpers, new battery, new screen etc)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gippah @ May 3 2006, 11:47 PM) [snapback]249540[/snapback]</div>

I'm quite sure I'm "OK". I'm also quite sure you're just trying to stir up the bee hive.
I'm not asking anyone else in the world to adapt to "our" system, but it's the system that make the most sense to Americans since there have only been 2 generations of Prius in the US. Frankly, if I were trying to get things "my way" I'd use the NHW10/NHW11/NHW20 system.

Although we certainly have an international contingent only a tiny handful of our members are from Japan. Since only Japan had the NHW10 (your "first generation") and only in limited numbers and since the huge majority of current Prius owners are completely oblivious to the existance of anything preceeding the US first edition (heck, this thread points out that some in the US didn't even know about our first generation!) the first generation (for NHW11) and second generation (for NHW20) makes much more sense to the casual chatter/surfer individual.

Real nerd types like you and I can discuss the belt & cone CVT of the "true" first generation 'til our NiMH batteries peak into the green zone, but there's absolutely no reason to be so compulsive as to try to force unfamiliar nomenclature on an audience that couldn't care less.

 

I can't believe we're arguing about this. Please read the right-side of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prius to get a complete understanding of the three generations of the Prius.

Here's what we've found. By "we" I mean those of us who have spent quite a bit of time on Priuschat for the last 2+ years solid explaining something amazingly complicated to large groups of poeple in multiple countries:
When someone doesn't even know what the NHW11 Prius looks like, starting Prius history with a car they've never seen because it was never released in the original poster's country of origin is a little too much information. In time, as their undersatnding grows, they will be better able to understand not only how their own car works but also the histery that went into the development of their car. Therefore, we have always attempted to keep things simple. I find it interesting that the people arguing the details are not the ones who need the information in the first place.

You're wasting your time arguing symantics here. The original posts answered the question. We've already cluttered it from there.