On Mar 27, 7:45 pm, Gordon McGrew <RgEmMcOgVr...@mindspring.com>
wrote:

I don't sneer at Civic DX owners. Aside from the
lack of A/C that people in some climates don't
need there is nothing to sneer at. Stick a hybrid
powertrain in it and it's still a decent car.
Yep, corolla is a different story though.
At about 85+ mph the steering calibration
and testing just was not performed.
Nothing is wrong with PT cruiser.
I just prefer BARs over Tommy submachine guns.

I'm sure it will be a fun city car
for people who don't keep a habit of running
out of gas, er, charge.

Yes. Bottom line z350 cost $27k and wrx cost about
$23. To me both are fine family cars if you keep
inlaws in shape. Nevermind the 08 wrx. prius
looks prettier than that :-[

I don't look down on people who can't afford expensive
cars. I look down on people who are buying
cars that, as a whole, are a piece of junk
even though there are much better choices for thousands less.
But I guess you are partially right. No contest.

What you are talking about is a performance car versus a family car.
The BMW is a reasonable substitute for a Prius if you have the money
and want to spend it on a car.  The Tesla is a toy, and a pretty
expensive one at that.  For the price, there are a lot of other toys
that I would rather own.

Face it, some people either can't afford a BMW or simply don't care
about performance and luxury enough to fork over the extra cash.  But
even if you enjoy sneering at such people, why pick on Prius owners.
Why not sneer at Corolla owners or Civic DX owners or owners of
whatever sh.t boxes GM, Ford and Chrysler are selling now.

Oh, don't get me wrong.  There are a hell of a lot of cars that would
be more fun for less money, but the Tesla would still be fun (when it
is running.)

Uh, no.  You are still comparing cars that cost $10K more.  In the
case of the Z car you are comparing a $33K sports car to a $23K green
family car.  Does that sound like a reasonable comparison to you?

That explains a lot.  Automotive enthusiasm is not your problem.
Superficiality may be.  It is fine to enjoy high performance and/or
luxury in an automobile.  It is more than a bit tacky to look down on
people because they can't afford an expensive car or simply value
different things in a car than you do.

On Mar 23, 4:11 pm, Gordon McGrew <RgEmMcOgVr...@mindspring.com>
wrote:

the goddamn creation of the google braniacs lost my rant
about the shittiness of the Echo platform later stretched
into the modern day Prius here. Who wrote that composer widget???
Same guy who designed Echo?

We are talking about a car versus a transportation implement
among other things. The Prius being the latter and Tesla/BMW
being the former.

Where people in Elise/Exige would smoke you, get into an accident,
fix the front end, crash again and buy another Elise for the
amount of money you spent on the 500lbs heavier car.
Tesla is a no contender. It's too heavy.

??? If I compared it to G35/Z350 you would've discounted
my comparison less?

It's a pity but you might be right. I leave in the ubercompetitive
part of california and forget that there are places with the
pace of life of the mide west. Maybe I should relocate to cure
my authomotive enthusiasm.

Certainly the most notable aspect of the car, but it is otherwise a
competent family vehicle.  Comfortable and reliable.  

Why?

General transportation with excellent fuel economy.  What's wrong with
that?

Modified early production Prius being run in an unorthodox manner at
the Bonneville salt flats.  This may have been related to the recall
problem discussed below.  I don't recall any automotive reviews or
owner reports mentioning this as a problem, at least since the recall
was completed.

If you want to rant about boring pieces of sh.t, why don't you pick on
the Dodge Caravan?  The Prius doesn't have the performance I would
personally prefer, but it is interesting in its unconventional
operation.  

So, the car had a recall.  Lots of cars have recalls.  Why pick on
this one?  The Prius has an excellent reliability record.

The old model wasn't as good as the new one in many respects, but it
is still more reliable than just about anything that isn't a Toyota or
Honda product.

I doubt it.  The Tesla is pure electric.  Why would its electrical
system have anything to do with a Prius.  Other than the glitch with
the recalled 04/05s (which have all been fixed by now), what Prius
bugs are you referring to?  Be specific.

