"Hybrid Sales Stall"

There is no defense. The article is trash, but is published because it follows the WSJ meme.

As for the NYT, find me a hack job of similar ignorance. Every day.

 

toyota says....93.7cu ft interior volume.

civic....94.6 cu ft.

I stand corrected sir.

It is a chunky compact.

(though Camry is only 102 so its not cavernously larger either)

Though with cargo (do they consider that interior space?) Prius is barely smaller:

115.3 Prius
118.1 Camry

If they do include trunk then the Prius is in fact a mid sized and a quite efficient one being only 3 cu ft smaller internally than a much larger car.

BTW did the math, Camry is externally 42.8 cu ft larger than Prius.

 

I agree it's a small midsize--for passengers. I have another mid-size sedan and it's much larger for all passengers than the Prius, but its cargo capacity is not necessarily as functional. It has a large trunk, but isn't a hatch back, and the trunk shape of the Prius buys it a lot of interior space. But, it's still larger than a corolla!

 

To show how efficiently the Prius uses space, my Fiesta is only 16cu ft smaller than the Prius (3" shorter l, 1" narrower, .7" shorter height) and has a total capacity of 100.5 cu ft.

85.1 human space, 15.4 abductee...err...trunk space.

That 8 cu ft in the passenger space means you can fit human people in the back seat.

Meaning almost every inch of extra space in the Prius is internal.

 

To all the WSJ loving, love to compare Corolla to Prius people out there, try putting a 58" tall cat tower (I mean 58" tall cat and tower in your Corolla ...

Kitty is going to be awfully mad you can't bring both home

I did the math between 2012 Matrix 1.8 auto and '12 Prius Two yes it's $4,315 cost diff, but no SKS, USB, PBS or bluetooth in Matrix.

If you drive only 6k mi / year and at 10 years, the traction battery poops, well, at $4 avg, gas, will have only made up $3.6k in gas savings (6 cpm diff).

But if drive 12k mi/yr, will make up cost diff and have almost $3k for battery replacement. Not including extra brake expense for matrix.

But geez, would you rather drive a matrix around or Prius?

 

We are just getting to the point where lots of 2004 Prius' are running out of the 8 yr hybrid warranty.

Yes, they sold about 50k of 01 - 03 Prius, but Toyota sold over 50k Prius for 2004 model year alone.

So, we'll see what happens with hybrid batteries not just in terms of miles, but also age. One the biggest issues with the naysayers is 'how much will the battery cost?'

 

First this comparison in smart money really came as a reprint of analysis from edmunds. These are the same people that put out that a leaf goes 0-60 in 7 seconds, because the guy measuring it did not know how to use his stop watch. Unfoturnately they get a lot of stuff about cars wrong, and other people quote them. The WSJ has excellent journalism and financial analysis. Its editorial page and smart money sections are not part of journalism, they are opinion, and this bad report was quoting some shotty analysis from edmunds.

Why does it always have to be about the cat But your analysis is closer to true. Remember these things started with gen I prius and the echo, cars that were much more similar than the prius gen III and corolla.

Seems like a poor choice if you are only going 6K miles a year. but most that buy the prius drive more

yup.

 

Ive always considered the Prius, Jetta and now the Cruze to be `tweeners`.

 

Yes, they do. EPA considers passenger volume and cargo volume as interior volume.

 

The battery replacement issue has been proven to be a non-issue now after 14 yrs of experience. Especially since the debut of the Gen 2 there is no reason not to expect the HV battery to last 200K to 300K miles and at least 8-10 yrs.

But IF it was necessary to replace mine at 250,000 miles or so then I`d only expsct to spend ~$2K or less. I've estimated that Ive saved at least $8K since Day 1 in Nov 2005.

 

Ok, but 20 to 30k or more miles per year is a Lot of driving.

 

I hear ya. I've averaged 30000 to 45000 every year since 1990. Boink, it IS a lot of driving. The last 6+ yrs have been in my '05 Prius.

 

my friend, why are you spending your valuable time on the article that is actually using bad information (on purpose?) as its main hypothesis?

With almost 20% of Toyota/Lexus vehicles being sold as full hybrids in March 2012, market for hybrids has never been bigger in the USA.

 

I love the "comparably equipped" comparison of Prius and Corolla as well... Have had this discussion many a time...

I have a 2009 Corolla and a 2010 Prius and did the comparison and listed the differences... I was amazed at the differences myself.

 

You also have to look at what a battery for a gen1 cost new and what they cost now and consider that the Gen II and III will have similar reductions (or greater).

By the time we need batteries for our GenIIIs the car will have a gas guzzler tax (hopefully).