But the point stands - these are dinky cars (as the above link points out,
the rear seat is really only practical for children) with small engines to
increase fuel economy - the same things that have been used for economy for
half a century or more. Remember the Nash Metropolitan or the early VWs? You
can have economy or you can have performance, but not both, by selecting the
version... as the article makes very clear.

That is where hybrids shine, with economy in the same league as the
economical Lupos and spaciousness and performance in a completely different
league. Our 2002 is smaller, lighter, less powerful, lower performance and
15% *less* economical than the current generation Prius (which started in
2004) but still seats five adults adequately (better than my daughter's '93
Accord) and gets fuel economy in town between 45 and 50 mpg - real world,
many short trips, with A/C on. According to the article, the 1.0L
entry-level model offers that sort of economy but takes more than 18 seconds
to reach 60 mph - half again as long as our first-generation Prius and
almost twice as long as the current generation.

The Prius is the Model T of hybrids. Popular, well designed, but only a
shadow of the cars to come. Hybridization is the answer to many engineering
dilemmas posed by the requirements of passenger cars. At last we can have
spacious, responsive and economical cars - something VW's tricks still can't
bring together, as the article makes plain.

Mike

this wiould be the 'lupo 3l' - and the link i gave a few days ago in
the thread about the canadian test, right? Few things to remember. No
PS - normal, its so small you don't need it. Don't need it in my 88
civic either. AC is not standard in european cars, its a
hgih-equipment spec standard, or otherwise option. Most of europe you
don't need it. the engine stop+start is something common to a fair few
of the 'high effiiciency cars' The Rock bottom comfort - well thats an
american reviewing a european only claim. Used to luxury boats, that
get terribale millage, and well  hes not in one, plus it was a
pre-producton model. By contrst, the BBC's top reviewer (and one of
the most influential reviewers in europe) tested the F150 recently.
Thats the best selling vehicle in the US, and he tested a production
model (the lightning in fact) and he said pretty much the same thing
about the comforts, and the production quality. He liked the engine,
but then, since he was about to take delivery of the new FordGT (which
has the same engine0 i'm not surprised there. In short, i feel the
usatoday reviewer was predjudiced by his american car standards, same
as europeans are predjudiced against american vehicles (such as their
amazement when they drove the caddie CTS, branding it 'the first
american car to be able to handle a corner', so which I say "its about
time"

Its a petrol engine, what doyou expect. the 1.7tdi is more efficient.
though, 'return a combined  fuel consumption figure of over 64mpg,
although acceleration is rather limp" which is
http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/car-reviews/car-and-driving/volkswagen-lupo-2002288.html
on the combined lupo test.

OMG - I wasn't familiar with the Lupo, so I did a little research. See
http://www.usatoday.com/money/consumer/autos/mareview/mauto497.htm
for the USA Today report on an early test version.  The truth is ugly
indeed! Non-existent acceleration, maddening transmission behavior,
rock-bottom comfort, and so much more. Talk about doing tricks to get fuel
economy - this benighted little gremlin tries them all. No A/C of course, no
P/S available, and a $3000 premium for the privilege of being abused by your
car. This is the basis of the TD version the economy claims stem from.

http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/car-reviews/car-and-driving/volkswagen-lupo-1.4-e-10031
51.html
is more kind to the production "E" version of the car, but notes much lower
economy - 54 mpg on the highway and 30(!) mpg in town. Our Prius gets
real-world upper 40s in town, even with hills and stop and go traffic and
frequent waits for trains.

Mike

oh dear, the old 'we're all familier with X, which is kinda like Y,
and so what we know happens with X, we also assume happens to y -
Sorry, thats complete and utter, unadulterated BULLSHIT. Save your
pop-psychology for the easily impressed - such as any children under
10 you might have.

NIcads and NIMH have lmited charge cycles. Why? conductive crystaline
formaton int he cell, producing an effectively 'shorter' cell. can you
fix this? yes you can, alsthough its tricky to do, and risky - you zap
the cells.

Whoopdie do. One has managed 200k miles, conrgatulations, pat on the
back there. I've a first gen caravan thats managed that too, doesn't
make it a particularly good van. Second, you keep making this song and
deal about a vehicle that is expensive to make, would have to be run
for over 300,000 miles before its actually more efficient in TOTAL
than a similarly sized conventional car, and which would probably be
more efficient if you just ran it as a straight petrol engine. Want to
be fuel efficient, two easy rules
1) be smooth with driving, and make speed ransitions smooth and slowly
2) remove any unneccesarry weight. - less weight = less fuel needed.
Take out the weighty electrical system, and you'll probably get around
the same mpg.

