Why I changed my order to a 07 Camry

I believe the price point for a basic TCH will be in the $26-27K range. It will have more features than a standard LE 4c on which it's based and a few more than the V6 ICE. $26-26500 feels right. I'd be disappointed if it was $28-28500. But they are only looking to sell 4000 a month. Price it too low and everybody will want one and then customers will get angry at 6 month waiting lists. It has to be balanced.

80%+ of Camry owners are 4c buyers. It's economy and reliability that they buy. Moving up to V6 power is something they have never had and probably from personal experience and daily contact it's not something they want to pay for. There has been V6 power available in Camry's for well over 10 yrs and still it's a small segment of the sales. Some V6 owners may switch to get better FE but then they'd be giving up some performance.

My guess is that a small number of 4c Camry owners will like the Prius-like features and environmental benefits; a small number of V6 owners will switch for FE benefits and give up some performance; but..
I believe that Toyota is hoping for the bulk of the sales to come from 'conquest' sales. For example, an owner of a 90's Taurus/Sable or Intrepid who's heard so many good things about Camry's but didn't want to 'step down' to a 4c. There is also a good number of 94-95-95 Camry XLE V6 owners who are due to 're-up' soon. This may appeal to them as well.

 

1 Escalade Mass * 90mpg = 1.5 Escalade Masses * X mph.

So after that impact the Prius and Escalade would both be travelling at 60 mph.

 

Notice for all those examples, the speed of the Prius changes by 60mph and the speed of the Escalade only changes by 30mph.

 

Interestingly, the change in velocity for the occupants of the Prius (and similarly for the Escalade) is the same in both situations: 60 mph. So the damage to both vehicles should be identical in both scenarios.

This goes back to the damage depending only on relative velocity and the structures of the vehicles involved.

 

Thanks, good points..

Now a Prius getting into a crash at 60 mph potentially could be less severe than an Escalade at 60 mpg since the mass is half. Less energy to absorb.

 

This won't do much damage at all since it only exists in GM's dreams! :lol:

 

I don't mean to be mean, but it looks like you walked into that, I slipped a post in just before showing how that is not true.

 

No, it seems we both agree that the Prius' velocity changes by 60 mph in both scenarios. Maybe you misunderstood my parenthetical statement. I didn't mean to imply that the Escalade's change in velocity is also 60 mph; I meant that its change in velocity is also the same in both situations.

And when I said damage should be identical, I meant for each vehicle, its damage is the same in both situations, not same as each other's. Sorry for being unclear.

 

Gotchya. Yeah, I can read.

 

Plasm,
If Car A hits Car B at say 50 mph straight on - and these cars are identical - which car takes the most damage?

 

In a physically idealized world, both should take exactly the same amount of damage. This is sort of clear if you visualize the accident from a frame of reference such that they are coming at each other head on at 25 mph each. They should meet in the middle, and damage to both cars should occur simultaneously and symmetrically as if there were a mirror between the two cars.

This is an idealized experiment, and in reality there's no way two cars would line up so perfectly that the windshield wipers snap at exactly the same time. But the concept is roughly correct, so both cars should have absorbed approximately the same amount of kinetic energy in the end.

 

Yes.

I wasn't clear though - Car A hits Car B at say 50 mph straight on and Car B is standing still. What then?

 

This discussion highlights why I think the government crash test data is misleading.

Good crash ratings are easier to achieve on vehicles with with less mass... because the vehicle under test is crashed into an immovable barrier... and hence the vehicle absorbs nearly 100% of the energy of impact. It is easier to design a good crumple zone for a car with lower mass since they have less energy to dissipate.... hence you will often see better crash test data for lighter vehicles

However... in the real world accidents... it is relatively rare for a vehicle to crash into an immovable object. Even objects such as bricks walls that "appear to be immovable" actually crumble and asbosb a lot of energy. Simiarly... telephone poles snap etc. It is possible to crash into an immovable barrier, such as a granite cliff... in which case the vehicle would absorb nearly all of the energy of the collision.

Many (it not most) real world accidents occur between two vehicles. In such a case... the vehicle with the most mass has a tremendous advantage for survivability. Our local news showed an accident between a hummer that rear-ended an unidentifiable small car last week. It was a very dramatic demostration of what happens when a large mass vehicle collides with a light vehicle. The occupants of the small car did not survive. The small car was a pile of twisted metal. The Hummer driver was just fine.

