Time For A Trade-In

I always chuckle at those guys that call hybrids, like the Prius, "golf carts", as they drive their pickups and gas guzzlers along the freeway. It takes some people a long time to learn, but they show their stupidity to the world., I'd buy a Prius, but I have a 2000 Civic with 146,000 miles that is getting 36 miles per gallon - yes it its - and it doesn't really think it's right when I get it up to 80 mph on those freeways to go with the golf players.

According to the article, "In a plug-in hybrid, you have both an electric motor and a gas engine, but only the electric motor powers the wheels." NOT TRUE!!

There are 2 different ways to make a plug-in hybrid. It can be a parallel hybrid, as described above, with provision to re-charge the battery by plugging the car in. Or, it can be a series hybrid, in which only the electric motor drives the wheels. EITHER type can be plugged in, and BOTH are hybrids.

The ICE will surely remain the main prupulsion means for a while, especialy if the artificial low price of oil in the US remains as it is, but you are in a bit of a hurry to declare the Prius obsolete.
When the price of oil was $4 a galon, the Prius was a big hit and Toyota could not face the demand.
When the price of oil will reach $8, like in Europe (and it will not take long for that) the "obolete" Prius will be taken off the lots like hot bread.
Besides, the slump in sales was present for all manufacturers, not for Hybrids only. This is probably one of the reasons that GM is bankrupt. The global economy is in deep crises Sir. That piece of news has not reached NEWSWEEK yet?

At current gas prices you'd have to drive a Prius almost 200,000 miles to make up for the higher price vs. a Corolla. Don't expect consumers to make that sacrifice out of a sense of civic duty.

Daniel,

The days of the regular gas-engined vehicle are limited. The days of the basic hybrid vehicle are limited too. However, I believe we should iron out a few inaccuracies in your report.

Firstly, a plug-in hybrid is ANY hybrid which can plug into the main to recharge the battery pack. The auto industry may want you to believe that the current Toyota Prius and the current and older Honda Insight will not be suitable for such an endeavor. However, I can prove that wrong.

My own car, a 2004 Prius, has been converted, by myself, to a plug-in hybrid. You can see it here: http://www.aminorjourney.com. I am not an engineer. I am a musician. My Prius gets between 800 and 900 miles on a tank of gasoline and 90 kWh of electricity. It cost me £2,000GBP to convert.

The vehicles you refer to as being 'plug in hybrids' in your post are more commonly known as Extended Range Vehicles, or ERVs for short. ERVs are primarily electric vehicles. If used within their all-electric range they will not turn the engine on. They only burn gasoline when the battery is depleted and the car is not plugged in.

The original Honda insight used a series hybrid drive train, where the electric motor powered the wheels, but it was originally unable to plug into the mains to charge the battery pack. A fellow Brit has done something similar to my own Prius conversion, but has turned an early Insight to a plug-in hybrid. (www.solarvan.co.uk)

I'm an electric vehicle advocate; I'd love to see nothing but electric powered vehicles on the road. But we have to make the masses (read regular joe) switch vehicles. And the best way of doing that is through hybrids, then plug in hybrids, then range extended electric, finishing with all electric.

Finally, I would like to recommend you all read "Plug in Hyrbids. The cars that will recharge America" by Sherry Boschert. It's an in-depth discussion into the future of plug in hyrbids in the US.

Cheap? Gas is cheap? No, gas was cheap before the first term of the Dubya administration. When speculators lost their ass in the market collapse last year and dumped their oil futures contracts, making gas drop as low as $1.39, it eased a hell of a lotta' pain, but now the robbers are at it again, artificially upping the value of oil, they want that sweet $4-$5 dollar a gallon profit. When cars do 100mpg, refiners will inflate prices to $20-$25 a gallon, just to retain their profits. When ninety five percent of cars on road are electric, those fiends will probably have their hooks controlling the distribution of electricity not to mention the solar panel installation and wind turbine industry.

Prius technology is not obsolete, but truly cutting edge and is still being improved. The quote by Fisker that a prius is "very complicated" is just not true. Most of the complication is in the control software, which is now highly evolved. In many ways the synergy drive train is mechanically much simpler than a conventional gas engine, making it very reliable. For example there is no clutch or torque converter and no gear box or automatic transmission with clutches and bands. There is only a simple, permanently engaged (!) planetary set and a differential, thus eliminating many high wear problem components. Having the same power in a fully electric car with backup engine would mean a 3x bigger electric motor, generator, and all the wiring and electronics to handle much more electric power and also a much larger and heavier battery. This would add significant cost and complexity and weight. The prius is extremely innovative and, all things considered, it is hard to come up with more optimal alternative even in 2009.

What happens to the big honkin' NMH and Lion batteries when the car is wrecked or reaches the end of its life. Are they difficult to recycle? Do they have to go to special hazmat landfills?

Newsom has no backbone. Getting 50 mpg now with low emissions makes a lot of sense as we wait for plug-ins to come out. And, depending on how you drive, either a plug-in or a Prius-like hybrid will likely be among the most eco-friendly ways to drive for quite a while.

I was recently in a position where I had to buy a new car. I looked at the honda insite, and the smart car. I wasn't impressed with 45 mpg. So I decided to get a regular car and wait for Aptera to reach Texas before buying my dream green car.

My Prius gen 2 has a factory fitted EV button. Current Prius PHEV battery upgrade kit extends this EV mode.

My Prius Gen 2 has an EV button. A Prius A123 battery PHEV conversion pack extends this mode.

Daniel Lyons, you are correct to a point, but you did not research the details of plug-in hybrids adequately. Yes, hopefully Prius-type hybrids will become obsolete in the future, and after that even plug-in hybrids will become obsolete as the battery technology advances to allow affordable and practical all-electric vehicles. But not all plug-in hybrids run solely on electric power with an internal combustion engine to generate electricity and recharge the battery. Some operate exactly as the current Prius does, with added electric-only range due to plug-in charging. And as is obvious by the constant delays in actually bringing the Chevy Volt and the Tesla to market, the battery technology still has a ways to go. Toyota has led the way with the Prius, and I'm fairly confident they will continue to do so with revisions of the Prius, incorporating lithium-ion batteries as soon as they have all the associated problems solved. (Anybody remember the overheating and exploding batteries in cellphones and laptops? Imagine if a battery big enough to power a car were to explode.) The Prius, the hybrid Honda Civic, and the new Honda Insight are still the best available cars for high fuel efficiency and low emmisions. All the talk about upcoming planned autos is just talk until they are actually available. We've been hearing from Chevy about how great the Volt will be for so many years now, but I'm tired of waiting for it, as it still doesn't exist. Meanwhile Toyota has been selling the steadily-improving Prius for nine years.