The new hot wheels (Article - Denver Post)

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,3...1803393,00.html

Article Published: Wednesday, December 03, 2003
The new hot wheels
Low-polluting energy hybrids gain following

By Jack Cox
Denver Post Staff Writer



The Toyota Prius is the new hybrid darling of Hollywood celebs such as Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio.

At the wheel of an SUV, you're king of the road. But in a hybrid, you feel more like one of the king's wise advisers.

So say fans of the part electric-, part gasoline-powered vehicles, which not only get great mileage but put out so little pollution their emissions hardly register on tailpipe tests.

"You get this great feeling on bad-air days that you're not adding to the problem," testifies Cherry Hills resident Betty Moore, co-owner of a new, midsized Toyota Prius, the latest addition to the eco-friendly lineup.

"And it's great to go to a filling station only every couple of weeks and put in $10 worth of gas," she adds.

The liftback Prius, just named "Car of the Year" by Motor Trend magazine, is but one of several alternative-fuel vehicles now on the market. But as the first true family sedan in the hybrid category, it is uniquely poised to help the futuristic vehicles merge into the motoring mainstream.


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And judging from the initial response, it's creating at least as much buzz as Chrysler's PT Cruiser did when it took "Car of the Year" honors in 2001.

There are plenty of reasons why a cautious consumer might hold off buying one of these cars. Government safety tests have yet to be completed and, because the cars are new, questions linger about resale value and long-term reliability. Still, buyers in the Denver area are lining up to buy them - and being told they'll have to wait two to three months for delivery.

Dealers report that demand is so strong Toyota is considering adding an unprecedented third shift at its assembly plants in Japan.

"We haven't been able to keep one on the lot," declares Robert DeGrassa, a salesman at Stevinson Toyota East in Aurora.

"I've got people ordering it sight unseen," says Frank Danyi of Burt Toyota in Littleton.

Only time will tell whether the momentum will continue. But when it comes to steering consumers toward a relatively new and untested technology, the Prius (pronounced pree-us, from the Latin for "to go before") has several things going for it.

Unlike a totally electric car, it doesn't have to be plugged in to be recharged. The car's small internal-combustion engine, coupled with an innovative generator that harvests energy from the braking process, takes care of that.

Nor does it require a special fuel that can be obtained only at certain places, as is the case with natural gas-powered vehicles. Like other hybrids, it can be filled up anywhere gasoline is sold.

And unlike the two-seat Honda Insight, its main rival in the fuel-economy sweepstakes, the five-passenger, front-wheel-drive Prius doesn't look like an oversized wind-up toy. As its sales brochures put it, it's "a real car."

In addition, it qualifies - like other alternative-fuel vehicles - for federal and state tax breaks that can knock $3,000 or more off the $20,000 base price. And in some states, it can be driven in HOV lanes even by single occupants.

This is not to say, though, that every part of the road ahead will be as smooth as the car's golf-cart-like transmission.

One issue is safety. The previous version of the Prius, a compact introduced in 2001, earned only average ratings in government crash tests, compared to the four and five stars received by the hybrid version of the Honda Civic.

Danyi says the new model's larger size (it's almost as roomy as Toyota's flagship Camry) and changes to the airbag systems should improve its scores, but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration hasn't yet conducted tests on the 2004 cars.

Another question is whether the new Prius - which runs solely on electricity at low speeds - can really deliver 60 miles per gallon in city driving, a figure that has put it atop the EPA's fuel-economy listings for this year.

John Fagnant, a Minneapolis enthusiast whose website ( www.john1701a.com is widely consulted by Prius users, is averaging only about 48 mpg in his month-old 2004 model. But he blames this mostly on the weather, noting that mileage figures typically drop in winter - in part because oxygenated fuel contains less energy than the gasoline pumped in summer.

"It'll easily be in the mid-50s when it gets warm, and I figure I'll even hit 60 at times," Fagnant predicts. (Even 50 mpg, of course, is twice as good as most conventional automobiles can muster.)

Yet another concern is whether Toyota can overcome the perception that electric cars - and by implication, cars powered even in part by batteries - must be sluggish and dull. "There's no vroom-vroom at all," observes Bill Eichelberger, a Denver retiree who owns a 2002 Prius. "Yet it accelerates smoothly and quickly to highway speed. Without even thinking about it, I'm often the first one away from a stoplight. I'll look back and think, 'Did I go that fast?"' he says.

"In the mountains, you just put it on cruise control to 65 and go right up to the tunnel and never think about it."

It's unclear, too, whether drivers raised in the mechanical age will embrace the electronic wizardry of the Prius, which starts up with a button rather than an ignition key and displays fuel consumption and other engine workings on a touch-screen rather than on dials.

But one thing seems certain: Hybrids will be more and more visible on the nation's highways in the coming months. Toyota intends to equip the Lexus RX 330 SUV with the gas-electric setup next year, and the company has sold its first-generation technology to Ford, which plans to install it in its Escape SUV - a move that will double that vehicle's mileage to 35-40 mpg.

Others targeted for similar changeovers, some involving diesel-electric combinations, include the Dodge Ram pickup, GMC Sierra and Chevrolet Silverado pickups and Saturn Vue SUV.

"It's really using energy in a smart way, and it's about time," said Eli Polonsky, a master mechanic who lives in Greenwood Village. "It will be really nice when everybody has one."


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