Questions before I buy a new Prius... thank you.

I LOVE my screen... can't live without it. GPS is great. Seats on my '05 could be more comfortable - but gas mileage more than makes up for that. I can not wait for the 100 mi/gal model to come out... only thing I could wish for is a suv with the same mileage... you will enjoy - esp. seeing that 50 / gal. on the screen... can't beat that (for now).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tideland Prius @ Apr 30 2007, 09:21 PM) [snapback]432926[/snapback]</div>

Are 100 mpg Prius cars really only 2 years away?

 

The 100mpg Prius is a LONG ways away! Probably never, in fact. Auto manufacturers will go to some new technology to get that. A "free piston" engine, perhaps. The 100mpg rumor stems from the Prius rating in Japan where the present 2007 Prius gets 90mpg.

 

They only way you would see a 100 mpg Prius, would be on a short trip, where half the distance could be gotten from plug-in electricity. Remember, all the energy in the Prius comes from the ICE, and there is not much more efficiency that can be gotten out of the ICE.

 

Standard seats are quite comfortable for my six-foot frame.

I like the display, but if it bugs you, you can turn it off.

It'll be some while before we see a model that will manage 100mpg, although some predict the plug-in version may approach that for short-range city driving.

I'd buy one now and get the current savings and trade up in a few years.

Mike

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stringmike @ May 1 2007, 08:14 AM) [snapback]433184[/snapback]</div>

100mpg with a plug-in Prius should be pretty easy to hit for average driving (29 miles / day.) I've converted mine to a plug-in hybrid just using sealed lead-acid batteries, and I'm seeing mileages around there - and it isn't really designed as a plug-in hybrid. The big problem with mine is that the ICE still warms whenever I first go over 34mph and burns a good amount of gas doing that, but if the car were properly designed and had a larger electric motor which could run faster in EV mode, that wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue.

Mine only has about an 8-mile range completely in EV mode (although in mixed mode I'm seeing about 10-12 miles worth.) When I'm driving in mixed mode for about 25 miles (using both ICE and PHEV battery), I'm seeing around 100mpg. <8 mile trips where I mostly stay under 34mph, I'm seeing much higher than that. Shorter trips at speeds over 34, however I'm seeing only around 65-80mpg because the ICE burns so much gas to heat up (however, thats a far cry better than the 25-35 in the first 5 minutes I saw before the conversion.)

 

About the Touring Edition's tires and rims. The rim has been increased to 16" and that, coupled with the lower profile tire, results in the same diameter and circumference as the Standard's 15" rim with a 1" higher profile tire.

Logically, this means the circumference is virtually the same in both the Standard and Touring... therefore, given the same operating conditions and driving habits, the MPG should be the same. The Touring ground clearance should be the same as the Standard. I did try my '07 Touring with 40/38 psi (front/rear) as I had run my '04 that I traded for the '07 but didn't like the feel and ride. I reduced to 35/33 psi and no doubt will take a minimal 'hit' on MPG. I only have 3,000 miles on the clock, so it's too soon to conclude the MPG after a full breakin. Many Prius owners find that their MPG continually increase for up to 5,000, 7,000 miles or more. Currently, I experience 42-45 MPG in the city and 49-55 MPG cruising at 65-70 MPH on the freeways.

Since I had driven my '04 for two years, I didn't really have a 'learning curve.' I do prefer the firmer suspension which leans less on curves and corners and, since I bought the Package 6 (fully loaded) I have the NAVigation system and other goodies.

For me, the Touring Edition was the ticket.

 

Susan, read through www.carbuyingtips.com. The Touring edition is harder to find. I've read that it is about 5% of total production and when I've looked through on line inventory it may be as much as 10% of the cars on the lots. It seems that regardless of the option level we are all generally happy with the cars we bought. Hope you find what you want at a good price.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(pola @ Apr 30 2007, 07:54 PM) [snapback]432897[/snapback]</div>

I'll try a few.

On stability control: The evidence so far is that cars with VSC in some form end up in substantially fewer significant accidents -- like 25% to 33% fewer. That statistic is not for the Prius in particular, but for a variety of other vehicles that were tested. This is why Consumer Reports and the insurance industry in general is pushing VSC so hard. I was a non-believer before I read that. There have been a few reports of what appear to be (very rare!) sporadic VSC (or related system) malfunctions (e.g., accelerating uphill from a stop, try to turn, car insists on tracking straight ahead). Moreso on some Toyota trucks, but occasionally in Prii. My belief (absent hard data) is that those episodes are rare enough that on average VSC is a strong positive from a safety perspective.

Ground clearance is low, but no worse than any of several other cars I've owned. I have to get into and out of my driveway at an angle, that's it. If you live in an area with lots of snow, it might be an issue, same as driving any smallish car in snow might be an issue.

