I'm almost 40 and never had a car in my life. But recently I'm thinking about buying one and probably it will be a Toyota hybrid (Lexus if I get a windfall lol)
The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry
151–160 of 292 posts
Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry
#152I 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 though…
I used to drive a Prius until the hybrid battery system died, and the quote to replace it was a significant fraction of the value of the entire vehicle. I’ve driven ICE ever since. My goal is usually to drive my vehicle all the way into the ground, and I guess that’s what happened to my Prius except it happened around if not before 150,000 miles.
So when your engine eventually fails in your ICE car and costs many thousands to replace, will you return to EVs?
Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry
#153I 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 though…
I used to drive a Prius until the hybrid battery system died, and the quote to replace it was a significant fraction of the value of the entire vehicle. I’ve driven ICE ever since. My goal is usually to drive my vehicle all the way into the ground, and I guess that’s what happened to my Prius except it happened around if not before 150,000 miles.
When my Prius's hybrid battery died, I swapped out the two bad cells (out of 28) for good ones. Cost of parts and labour: $300.
Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the reason you stated in the last paragraph I eventually opted against getting a Hyundai Ioniq in favour of a Toyota. The Hyundai felt like driving a regular automatic, so it would occasionally lunge awkwardly and spin the engine in situations where Toyotas switch to EV mode. Sure it had better fuel economy, but I can't stand having a car not react immediately to my input or make noise when it shouldn't.
> I can't stand having a car not react immediately to my input I'm spoiled from years of Priuses now, and driving gas cars, even fancy and expensive ones, feels bizarrely primitive. The lag between the pedal and the response, and the complex relationship between the input and the response, feels antiquated and arcane.
I had a loaner Ford Bronco Sport when I was having some maintenance on my hybrid. It had a 8 speed transmission and a turbo. Going from the super smooth eCTV to a vehicle that would jerk from shift changes/turbo when you just thought about touching the gas pedal has has put me off buying a vehicle with a normal transmission
Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the reason you stated in the last paragraph I eventually opted against getting a Hyundai Ioniq in favour of a Toyota. The Hyundai felt like driving a regular automatic, so it would occasionally lunge awkwardly and spin the engine in situations where Toyotas switch to EV mode. Sure it had better fuel economy, but I can't stand having a car not react immediately to my input or make noise when it shouldn't.
To be fair, it did take some time for me to get used to how a hybrid sounds. It’s fine when not driving aggressively. When you floor it though, it does feel weird when the engine jumps to the highest safe revs and stays there. That’s a small price to pay for reliability and smooth power delivery though.
I actually prefer that over the usual revs going up and down depending on speed. I'm not American so my default before hybrids was driving stick. Never liked this steampunk-esque drama of moving from a standstill in such a car
Anyway revs do go up over a certain speed, but you need to be on the Autobahn to legally test it.
Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn’t sound as cool though. Maybe the Mustang team was onto something when they were playing supplementary fake engine sounds in the cabin speakers
Will people always think vroom vroom sounds cool? As far as I'm concerned, we can't get rid of it soon enough. When I rent an ICE car, I'm always annoyed by the engine revving sounds.
I’d much prefer to hear a car coming than not, personally.
Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry
#157The 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 new Prius looks good, but I love my old Prius’s spacious hatchback. With the backseat down we can stick 3 giant dogs back there. I don’t know if there’s a hybrid with similar internal space.
I got my 65" TV in the back of mine, although it was a tight fit.
Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really. Living in Switzerland, colleague has Model S, and over whole night plugged in his house he can charge only around 9km/h. That basically covers his commute but he can't build up charge for the weekend if he started week empty. Not even going into the fact that most folks here live in apartments and not standalone houses, and charging situation there is usually terrible and overhead of owning electric car i…
Is it that expensive to get an electric car charger installed? I just got two installed for $800, and the charger itself is $420 each. Even if a circuit panel had to be upgraded and some wire needed to be run, surely it is only a couple thousand extra at most.
A new 200A electrical panel costs $5000-6000 to be installed with a permit in SV. If you want to run 50A wire for an L2 charger that might be $1000-2000 more. Getting close to $10000, so I'd say it is fairly expensive.
Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to drive a Prius until the hybrid battery system died, and the quote to replace it was a significant fraction of the value of the entire vehicle. I’ve driven ICE ever since. My goal is usually to drive my vehicle all the way into the ground, and I guess that’s what happened to my Prius except it happened around if not before 150,000 miles.
When my Prius's hybrid battery died, I swapped out the two bad cells (out of 28) for good ones. Cost of parts and labour: $300.
Did you do it at a dealership, at a non-affiliated garage, or yourself?
I could see how there could be situations when someone tries to sell you into changing all the cells, even when that’s not necessary.
Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> - Terrible in snow and ice I don’t know what gave you that idea, unless this is a complaint about FWD vs AWD. They do fine around here in snow and ice. Snow and ice performance is primarily (by a wide margin) about the tires. Next is the diffs and/or traction control for keeping both wheels moving when one starts slipping. A Prius on snow tires does about as well as any other common FWD car.
I expect they are referring to the traction control system. On ice, it's really hard to get started moving when it's constantly kicking in. If you're trying to get across one or more lanes of traffic to turn left (driving on right), then you can be in danger of getting hit unless you leave a lot more time to get across.