Telegraph.co.uk - Who are you kidding?

So very tired of the CNW research quotation and the lack of a scholarly rebuttal. Can't some MIT grad student rebut this? Jesus this is so tiring.

 

"If you've got a Prius, fine, but please spare the rest of us your pious condescension."

What pious condescension you Prius-challenged prick? Just because you can't drive in a civil manner...thereby achieving a realistic, real world MPG like the rest of us, you need to use as 'proof' of your poor technique by referring to other incapable dolts. What's not to love in the most perfect automobile ever made? Pious condescension indeed!

 

im starting to think GM is paying these people, why not have the author go drive a prius and see how wonderful the technology is? but then again these guys are really hardheaded and wont listen anyway.

for a vehicle in this price range with this much technology is just an amazing thing in my opinion.

every little amenity in my terms are great on this car, even the doors, its the smoothest closing doors ive ever encountered on a toyota vehicle.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tballx @ Jun 30 2007, 10:46 AM) [snapback]470629[/snapback]</div>

Actually MIT found that 80-85% of a cars energy usage is during the driving stage, which is completely opposite of what the CNW research study claimed. The information is out there, it's just that journalists aren't fact checking.

http://www.pacinst.org/topics/integrity_of...er_vs_prius.pdf

Also, regarding GM paying off reporters. I'm not so sure about that, but one of the criticisms of the CNW study was that he's not revealing who funded it (though he notes on his website that he sometimes does work for automobile manufacturers).

 

And they only got 45miles to the imperial gallon. They should be getting over 60, since the gallon is that much larger. I guess driving 85 miles per hour doesn't help. The Canadian rating says 71 miles to the imperial gallon for city driving.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(cyrus69 @ Jun 30 2007, 09:42 PM) [snapback]470881[/snapback]</div>

I am getting 4.5 or 4.6 L/100km for the last several tanks. That's not great compared to a hypermiler but I don't really try very hard to achieve it. This translates into ~62 mpg imperial. That's around ~50 mpg US.

I assumed they meant they couldn't get 45 mpg US, not imperial. 45 imperial is dead easy to achieve!

 

Hi All,

Pious, my arse. They are just plain arrogant incompetents. Its no wonder they got pummeled by public opinion. If you cannot drive a Prius better than 48 mpg US (62.4 UK) in the UK, your worse than half the drivers who drive Prius, many of which are driving well beyond the speed limit, in very hilly or hot terrain. Check out Greenhybrid.com .

Due to traffic and warm weather here in Chicagoland, my last two tanks were beyond 60.2 US, which is 78.3 miles per IMPERIAL Gallon.

What did they do, run the tires down to 15 PSI? Or did they lightfoot it so badly, the engine never was in an efficient zone? I have that problem around here with the slow accelleration of cars that red-light race and get in front.

 

Folks, other than the tiresome CNW garbage, there's not really much for us to get all rilled up about. Until now, I have not seen a single major European roadway where they do not drive like crazy.

So with that in mind, are we so naive to believe that they would actually get good mileage on a Prius driving like that? So what is the fuss about?

Thank goodness they've been driving fuel efficient cars for far longer than we have been... otherwise this global warming thing would have arrived much earlier had they been driving the opulent boats we have. A Prius is NOT for everyone and given the retardedness they display in the article, it is most definitely not for them either.

Too bad, it's their loss.

About the last paragraph...
"If you've got a Prius, fine, but please spare the rest of us your pious condescension."

We're sort of guilty of this - at least a small minority of Prius owners are - but as a community, I fear we lack the humility and the ability to prove the Prius bashers wrong.


Cheers;

MSantos

 

The shame of the Telegraph is that they take a new start in private car ownership and force it into the bad old world of short journeys and erratic driving. They then claim that their failure is not actually theirs but something to do with the European Union (another new start that they don't completely favour). The MPG figures of any car are like the top speed and the acceleration figures, they give a good indication of what is possible, but one can always get less, I don't think that I got up to 107mph this morning. But then maybe I didn't put the effort in...

45mpg (UK) is very low and is only representative of a rookie driver. We all have to start somewhere but the Telegraph (and others) should recognise that the Prius is very different and will take a little longer to get used to than the average car (which often has the same engine from the previous model).

