I seem to remember that manufacturers and carmagazines had serious doubts (to put it mildly) about the hybrid technology from Toyota. Since just about every manufacturer now offers hybrids, I wonder if there are still many links available to newsarticles claiming it would never be adopted by the masses. Are there such links? Any language welcomed (although I can only properly read Dutch, German and English). BTW, I'm still regularly surprised by how well my Gen2 works regarding the integration between electrical and gasoline. Knowing a little about how complex I think this integration is, I am amazed how well the Toyota engineers managed to do this in 2004 (I have a 2009 Gen2) or even in 1999 (Sat in a Gen1 when it arrived in the showroom as I was clearly interested in the technology, but never drove it. I did fill out some form in the dealership and later, totally unexpectedly, got sent a 'hybrid' radio that works on integrated solarcells or by winding it up).
The most famous smear campaign was not on the Prius the Volthoax forums which basically said the car was unbuildable and then pivoted to the “each car costs $1million plus to build” nonsense after people were driving the things. I would check archive.org The most memorable Prius smear were the hummer makes less pollution campaign In terms of politics 2009 era Scott Fitzgerald R stated in support of his Prius tax that “Maybe if we tax them enough they will actually push on the gas pedal” Early on there was random diss information through out the media but most is lost to time @john1701a may have classic Prius dirty tricks from yeah olde era 1999-2004 Hopefully archived on his website
search bob lutz. he had a lot to say about the prius, and elon musk too. but idk how far back they go. vdub certainly had their go at them.
categories here could be: Financial - Toyota sunk huge development costs in Prius. Financial statements of this publicly traded corp. could speak to that. Technical1 - MGs and PSD were more complicated than regular car guts. But they were not. Techincal2 - Original PSD, traction battery, steering angle encorder, etc. were not quite up to snuff. Pretty much true. But for context, Wright Flyer was a terrible airplane but an excellent proof of concept. External - Traction battery contained many kg of Nickel metal, and Sudbury Canada looks horrible. However, most Ni has always gone into stainless steel, not NiMH batteries. Also, one can find online how Sudbury nickel stainless steel won WWII. Which it did, to some extent. Imaginary - Prius is a non durable vehicle. == I've no doubt that outline could be improved, and this is exactly the correct chorus to do it
The infamous Hummer H2 is greener than a Prius over their lifecycle (Except they claim the Hummer will last 300,000 miles and a Prius lasts 100,000 miles in order to make the numbers work in their favour). here’s an article debunking that claim. http://www2.pacinst.org/topics/integrity_of_science/case_studies/hummer_vs_prius.pdf Prius vs. HUMMER: Exploding the Myth | PriusChat Hidden cost of driving a Prius | PriusChat Or the Prius is more complex than a Malibu. Hybrids headed for boom, or bust? | PriusChat Why Hybrids Are Such a Hard Sell | PriusChat
Thanks for the lnks and ideas! I recently heard some one say that a Tesla is more poluting than a small Peugeot. But that was in regards to 'fijnstof", which translates to something like fine dust particles. I don't know where he got his info, probably the newspaper that he reads, so I traced it back to probably this article (they name it 'particle polution'). Does sound ominous... * it's a nice newspaper but I have (and probably will) write letters to them (for the readers respond page) about not properly checking what they write. They sometimes just write whatever e.g. a company into selling H2 installations tells them, regardsless of the fact that a 10 year old can shoot holes in the story. (Remember a story where a company build a house running on H2 instead of natural gas and they produced it with solarpanels. They claimed it would store H2 in the summer and use it in the winter, simple math showed the tank wouldn't last them a week (and being VERY generous here). so how will this get you through the winter where there are weeks when you get 5% of solar if you're lucky compared to a good summersday?)
Prius owners should wear tinfoil hats to protect them from the cars emf wavelengths. We had heard this after we bought our first Prius. Prius EMF Radiation and Toyota's bold face | PriusChat
There was a modeling study comparing particle pollution from BEVs, hybrids, and ICE cars from a few years ago that was discussed. Some of that pollution is particles resuspended from the road. Heavier vehicles tend to stir up more, but the real world data for the heavy vehicles comes from boxy trucks. So the model likely over estimates how much an aerodynamic BEV would kick up with its less turbulent wake. Regardless, any car will result in more particles in the air than a smaller one.
I’ve moved on to EVs not that the Prius has been a problem. Still hard to recall the snark in traditional auto reviews about ‘the greens.’ Bob Wilson
When I bought my 07 new I was on youtube looking up vids on it and the negative posts were unreal. The whole Fox news crowd went nuts over that car. I remember predicting on a couple of yt's that every car manufacturer will offer a hybrid in less than 10 years and they all laughed and called me a commie lol. No way a prius is just a poorly designed gimmick car. Truth is its an engineering marvel. My next prediction is gasoline cars will be outlawed in less than 10 years or a huge carbon tax on them. And by then the nutty weather will make some states unlivable or at the least uninsurable. Pretty easy to see its not looking good. Btw did you see the moon last night? It was awesome. Bright orange.
The most prevalent misinformation of the 2001 era was that the battery would be like a laptop battery and only last 3 years. To supplement that rumor was the "fact" that the battery would cost $10,000 to replace. I found that most of the misinformation was pushed by people in the auto industry. Mechanics and car salesmen were the worst. It made sense though, as their livelyhood was threatened.
