Turds Day Rap Up

[howeird]

Busybusy at work today. Bad busy. Three customers are installing various things which connect to our servers, which I've never dealt with before, and neither have any of the other support guys. So I've had two engineers playing tag team at my desk showing me how it works, and discovering that it doesn't always, because there has been no QA outside of the engineers who wrote the code.

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After work, went to Toyota of Sunnyvale's presentation on hybrid cars. Interesting stuff once the two marketing dweebs sat down and let the techie do his presentation. Tech guy really knew his stuff, was articulate, a very good presenter. Only gripe is they had the screen too low, so those of us in the back had to stand to see his slides.

There were sandwiches and water/pop and cookies. It was a full house, maybe 100 people. After the talk we got to look up close at the various hybrid models - Camry, Highlander and Prius. No mileage stickers and no price tags. I went out in the lot afterwards and saw why - $30k for a Prius, more for the other models. Compared to $17k for a Corolla. Let's do the math. The Prius on a good day gets 45mpg, my Corolla 30 mpg. At $3.50/gal, 20,000 miles per year, that's $2,300 a year on the Corolla, $1,555 on the Prius. A whopping savings of $745/year. My Corolla is paid off, which makes this a no brainer financially.

But for the sake of argument, say I was driving a $17k Corolla vs the basic $30k Prius. $13,000 diff would take me 17.4 years to make up in fuel costs.

I don't think so.

Comments

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

30K? That's not a basic Prius, that's the Fully Loaded and then some Prius. I paid $24K for mine, much less loading, just all the safety stuff. It's also a hatchback and I needed at least that (I drove a Escort Wagon before that). A sedan is too small.

I'm getting a real 45mpg on a day in, day out basis and I'm a piker. Many people do better than I do. There is a 600 miles per tank group on the Prius list. The tank holds about 11 gallons. That's rare, but 500 miles per tank is reached by a lot of people. I get nervous at 400 miles into the tank. But I'm the very cautious type (see the bit about getting all the safety features).

And it is a gorgeous geek car. Yep, Geek Car. The monitor makes it fun to see what you can do to improve your gas mileage in true computer geek fashion.

And it's just fun to drive. If you decide to go "Gas Mileage Be Damned", the car has plenty of power and pep. My lead footed husband likes it. He easily goes 85 on I-5 with passing power to spare.

And it is PZEV, so one is being real kind to the environment.

We've already taken down to LA twice, and with Lead Foot, got 40 mpg. We will take it down to Westercon in San Diego, Worldcon in Anaheim, and Oklahoma for a Mythcon. It's tighter than the Escort for luggage, but all the con gear will fit. And it's roomier in the passenger area than the Escort, so we all feel less cramped after a day in the car.

Oh, I did a mention that my Kelly Blue Book is $23K? Yep, basically what I paid for it and it has 15000 miles on it and that is the good condition price. Trying doing that with a Corolla.

This is the first time I've actually loved a car. And feel perfectly safe in it as well. There is a reason Prius owners are so passionate about our cars.

[howeird]

I walked the entire Toyota lot, and saw nothing under $28k.

But even if I accepted your $23k price, that's still $6,000 more than the Corolla, and it would take 8 years to break even.

Remember, though, my Corolla is paid up and will last me another 7 years.

Kelly on my car is $3500, so if I traded it in now, it would only take me 26 years to break even at the resulting $19,500 sticker price.

It's a nice car, it drives well and doesn't spew much junk into the air. But it's a fiscal nightmare.

[unseelie23.livejournal.com]

Your math is pretty close to what I read by anyone who's not a Prius owner. This (http://www.physorg.com/news10031.html) may be of interest.

[howeird]

Thanks for the link, that's a pretty good analysis. The only thing I don't agree on is that hydrogen may be the new fuel - the Hindenberg film clip is just too well known for that to ever happen.

[edith-mf.livejournal.com]

That is what they have to work out with fuel cells, but we harness dangerous gas, (natural gas is quite dangerous) effectively. All sorts of batteries can off gas poisons if charged to hard. If there is enough money in it then the engineering muscle will be applied to solve the problems. And risks can be accepted. We accept the very real risk of an automobile accident when we drive.

