The Prius is not a US domestically built Toyota, it comes to the US from Japan on a boat. If such a thing matters to you, none of your friends and/or neighbors were employed in it’s manufacture.
Unless you have friends and/or neighbors in Japan of course, then maybe it’s a plus.
More likely you don’t care at all, like most people.
Yeah, I know. But it’s a hard habit to break.
I think it’s fairly recent. Mine doesn’t have it. I think that aftermarket device I mentioned also turns the nav display into a DVD screen. Only my iPod is too old to have DVD on it.
I forgot about that one. Mine came with a bunch of American and Canadian pennies. 
Yep. I got another REI Backpacker First Aid Kit and stowed it in the rear bin. Plenty of room in there.
I didn’t realize it was so expensive. The VW diesels are great cars and will support a bio-diesel program if it comes to fruition (doesn’t help the next 5 years though). I would greatly prefer a diesel because of the performance and ability to tow stuff. There are many times I need to haul items that are larger than the car and a trailer replaces the need for a larger vehicle. I can’t imaging pulling even an empty trailer with a Prius without straining the engine.
Personally, I think diesels are the future of transportation because we can grow our fuel more efficiently than we can with gas products. But for reasons I don’t understand diesel prices have risen in the last year and that needs to be factored into the fuel savings. On the flip side, if you can get a VW diesel for the same price range as a Prius then you are getting so much more car for the money. It’s more fun to drive, looks better, and has more room.
Almost none of the stuff people buy at Walmart is made here either. But then, I don’t shop there.
For the record, my current vehicle is a Pontiac, as was the one before.
But since the US Auto Manufacturers don’t seem to be interested in making vehicles like the Prius, you cannot blame people for buying them from the people who are making them.
Unfortunately, even going back to the 70’s gas crises, the USAM’s have been far too busy telling themselves what they want to hear about what kind of vehicles WE want to buy, and the fact that they’re now virtually bankrupt and their lunches are being eaten by Toyota and Honda is no real surprise.
A couple of things - Phil Edmonston has been very skeptical in his books of the claimed mileage on the Prius (and other hybrids). Until we get some third party, scientific testing of mileage, it is wise to take all manufacturers’ claims with a large grain of salt.
Bio-diesel is causing massive problems in countries where the economy is more important than peoples’ ability to feed themselves. These problems are not going to go away any time in the near future. If you consider the food supply as a part of the environment, bio-diesel may be inflicting just as much damage.
It is odd that no-one is manufacturing a diesel-electric hybrid. Is there a specific design reason for this, or is it a market decision? Just curious…
au contraire, mon ami.
The EPA doesn’t count as a third party?
There are a number of factors causing higher fuel prices and bio-fuels are only one portion, if at all, of the reasons that food prices are going up. Biodiesel can and is made from nonfood crops and waste grease, so just because it has “bio” in the name doesn’t mean that it’s automatically taking food from someone’s mouth.
They’re coming in the next few years. It’s simply been the case that no one has made them, not that there’s any real technological reason for them to not be built.
And if VW doesn’t bring both that and the One Litre to North America, they’ll be almost as short-sighted as the US automakers have been. If GM can pull off the Volt, maybe that’ll start to turn around.
I would think that the GOVERNMENT counts as a third party.
However, disregarding milage ratings is not exactly a new thing. We all know they’re inflated compared to real-work conditions. I look more at threads like this one and the milage that people actually experience with their vehicles than “EPA Estimated City/Highway MPG”.
Then again… My '96 Pontiac Grand Am is rated at 20 City, 28 Highway. Given that I’m a lead foot, I average closer to 20 over the course of the week. However, when I go long-distance, I usually average 30-32 mpg! On one trip across NE South Dakota (flatter than a pancake), going 55-60mph with one window slightly open and the a/c on low, I averaged 34mpg.
GM’s supposedly having problems with the batteries in the Volt (just like they did with the EV-1).
Every single claim in that link has been rebutted. Try this one:
I drove one (as a loaner) while my Audi TT was in the shop, and while a Prius is an entirely different driving experience than my Audi, there was a lot I liked about the car. For one thing, I drove the hell out of it for 2 days and returned it to the rental place and it had apparently used NO gas. I didn’t put any in and the needle hadn’t moved. When driving it, I kept finding that I was going a LOT faster than I thought I was because it was so quiet. That said, even for a quiet car, the sound system sucked. I also wished I had a tutorial or manual or something - it took me quite some time to figure out how to make it go - weird interior indeed! The interior was also very roomy given that it’s a relatively small car, but then again after a TT, anything seems roomy. My Audi is the only car I’ve been unabashedly in love with, but I do think of the Prius every once in a while when I’m putting gas in my car.
For all Toyotas, it has already expired.
It didn’t mention problems with poor mileage in hilly areas or maybe I missed it.
Not a production model. There is no reason to build a diesel hybrid when diesels already gets hybrid mileage without all the added technology (expense).
Sure there is: If by adding a hybrid drive train you double the fuel economy, then there’s plenty of reason to do it.
No you don’t. The example was 69 mpg. VW’s are getting 50 mpg now.
Yes, but that was a hybrid system grafted onto an “ordinary” design, like GM taking a Silverado pick up and putting a hybrid system in it. The mileage gains aren’t all that big. The Prius, OTOH, was designed from the ground up to be a hybrid, and thus gets better mileage than a conversion. Dropping a diesel hybrid into that system might yield bigger gains.
Additionally, the added cost of the hybrid drivetrain can be amortized across more vehicles, if everything you make is a hybrid, not just one or two cars.
No reason to build a gasoline hybrid when diesels already get hybrid mileage without all the added technology (expense)…
Yes there is. The fact that diesel fuel is way more expensive than gasoline.