Argument by meandering non sequitur?  Are we talking about Prius,
Tesla or BMW?

By all accounts, the Tesla is not a boring piece of sh.t.  My personal
guess is that it will be an exciting piece of sh.t, assuming you can
get it somewhere fun to drive it without drastically depleting the
batteries.  Buy a trailer and a pickup to haul it to the track.

Isn't it a little stupid to be comparing the Prius to a car (BMW 328)
that costs 50% more?  Not to mention that the Prius will be far
cheaper to operate.  The BMW will have much more luxury and
performance, but you will pay a lot for it, probably twice as much.

For most buyers, the Prius would be the best choice by far over either
of these other cars.  The Tesla will be wildly impractical.  The BMW
is mostly a status symbol.  Not that it isn't fun to drive and
modestly luxurious, but most buyers don't know what to do with the
performance and equivalent luxury could be had in a far less finicky
(and somewhat less expensive) Japanese car.

On Mar 22, 8:49 pm, Gordon McGrew <RgEmMcOgVr...@mindspring.com>
wrote:

It was a piece of junk when it came out.
The only notable part is the hybrid power train.
Remove that and you are left with an obviously shitty platform.

Tubes have their place in high end audio. Just like the prius:
niche technology adopted far wider than it should have been.
Taxis and mail delivery: maybe. I don't see what use
there is to the general public.

Design defects? You mean aside from being a boring piece of sh.t? As
for production defects there are plenty:
http://www.caranddriver.com/dailyautoinsider/9565/software-problem-affects-some-
toyota-prius-hybrids.html
http://www.caranddriver.com/dailyautoinsider/10194/toyota-recalls-prius-hybrids.html
if you google enough you'd find a bit more with the older
Echo based crappola.

Same buggy electrical system I suppose. Too early to tell,
but judging by the delayed shipment of the first ones
they had serious problems going into production even
with the helping hand of Lotus. In all fairness the first
crop of bmw 3xx had their share of electrical problems also.
The problem is: prius is not half the car beemer is.

Is someone claiming that the 2007 Prius will be cutting edge
technology for the next 50 years?

As for vacuum tubes, most televisions had them up until the 1980s or
so.  Assuming you are old enough, did you postpone purchasing a
television until then because they had tube technology?

Rebooting?

What problems?  I have not hard of any serious design defects with the
Prius.  

What does the Tesla have to do with the Prius?

???  The current Prius was designed for the ground up to be a mid-size
hybrid car.

On Mar 21, 5:51 pm, "Michael Pardee"

Exacltly. Prius will be remembered at the vacuum tubes of the
early 21st century. I don't like rebooting my cars a few times
a day, but that might just be me silly. I wonder if the same
problems are delaying the production of the bastardized Elise
or Tesla has a simpler system. Someone is going to buy that fat pig
anyhow. There is Exige for half the price with 500 pounds
or so shaved for the rest of the population.

That's how it's life began before Toyoda knitting corporation weighted
it down with the nickel anchor.

Wow - that screwy story is being quoted all over the place. It's hard to
know where to start with what's wrong with it, but a bit of checking into
the history and current status of that nickle plant in Ontario should
clarify just how bogus the story is. After that, consider how miniscule the
fraction of nickle output that goes into Prius batteries is and the
ludicrous assertion that the expected life of a hybrid is 100K miles (mine
had more than that when I bought it, and it drives like new)....

Don't worry, though. You probably won't be forced into buying a hybrid
anytime soon. When conventional power trains can't compete in either power
or efficiency, your choices may be limited, but I bet you could still buy a
20th century car even 30 years from now. Maybe even one with 4-wheel drum
brakes and recirculating ball steering and a Kettering ignition.

When I was a kid fascinated by electronics, the limitations and cost and
complexity of transistors spawned pronouncements that transistors would
never replace tubes. I knew tubes were finally doomed when transistors
became cheaper than tube sockets. Funny what technology does to our world.

Mike

http://omidr.typepad.com/torque/2007/03/toyotas_prius_i.html

maybe fewer hybrid crap will be forced on our shoulders after
all and Ed Markey would finally shut up?
Did Canada sign Kyoto protocol?