The printed press often say that the internet is a poor source of information and that it falls below the level of the professional journalist. Well the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(IsrAmeriPrius @ Jul 1 2007, 01:11 AM) [snapback]470598[/snapback]</div>

Mileage is only one factor in the environmental issues. Refer to
http://www.ecotravel.org.uk/fuels_5.html

In trems of CO2, NOx,PM, Toyota Prius 2.0 beats the smaller diesel based Citroen C1 1.4HDi/Toyota Aygo 1.4 D-4D.

If the environmental issue was the real focus, cleaner tail pipe should be a priority over mileage. Higher MPG is just a bonus.

I have posted this info to Daily Telegraph (UK) and let's see if they'll will show it.

 

I can't see any reason to get hot and bothered by a critical analysis of this sort - it surely makes no difference to any of us what anyone else thinks or chooses to report from their experience when we have our own experiences to go on.

Since when were ANY motoring 'journalists' objective? Like any of the rest of us, they bring their personal styles, techniques, preferences and prejudices to the table and these all cloud their writing, reporting, and the conclusions they draw. So what? Does this twit of a journo from the Telegraph change the mpg any of us are getting, or our satisfaction with the fuel efficiencies of our own cars? Does his claimed mileage in any way detract from what we ourselves know we experience? Does his characterization of Prius owners mean anything at all except to him?

It's a car. We buy these things because personal choice leads up to decide to. That's all that counts.

 

Anyone else thinking R&D costs associated with building any car should not be included? Because by default any car that has quite a few relatively new components gets penalized, yet those who have been around for decades, etc really have a thinned down number. I'm sure the first car to have fuel injection probably cost a lot "dust to dust" because it was new and never done before.

 

NO VEHICLE DOING 85 MPH wil get anywhere near their stated mpg!!!
A prius under bad driving conditions (Speeding 80+mph, Cold Weather 40*F and below, Extreme Wind, and generally agressive drivers will only get 40-42 mpg for the tank. Even a regular i.c.e. car gets worse mpg under all those conditions. Most drivers during most of the year will average 45mpg. But those of us who dont speed under good weather do get 50mpg. Currently I have an avg of 53mpg and so was my last tank.
but I do more than most to achieve the little extra.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MikeSF @ Jul 3 2007, 12:50 AM) [snapback]471475[/snapback]</div>

Note that, Prius II (NHW20)is in it's second generation release.

NHW10, release 1.0
NHW11, release 1.1
NHW20, release 2.0 (current model)

In the Prius, some parts was removed e.g. automatic transmission (with multiple gears) was replaced with ECVT (only has one gear) and the engine size was reduced to 1.5L (modified Echo size engine).

The engineers has to earn their salaries.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(statultra @ Jul 1 2007, 06:29 AM) [snapback]470704[/snapback]</div>

If they don’t like the Prius, Toyota does sell small cars with efficient and reliable** diesel engines.
**Relative to the usual suspects.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MikeSF @ Jul 2 2007, 09:50 AM) [snapback]471475[/snapback]</div>

Well, something has caused CNW to change their numbers. If you go to their website and download the 2006 update, you will see that the Prius and HCH now cost less per mile than the large SUVs (including the hummer). So their own numbers have been updated, but it hasn't been publicized. They don't say why these numbers change, but I bet it's partly due to what you're saying - economy of scale. It will be interesting to see what happens in 2007, now that the Prius is outselling all Volvos and Subarus, etc. in the U.S. Of course, their study is still deeply flawed, because if the cost per car was even half-right, all industrialized countries would be bankrupt, but even playing their own game, the Prius comes out ahead.

I didn't see the part about CNW, but the full article does have a lot more Prius-bashing than the quoted part above does. Toyota's "relentless PR campaign" was also interesting, since I didn't see a single Prius commercial until early this year, much of this time the Prius was back-ordered. So he can spout all he wants about how it isn't economical and costs too much and doesn't get the MPG advertised, people still see for themselves it's a car that serves their purpose well.

People here are sometimes a bit self-righteous and smug - "the most perfect automobile ever made" definitely comes across that way to others. It's a good general-purpose car, with the best mpg available for that power and emissions level, and I recommend it to anybody interested in a new car in that price range, but to call it the best ever might be a bit too much. Some might reserve that for the EV-1, or another electric vehicle, obviously others into performance would nominate another type of car entirely.

 

Really people what is there to get excited about here? I find the story to be quite balance and presents things from both sides. It is not a ringing endorsement of the Prius as the best vehicle in the world but it does not misrepresent things either. The story even deals with the two big myths fairly.

