Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 292 posts

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#31

Post by celsoazevedo »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #16
inciampati wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A regular EV also requires no special infrastructure. Just your regular house electrical system (e.g. 120v wall outlet in the US). Only on long trips do you need fast chargers or does range anxiety kick in. If you do a lot of long drives I can see that being a problem. But if not I'd be willing to bet you'd lose less time charging than taking your vehicle to the mechanic for maintenance and repairs. Because the EV, w…

Problem is that because it's a full EV, it might leave me at a deficit charging only on 120v. On the other hand, two days a week I make a drive that's just beyond EV range and the hybrid just kicks in afterwards.

Based on the limited info you've shared, you don't seem to drive enough to be at a deficit. Maybe it will take the night to charge the 10-20% you've used during the day, but you have a big buffer.

You can't pick a car with a small battery though as that will cause problems on long trips. Something around 80 kWh should be enough for most people.

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#34

Post by thaw13579 »

inciampati wrote: post #12
CharlieDigital wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kinda OK with them just dominating hybrids; especially plugins. I own a 2024 Prius Prime (PHEV) and the setup works great. No range anxiety, no special charging infra (I just plug in on a normal 120v overnight). I got the car in Feb 24 and maybe pumped gas a total of 8 times? If I didn't make two longer trips, it would have been 6. But also, the power output is pretty great and an upgrade over the hybrid only mod…

A regular EV also requires no special infrastructure. Just your regular house electrical system (e.g. 120v wall outlet in the US). Only on long trips do you need fast chargers or does range anxiety kick in. If you do a lot of long drives I can see that being a problem. But if not I'd be willing to bet you'd lose less time charging than taking your vehicle to the mechanic for maintenance and repairs. Because the EV, w…

For many people in cities, it’s hard to secure parking with reliable access to an electrical outlet.

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#35

Post by fortran77 »

I hated the original Prius. It had no right to call itself a "hybrid". It had one source of power: gasoline. This seriously confused the market and the press when the Volt -- a true Hybrid with electric and gas -- came out. I wish regulators defined the word "Hybrid" and limitied its use in marketing.

Family Guy got the meaning of "Prius--and the type of self-righteous person who drove it--exactly right.

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#36

Post by jgilias »

I sometimes chuckle that most of the cool Lexuses are now Priuses under the hood!

But that’s a good thing. I own a Toyota Corolla hybrid myself, and hybrids are one of those things that I can say I’ve completely changed my mind about. I used to dislike the idea of hybrids, because I assumed that the overall system complexity must be higher than either an ICE, or an EV. And I’m a sucker for simple systems, so I thought it’s either EV, or nothing.

Then I looked into how hybrids work. Specifically Toyota hybrids. And came away totally amazed. It’s an amazing system, and much simpler than a traditional ICE car. It doesn’t really have a gearbox, or a clutch, or a starter. The engine is a normal atmospheric engine, so no turbines, overcompression, and the issues that come with it. Furthermore, the engine is typically configured to use the Atkinson cycle, which puts less stress on it. And, the engine has a chain drive, so no belts to change, and by design gets stressed a lot less than in a traditional ICE, because the stop-start load is carried by the electric motor. Also, it can’t really have trouble starting in cold weather, much like an EV. All of that boils down to crazy reliability.

I’m at a point where if I’m looking for a car that uses fuel, it’s only cars that use the Toyota hybrid tech (or similar) that I’m looking at. At the moment it’s just Toyota, Lexus, most Ford hybrids (but not all).

Other companies have hybrids that are liable to my original concerns about massively increased complexity. As an example, VW hybrids have an electric motor within their DSG gearbox. So you have all the complexity of their modern ICEs (turbines, DSG, whatnot) plus additional hybrid related complexity.

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#38

Post by nullhole »

celsoazevedo wrote: post #20
CharlieDigital wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kinda OK with them just dominating hybrids; especially plugins. I own a 2024 Prius Prime (PHEV) and the setup works great. No range anxiety, no special charging infra (I just plug in on a normal 120v overnight). I got the car in Feb 24 and maybe pumped gas a total of 8 times? If I didn't make two longer trips, it would have been 6. But also, the power output is pretty great and an upgrade over the hybrid only mod…

The downside of plugins is that it has both systems (more things that can go wrong, added cost, weight) and they're not amazing at being an ICE car (small fuel tank) or electric car (small battery). In your case it seems that a pure EV would be fine? Maybe not one with a small battery, but 300-400 miles of range isn't that uncommon these days. In any case, the important thing is that it works well for you.

Re: being a gas-powered car: they seem fine in terms of tank size, 11 litres for a prius prime vs 13 litres for a gas corolla from the 2010s. You get better fuel efficiency, too, so your effective range is likely at least as good as a regular gasoline car.

The added complexity / part count is definitely a downside, though.

Edit: er, now I'm not sure about my second statement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42748610

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#39

Post by Alex3917 »

gcanyon wrote: post #19

The new Prius is really good-looking (to my eye at least), especially in person: I don't think the photos (I've seen) do it justice. Fun comparisons to the car Burt Reynolds drove in Smokey and the Bandit: Compared to the 1977 Pontiac Trans Am: - The Prius is as fast 0-60 (~7 seconds) - The Prius has nearly the same top speed (~115 mph) - The Prius is 4x(!) as fuel-efficient (57mpg vs. 12-16mpg) - The Prius has all t…

The problems with the Prius are basically:

  - Terrible in snow and ice
  - No way to defrost your windshield, unless you're already driving
  - Poor rear window visibility
If not for those things it would be great, but unfortunately they've made zero progress on fixing any of the core issues for the last 25 years. The new models definitely do look cooler, and I appreciate that they accelerate faster, but I personally care much more about the stuff that could potentially kill me when I'm driving.

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#40

Post by c5karl »

thaw13579 wrote: post #34
inciampati wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A regular EV also requires no special infrastructure. Just your regular house electrical system (e.g. 120v wall outlet in the US). Only on long trips do you need fast chargers or does range anxiety kick in. If you do a lot of long drives I can see that being a problem. But if not I'd be willing to bet you'd lose less time charging than taking your vehicle to the mechanic for maintenance and repairs. Because the EV, w…

For many people in cities, it’s hard to secure parking with reliable access to an electrical outlet.

Not just in cities. In the U.S. at least, a lot of people live in suburban townhouse complexes that have shared parking lots. It's going to take a lot of investment to make charging easy for everyone.
Post reply on HN