Lets look at it another way, EPA rating for prius 51mpg (very
optomistic rating, as with all EPA ratings) I've seen an Audi A8
(thats the big one) with a 4l V8 twin turbo engine (thats a big engine
too) return 40mpg. A car designed to be big, heavy, smooth,
comfortable - ANYTHING but fuel efficient - can get such figures
speaks volumes. i will admit that was highway driving, if you'd rather
have a small car, and think about fuel economy from the get-go, VW
group also make a lupo - agains non-hybrid - thats RATED at 65mpg.

People with hybrids can be described in one word - poser. "Look at me,
i'm driving a hybrid, aren't I trendy, trying to show i'm conserned
with the enviroment, but cool, and have money to waste" - what a right
old load of bollocks it is.

However, they are not failing. Try googling "prius battery fail" and you
will see about 10K hits with a ton of speculation about when the battery
will fail and about failures of the 12 volt aux battery (which is as
vulnerable as the 12 volt battery in conventional cars)... but good luck
finding a report of one that has actually died a natural death. Then google
"acura transmission fail" and you will get about 22K hits; why the
transmissions are failing, what to do about the transmissions failing. One
member of the Yahoo Prius group just had his150K mile service done on his
2001 and has done nothing but scheduled maintenance and tire replacement -
no battery failure yet. That figures since Toyota warranties the hybrid
system, including battery, for 8 years/100K miles (150K miles in CA).
Even the original Prius, sold since 1998 in Japan, has no battery failure
issues.

There is nothing in chemistry that limits the number of charge cycles for a
primary cell. Edison cells, for example, have no natural limitations on
charge/discharge cycles and usually last for decades but have poor energy
density. We are familiar with lead acid and NiCads which have serious life
limitations because of their particular chemistry so we assume all
rechargables do. Then we look at the batteries in portable electronics -
they are designed to charge as quickly as possible, have the highest
possible energy density and be profitable to replace - and we decide no
rechargable battery could last longer than a couple years... just as we
might watch sprinters and conclude no human can run more than a mile.

When it comes down to it, the experiment is on the roads and has been
successful for 7 years. At least one Prius has exceeded 200K miles
http://www.hybridexperience.ca/Reliability.htm

Mike

They get charged before they run completely down;partial charges,"topping
off".They still are charge cycles.

Well, a hybrids' certainly wouldn't need to unless it only got 3 miles per
charge.

NiMH and NiCd can only be recharged a number of times before their capacity
drops off,and L-A batteries suffer from sulfation,electrolyte loss,and
vibration/shock damage(material falls out of the lead grids,shorts the
cell). Hot environments like the Southwest and Florida will shorten battery
life further.
I don't know of any rechargeable battery chemistry that can be recharged
100,000 times.

....and?
That's it?

Please enlighten us with your wisdom on the subject.

Spun like a member of the Clinton family.

If you believe Toyota's PR spin 100%, you're in for a big surprise.

Maybe the author of the article should have done a little actual
research.  Here is what Toyota has to say about battery replacement
and recycling:

http://pressroom.toyota.com/photo_library/display_release.html?id=20040623

How long does the Prius battery last and what is the replacement cost?

The Prius battery (and the battery-power management system) has been
designed to maximize battery life. In part this is done by keeping the
battery at an optimum charge level - never fully draining it and never
fully recharging it. As a result, the Prius battery leads a pretty
easy life. We have lab data showing the equivalent of 180,000 miles
with no deterioration and expect it to last the life of the vehicle.
We also expect battery technology to continue to improve: the
second-generation model battery is 15% smaller, 25% lighter, and has
35% more specific power than the first. This is true of price as well.
Between the 2003 and 2004 models, service battery costs came down 36%
and we expect them to continue to drop so that by the time
replacements may be needed it won't be a much of an issue. Since the
car went on sale in 2000, Toyota has not replaced a single battery for
wear and tear.

Is there a recycling plan in place for nickel-metal hydride batteries?

Toyota has a comprehensive battery recycling program in place and has
been recycling nickel-metal hydride batteries since the RAV4 Electric
Vehicle was introduced in 1998. Every part of the battery, from the
precious metals to the plastic, plates, steel case and the wiring, is
recycled. To ensure that batteries come back to Toyota, each battery
has a phone number on it to call for recycling information and dealers
are paid a $200 "bounty" for each battery.

Elliot Richmond
Freelance Science Writer and Editor

The current edition of "Car and Driver" (magazine) has an interesting
article about the dark side of the hybrids on page 26. The date on the
cover is September 2005.

Many of the so called "greenies" have purchased hybrids because they
really care about the environment. I learned about something from the
article that I had never thought about before. What's going to happen to
those millions of batteries in hybrid vehicles after they wear out? They
will be placed in landfills. Imagine the harm that those batteries may do
to the enviroment after they are laying in a landfill for 50 years.

If you own or are planning to buy a hybrid vehicle, I advise you to read
the article.

Jason