Yes, but that’s a pretty misleading figure, as the article points out - the current-generation Prius is rated at 99 mpg for Japan’s driving conditions, so the newer one would only have a change of 14 mpg. Grant you, that’s not nothing, but it’s nowhere near the change it looks like it would be if you’re thinking of mpg in US terms.
Hmmm.
1985 Honda Civic Coupe HF 4 cyl, 1.5 L, Manual 5-spd, Regular
40/48 City/Highway in CURRENT EPA MPG
in vintage EPA:
49/54
Are you talking about buying a 20 year old car as being the price savings? If so, it will be pretty much worn out, and probably won’t get anywhere near the advertised fuel mileage unless you dump in a bucketload of money. If you are comparing costs new, then that is really an apples to kumquats strawman. Pretty much everything cost less in the 1980s. Hell I made half the money I make now.
If VW were building brand new Rabbit TDIs today, they would probably be damn close in price to what a Prius sells for.
Here’s an inventor that has beaten the main drawback of cvts…friction.
Rick, you’re going to tell me that it’s impossible to find a well maintained 80s vintage car? They exist, I bought one a couple of years ago. (Of course, thanks to Bambi, it’s no longer in the shape it was when I got it.)
Also, VW does build TDI “Rabbits” (IIRC, they’re only called “Rabbits” in the US, I think they’re Polos in the rest of the world). At present, they just don’t import them into the States because of emission restrictions (which are being changed). Don’t forget that Toyota is said to be losing money on the Prius (they certainly were subsidising the price when they first introduced them, they may no longer have to). Estimates were that the car cost nearly twice to build as it sold for. That’s not an issue with a diesel, and I did say that a diesel hybrid would be better, but those aren’t currently offered by anyone (though some are in the works).
Certainly, in terms of safety, features, and warranty, a new Prius comes out ahead. In terms of overall costs, I don’t see it. My '84 Prelude set me back $3K (and I’ll admit I got screwed on the price, but when you’ve got no wheels and only have a day or two to find a car and you can’t afford the payments on a new one, you don’t have a lot of options), it gets 27 MPG (highway, my observation, not EPA figures, BTW), and in total repairs to date that I’ve shelled out, it’s cost me a whopping $1,700, or so. Insurance (simply liability, no need to have full coverage on something so old) has been $600/yr (roughly). A new Prius is $21K stripped (my Honda was a fully loaded model, including the accursed automatic transmission), insurance would probably be double, plus you’d have a monthly payment on the car note (unless you paid cash). Perhaps I’m wrong here, but it seems to me that my car, at least, was cheaper to own and operate than a Prius. Yeah, it uses more gas, but the savings on gas aren’t enough to erase the difference in any way that’s meaningful (for me).
Look, Toyota did some pretty amazing stuff with the Prius, the problem is, however, that they’re basically at the limits of what they can do. They can improve the mileage by making it a plug-in hybrid for not too much extra money, but if they’re going to want to make it a real fuel sipper (and remember, hybrids get their best fuel economy in the city, not the highway, where according to the figures Mr Slant posted, the Honda beats 'em), they’ll have to make some fairly drastic changes. Switching to a diesel would be about the easiest, and I’ll be generous and say that this will increase the mileage to double what it presently is (of course, the engine isn’t the major cost in a hybrid, it’s the electronics and the battery pack [which at some point will have to be replaced, I’ve heard varying estimates of how much this will cost, but I’m sure it’ll be somewhere north of a grand]). But without radical changes, they won’t be able to get it any higher.
To do it, they’d have to either completely redo the body style so that the car looks like some kind of weird alien tumor (expensive, redesigns of that kind generally cost $1 billion or so) or use all kinds of exotic materials (also expensive and could concievably add another billion or so to the price tag). Then they’re left with the problem of trying to recoup their investments. Toyota’s are selling well in the US, but sooner or later (and it’s looking like it’ll be sooner) the US is not going to be “the” market place for cars, it’ll be China and India. Selling a plug-in hybrid in those places will be difficult, especially if it’s a pricey one.
Right, exactly.
Oh, I know they exist, but then again I am convinced that somewhere there is a 289 Cobra in perfect condition sitting in a garage that the widow will sell me for $500. But a diesel Rabbit? Those things were falling off the roads in droves by the mid 1980s. I live in Southern California where nothing rusts, and it has been at least 6 months since I saw an early Rabbit on the road, and a lot longer than that since I saw a Diesel. In any part of the country where it snows and they use salt, I would put this quest up there with trying to find the Easter Bunny.
YMMV if course.
BTW Volvo used the 6 cylinder version of this engine for a few years in the early to mid 1980s. I have worked on quite a few of them. As a result when someone says 1980s VW diesel the term piece of shit leaps to my mind. Really it was a pretty shitty engine.
Regarding the 100 mpg Prius, does the government currently have a test to certify a car as such? There’s no procedure that a quick search could find that allows for a car to be plugged in for running the fuel efficiency tests. If you have a “plug in hybrid” that you never, ever plug in, then it’s not really a 100 mpg car. Not to mention the offset of the perceived savings versus the additional cost of the electricity.