"modest benefit"???  gotta tell you dude, my injected civics are /way/
more reliable than any carburetted car i ever owned.  that's no "modest
benefit".  much easier to fix too.  different, but definitely easier.

And high power or GHz+  transmitters and microwave ovens still use tubes.
There will always be conventional power trains, too, in trucks and
motorcycles. But just as most electronics applications today are solid state
it is a safe bet that passenger cars will be almost entirely hybridized (or
whatever comes next) in a handful of decades.

Change is something we either accept or not, but it occurs anyway because of
market forces or government fiat. I would not have predicted the complete
takeover of EFI in the US, but the requirements of emission control
outweighed the high cost and modest benefit. If CAFE comes back with a
vengeance the changeover to hybridization may be quicker than I expect. In
the end, the performance will be what the public will demand even if the
gov'ts don't.

"... 'cause it's understood I got a fuel injected engine under my hood!
What, all of you too?" Apologies to the Beach Boys.

Mike

Even today, when one buys a CRT TV, that component is still a vacuum tube..

A note regarding the Tesla, I believe that it is solely electric.  I'm
following the sedan design closely as if it works out, it is not all
that far (costwise) from being within range from an economic standpoint.

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?