Smoke and Mirrors

Hey, remember how in 60's Star Trek they had these little things called "communicators"?

h34r:

 

Lets not pretend that it's easy to run any huge multinational corporation and change the direction of the company on a dime... All corporations are multi-headed monsters, with some heads less evil than others.

I personally don't like the Scions too much because their emissions are not very good compared to my car (but what is?) ... but the xA and the xB have 32/37 and 31/35 mileage... certainly not bad for a commuter car... tC gets 23/30... not great.

And I'll say it again. I don't like Toyota's truck business, and I agree that it alone tarnishes their reputation... but there is hope... the recent months have shown Toyota's ratio of passenger cars to light trucks shifting back toward passenger cars, so hopefully demand will make the truck division irrelevant.

 

That's why I said that hybrids are a transitional technology... but that makes it no less important, and doesn't mean that it's safe for the car manufacturers to ignore it at this point.... we may not have any other viable alternative for decades.

Read what I mentioned about fuel cells, the most promising of the truly revolutionary alternatives... there is definitely a chicken and egg problem. No refueling infrastructure means no fuel cell cars... no fuel cell cars mean no refueling infrastructure.

So it remains completely vaporwear at this point.

Hybrid technology is a proven technology that is an improvement to conventional gasoline-burners, of course, but it's that one step that we may need to take that will get us from where we are now with conventional cars to the future where we may have fuel cells or whatever will replace it.

Is hybrid about delaying the inevitable? Yes, but by finding the extra time we can gain by using hybrid technology.. we can give our scientists and engineers and our energy companies time to create a better solution.

 

I'm a software engineer, for one of this country's big tech companies.

 

Toyota's Highlander Hybrid and Ford's Escape Hybrid both are capable of averaging 30 (more for the FEH) MPG right now. If GM develops good hybrid technology that rivals the ones that exist currently, and they are hard at work right now, there should be no reason why they shouldn't be able to achieve 30 MPG in those SUVs by 2008.

Whether or not they will actually achieve 30 MPG in real life will depend on the driver and other factors... which is maybe where we might have a problem. As this technology gets more into the mainstream, we'll have a lot more people realising that the EPA numbers are whack, and also that their driving styles are not fuel economy friendly.

 

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I've said that I think it's great that Toyota diversifies. It's what's made them so successful to date.

But my beef was the part about "the market has warranted it."

I guess I just don't like the idea of buying a vehicle that is way beyond what you need... single occupancy, rarely use it for it's intended purpose. Basically if they bought a big SUV or truck and used it for daily commute with nothing to haul around.

Your father isn't who my beef is with. He sounds like he uses it for the intended purpose of the truck..

In a sense, Toyota's truck division and all of the car companies are catering to this maximum usage case philosophy that I don't like.

It's not just about emissions or fuel economy...

 

They don't just cater to it, they encourage it.

Have you seen the Toyota commercial for "adrenelitis"? The commercial showed some poor guy sitting in front of his TV and unable to enjoy life because he didn't drive a Big Honkin Manly Toyota pickup truck. Only the power and excitement of the Toyota pickup could cure him.

I don't begrudge Toyota for selling the Vehicles. I do think they're making a bad thing worse. And the HH and RX400 are steps backwards in my opinion (Ford is doing the hybrid SUV right tho).

 

It does depend on how you drive it, just like every other vehicle. With hybrids, car pundits are much more inclined to focus on the fuel economy of the car while the exact same car with no hybrid, they would have simply given the car a pass or not mentioned the fuel economy.

It's like this... most of the reviews you read are "first impression" type reviews by car journalists... most of them I read involve the guy taking the car out for a week perhaps, or one long trip maybe, and reporting the mileage from 1 fillup.

The car hasn't been allowed to break in properly, and more importantly, the driver hasn't been allowed to break in properly. He's just driving it like any other car.

One of the best turnarounds i've seen was posted here on Priuschat a few days ago. A seattlePI journalist wrote that the Prius's mileage fell way short when he first got it a year ago. Now, with 15000 miles under his belt, he wrote a follow up about how the car warmed up on him and upon getting used to it, he got much better mileage.

The same goes for the SUVs I mentioned. The reviews that show it performing the same or worse than the conventional versions are the result of impatient journalists.

Driving style is important, but also, owning a hybrid will teach you that there are dozens of factors that go into the kind of mileage you get... climate, distance during your commute, tire pressure, your commute path... etc etc...

 

Yeah. i hate that commercial. I also hate the one where they start out talking about the Tundra and then cut to shots of guys on mountain bikes and the voiceover is " guys that drive Toyota trucks do this!!!"