CNW Report:
"These figures are somewhat misleading, as they are based on debatable assumptions and American patterns of vehicle use, but they do highlight the extra energy input (and therefore CO2 output) involved in making a complex car with two engines."

Sudbury Plant:
"In the past few months there has been a misleading internet campaign about the environmental "harm" done by the nickel content of its battery, which in part is mined at the Sudbury plant in Ontario, Canada, which produces about 30 per cent of the world's supply. The Prius does have a nickel hydride battery but all cars use nickel in their high-strength steel body-frames. This is highly valuable and is recovered at a rate of more than 95 per cent from both scrap cars and batteries."

The Sudbury Plant myth is even in a section with the heading "MYTHS".

What you people really seam to be getting upset about is that when the magazines and newspapers have tested the car they are not getting the mileage that you know that it can achieve. They are just driving it like regular car instead of trying to maximizing mileage. In this case, the Prius has come in behind some "standard" cars in the mileage. THIS is what everyone is upset about.

The article also points out another dirty little hybrid secret, tax credits and emissions. The hybrids receive tax credits based on their reduced emissions and fuel consumption. But these "reductions" are based on government numbers. If the cars aren't getting the government numbers in the real world then the reduction in emissions and fuel use is only theoretical. This is a very valid point especially in Europe where there are a lot of options for fuel efficient vehicles.

Take my two cars as an example. My VW TDI is EPA rated for 39 mpg combined. The Prius is EPA rated for 46 mpg combined. Yes, the Prius gets slightly better mileage in my mostly suburban driving but the TDI is beating the EPA by over 13% while the Prius is only 2% better. It kinda makes all those nice graphs about barrels of oil used, greenhouse gases emitted, and CO2 per mile based on EPA numbers look pointless.

BTW, thanks for the ECO Travel site. The emission info is great. I have been looking for some good numbers for diesel PM emissions with a particulate filter. (That would be 0.000 to 0.005 g/km) That is down from 0.0625 g/km allowed for my 2003!

 

The thing I found most depressing about this article is the pretence that the journalist is looking at things without prejudice. Whereas in reality he doesnt like the Prius and is then trying to justify why.

The article is lttered with non sensical assertions, like this :
These cars are made to show how much you care," says Garel Rhys, Cardiff Business School's professor. "They don't make money, although you can claim that they do by spreading overheads such as R&D across the rest of the business. If you included the real cost of making and developing these cars in the price, not even Guardian readers would buy them."

So, if I understand this he means that the vehicle costs toyota to make, and we buy the prius because it makes us feel good. Well that is stupid, if it costs toyota to make it, then buying it rational as the car has a higher value than the price. Motor manufacturers making cars that cost more than their price isnt unknown, the orginal UK mini for example cost more to make, more recently Rover lost hundreds of pounds on every car, which is why they went bust,.... but the Telegrpah doesnt suggest that those buyers were only buying out of vanity.

(BTW is this Professor from Cardiff really the only authority he can find ? Scraping the barrel ?)

The fuel economy statement is just bizarre-We also deliberately ignored the Prius's second-by-second fuel economy meter, preferring to concentrate on the road ahead. We drove safely and purposefully within UK speed limits (except on motorways, where we fitted in with typical traffic speeds of up to 85mph), which is how we drive every car in order to maintain repeatability. With a variety of urban, suburban and extra-urban journey patterns, Peter Hall and Paul Hudson (who live in central London) and I (near Guildford) achieved largely the same results, about 45mpg, which actually makes us pretty light-footed in road-testing terms. I have noticed that some Prius owners enjoy driving their cars on the average economy meter and there's nothing wrong with that (as long as they properly watch the road as well) but it isn't how the vast majority of people drive.

For the record I ( and my partner ) drive our prius on UK roads with UK petrol, daily on motorways, and we average 59 MPG imperial.

Glad to have that off my chest !

 

Well don't get all your panties in a bunch, but most of what the article says is accurate. I have an 05 with 112,000 miles on it and have averaged 42 mpg. Also, if mpg is the sole concern, yes other cars get better, BUT, are they cleaner? No, and more importantly are they bigger? Heck No.

Now granted the guy who wrote this has a serious stick in his nice person, but as this illustrates so do some Prius owners...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1...h&plindex=1