The problem with the goverment crash data... in my opionion... is that it gives a false sense of security to the uninformed. It is easy to read the data... and make the improper conclusion that a smaller car is in fact safer than a larger vehicle because its crash test data is superior. While that data is true for crashing into an immovable object (granite cliff)... it probably is very far from being accurate for the much more common case of accidents between two vehicles.

Clearly... with any particular vehicle... any design improvements that give it a better crash test result is good... but that in itself does not make a car safe.

Furthermore... there are other factors that determine how safe a car is such as its ability to avoid an accident... how quickly it can stop, how quickly it can turn without rolling over etc. In many cases... increasing the vehicles mass degrades these parameters. Still... I think that most accidents happen so quickly that they are very hard to avoid. Examples include getting hit by someone who runs a red light... or getting hit head on by someone coming from the opposite direction who swerved into your lane to avoid a deer. In those cases... having more mass greatly increases your chances of survival... sad but true.

/Jim

 

Habel,

Assuming the two cars have the same mass...

1) Car A hits car B at 50mph... and car B is standing still
2) Car A hits car B at 25mph... and car b is also going 25 mph
3) Car A hits an immovable barrier (granite cliff) at 25 mph

In all cases... the damage to car A is identical.

In cases 1) and 2)... the damage to car A and car B are the equal.

/Jim

 

Maybe you could try this out by making some dough balls and dropping one on the other and seeing which one gets the most damage.

Actually, I suppose the floor would ruin that experiment.

 

If you went to an ice rink, you could try smashing dough balls into each other on the ice. It would be hard to control the speed and direction of the dough, but it sounds like a lot of fun!

 

Yeah I apologize; I get a bit heated sometimes. It was uncalled for.

But we are dealing with what happens in the real world here. Our question was simple: Is a car going 25 mph safer crashing into a wall or into an oncoming car going 25 mph? Assuming both cars are identical? I'm sure it is much safer crashing into the wall. Hell, the guys on Top Gear drove into a brick wall at 30 mph on purpose and were fine, but I wouldn't want to crash into a car going 60 mph relative to him!

Of course a car rooted to the ground will be safer to crash into than a brick wall, but that wasn't the issue here.

In fact I think we were dealing specifically with heavy cars versus light cars, weren't we? What a derailment.

EDIT: The brick wall fell apart though; in fact the cars drove through it. So it's not the same situation as say with a cliff.

 

PotentialBuyer...

That is because a brick wall is far from being an immovable object. I suspect that as it crumbles... it will absorb a lot of energy.

/Jim

 

Yea.. were all friends!.... :huh:

The pingpong ball thing seems to make perfect sense.. untill you realize that the wall is gone!... There is no wall to absorb the energy!...There is no wall to absorb the energy!...There is no wall to absorb the energy!...There is no wall to absorb the energy!...There is no wall to absorb the energy!...There is no wall to absorb the energy!...... sorry I got carried away!

So....... the energy that the wall would have taken was tranferred to the other ball instead! So how ever far the wall would have bounced due to the wall alone, will now bounce even farther.

Thats ok.. some people are writers, some are poets, and some do math.... its ok if you don't get it... its not a crime.... don't worry about it... Its no big deal... its ok..... no one thinks anything bad.... its just not your bag!

Don't try to make soup if your only good at baking cakes!



This has taken on a direction of its own.... sorry for getting so distracted when we were just talking about the Camry.

Any car thats the most popular car in the US can't be wrong... I just like the prius better!.... but thats just me.

 

Yes, I'm happy we can all have a positive attitude during our fun physics discussion! But I am a little embarassed to be contributing so heavily to an off-topic discussion in this thread... maybe we should start our own thread on accident physics in Fred's House of Pancakes?

One of the things I mentioned in my previous posts is that Jim and I were assuming a perfectly rigid, fixed barrier and a perfectly elastic collision. In other words, the barrier doesn't absorb any energy. In that case, the ping pong ball also bounces to reverse direction at the same speed that it hit the barrier.

I concede that a perfectly rigid barrier doesn't exist in real life, but a wall of granite on the side of a cliff is very close to that ideal.