In that area, you need to be aware of a quirk of the HSD (transmission) that you'll have to live with. If the front wheels slip, the HSD momentarily kills the power to the wheels to prevent them from spinning up too fast without load (which might damage the transmission due to high voltaged being created in the electric motors). What that means is that if the wheels slip -- on anything -- the car kills power for a second. For some drivers, that makes the car hard and/or annoying to drive in some conditions. Reports are mixed -- some people report substantial problems in snow, on gravel/dirt/mud roads, others do not. This appears to have been a vastly worse problem for the earlier models (through mid-2005) than later, but remains a problem for some. What we all agree on, I think, is that there is one situation that you must take care to avoid and/or deal with caution -- trying to take off really fast from a road surface with loose gravel on it. Several competent Priuschat members have reported incidents where the car basically gets you partly out into the road -- then hesitates for a second due to wheel slip -- before accelerating. Once you're aware of it, it becomes second nature to be cautious. I have no problem with it now. But if you're a point-n-shoot kind of driver -- like to floor it to duck into a small opening in a busy traffic stream, without thinking about it first -- well, you might want to try that a couple of times on your test drive, particularly if you can find a gravelly spot in an intersection to start from.

The computer screen's OK, with the exception of fussy people like me who insist on controlling ventilation manually. The smarter people here put the heat/AC on automatic and just leave it. IMHO that's clearly how Toyota set that up to be used. If you want to turn it on and off manually, it's a distraction. In particular, as noted several times on Priuschat, there's no "vent" setting (at least there wasn't as of last year), so you have to do several screen presses to get the car into "vent" mode. Again, you get used to it.

I wouldn't hold my breath for a 100 mpg Prius. The plug-in conversions of the Prius on the road now only get "100 mpg" if you dont' count the cost or energy value of the electricty used. If you do that, they effectively get 75 or 85 MPG (last time I calculated it), based on whether you're counting the milage based on the C02 produced (75, at national average electrical generating mix) or on the cost to drive (85 -- fuel costs the same per mile as an 85 mpg car). So, I think non-plugin 100 mpg is not realistic in any short time frame. There are rumors and counterrumors of a plugin in some reasonably short time, which I sure wish Toyota would do. For aftermarket conversions, there are some available now, but they offer no guarantee on the battery and they are expensive. So modifying the car to make it a plugin doesn't seem to be hard, what's hard at the moment is finding a battery that will take the abuse required for a plugin, last reasonably well, and not cost a huge sum. I'd say that durable batteries are just not coming into production in limited settings -- a battery being produced by altairnano for use in Califonia-marketed electric vehicles would seem to fit the bill. But those are not yet available for Prius conversions. Plus, you'll void your warranty if you convert the Prius. After looking into it a fair bit, my take on it is that I'd vastly prefer to buy it stock, from Toyota, than try to retrofit it. But if somebody came out with a decent $4k retrofit kit, sure, I'd go for it. No such thing exists now. Technically, it's no problem to do the conversions now, it's just that the batteries available for it right now are expensive and probably won't last very long. But the trend on batteries is very good, so who can say.

EDIT:

This AM I got an email from CalCars in my inbox, quoting Senate Finance subcommitte testimony regarding the Hymotion PHEV conversion, stating these parameters:

Ready in 2008
Installed in a Prius in 2 hours, minimal modification, do not remove OEM battery pack.
A123 battery system
40 mile battery pack
Installed cost of $10K, but with a $3500 tax credit (news to me).
Projected life of more than 10 years .
Projected payback period at $3/gallon, , 11K miles/year = 5.5 years.

I got excited about that until I did a bit of arithmetic. The projected payback period is total, complete, utter nonsense. (By that, I mean that your total annual cost of gasoline, under those parameters, is only $660 per year. Your net gas savings per year, going from 50 mpg to about 85 mpg equivalent, would only be about $300 per year. Even factoring in some presumed maintenance savings, there's no way this pays for itself in 5.5 years).

Ah, well, the rest of their numbers are suspect as well. Either I can't do arithmetic this AM or their claim of 100 tons C02 savings over the life of the car is nonsense. At 11K miles per year, moving from 50 mpg to (charitably) 85 mpg equivalent saves about 90 gallons of gas a year. Over 10 years, that's about 10 ton reduction in C02 emissions, not 100 ton. Shoot, the entire gasoline consumption of the original Prius, under thos parameters, for 10 years, only amounts to 2200 gallons, which translates to maybe 25 tons of C02. So even if you assumed that the instant you converted it, you'd never produce any C02 ever again, the 10 year savings is just 25 tons C02.

Anyway, for what it's worth, Hymotion plans to offer this next year and claims a 10 year expected life.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(pola @ Apr 30 2007, 06:54 PM) [snapback]432897[/snapback]</div>

GPS navigation and BlueTooth are important to me so I got the package with everything but the leather seats. I don't know whether or not you want those features, but they come in quite handy.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(pola @ Apr 30 2007, 06:54 PM) [snapback]432897[/snapback]</div>

I personally like the screen (it's placed close to line of site for GPS navigation, monitoring mileage and dialing the phone by hand), but it's easy to turn the screen off.

Really you don't interact with the screen that much when adjusting a setting. For most operations (changing temperature, radio station, volume, etc.), you use the controls on the steering wheel.