[howeird]

But "Oh, the humanity!"

[edith-mf.livejournal.com]

you are planning to design an auto to run on cadavers?

or

we can always use hamsters in the wheels, or mice, no one likes mice. Or lemmings. and put a picture of the ocean in front of them.

[howeird]

Watch the video, the quote comes at about 54 seconds into the clip

[edith-mf.livejournal.com]

I have to do such things at home, so it will be a little while.

I was just thinking of running cars on humanity, I mean, besides building roads with people instead of asphalt, because that would just be silly.

[howeird]

I was just thinking of running cars on humanity
Fartmobiles?

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

I do drive the car around the city for real short runs, and actually that is what drives down my mileage. I don't drive the car long enough for the engine to heat up, so I don't get as much use of the electric engine bit. *sigh*

The people getting the Great Mileage have commutes of about 20 miles. That is long enough for the car to really get into its electric/gas what is best for the situation mode.

But I adore that when I'm stuck in traffic, the car shuts down, creeps in electric mode and doesn't pollute the galaxy.

We figure on a sorta full tank of gas, we could have made it out of Houston or New Orleans in the evacuations with the A/C running and never run out of gas. Just crept along on electric with the gas engine charging the electric, getting 50-70 mpg until we got free of the zoo. And the air behind us would be breathable! We know a bunch of gas only cars weren't able to do that, we saw them on tv.

But the article you picked is one of the ones that makes Prius Owners blood boil. They have So Many Facts Wrong, that it is truly Maddening.

First, the Price of the Car. My Prius is closer to the Camry than the smaller cars. And the price difference is actually just a few $K. In that article you quoted. They compare the Price of a Civic to a Prius, not a Civic to a Civic Hybrid. There is only about $4K difference between the two Civic Models. They love comparing the Prius to a cheap car and then saying, See how expensive it is? OK, Lets compare a Mercedes to Civic. Gee the MB doesn't make sense does it? May be we should all get Civics, MBs are way over priced. The Camry Hybrid will be about $4k more than a similarly equipped Camry Gas engine, last I heard. But bet you they'll tell you how the Camry Hybrid compares to the Corolla. Amazing how you can make things look Real Bad.

So lets see - Car costs $4K more. I get $2500 savings in Gas. Higher Resale Value, like I'm ever going to sell it. After ten years, it will be worth it. So Cost is Not the Issue.

And Toyota has already made it very plain that their interest in Hybrids is not a Fly by Night, we won't really do anything with the Technology, to be abandon real soon now interest either. Synergy Engine IV (Yes, there have already been 3 hybrid engines, America has only seen two of them, the first was only sold in Japan), is even better with Lithium Ion Batteries (Mine in Engine III are NiMH) and so a more powerful Electric Motor. Able to keep the car in all electric mode at a higher speed and for a longer distance.

And they now have 4 models with Hybrid Engines. Three models are hybrid engines in standard body styles. And they will have more when they can get the engine parts.

And so far, I know of 3 battery pack failures (all in 2000 and 2001 cars with NiCad batteries) and they were replaced for FREE. Toyota takes them back to Engineering who tears them apart to figure out why they failed so that the next round of batteries will last even longer. They are really supporting the Engine Design.

The article is really not very factual. Probably written by a hack from Detroit, who thinks anything other than a sherman tank getting 10 mpg (read suv) is just a fad. They wish. "Pay no attention to the Japanese who are actually making good high mileage engines in affordable cars now. Those aren't the gas guzzlers you're looking for. Move along..."

[howeird]

Wow. I didn't think I was starting a religious war. :-)

I don't drive the car long enough for the engine to heat up, so I don't get as much use of the electric engine bit.
I think you have that backwards. The less you drive the more you should be on electric. It's the gas engine which needs to heat up to run efficiently.

They have So Many Facts Wrong, that it is truly Maddening
The article's technical points are almost exactly what I heard from the Toyota techie.

And Toyota has already made it very plain that their interest in Hybrids is not a Fly by Night
Then why have they increased the gasoline engine size each successive model year? And why not hybridize the Corolla, their largest selling model?

Your last line tells me you did not actually read the article.