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The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

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Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#201

Post by seanmcdirmid »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #186
Tade0 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A while ago I rented a regular car and what bugged me was all the additional vibration associated with parts grinding and rolling against each other. Also at least once I almost went "woah, horsie" as the car lunged forward because I tapped the accelerator a moment after it shifted to a lower gear without me noticing. It used to be even worse. I had an opportunity to drive a 2005 BMW 7 series in a city where the spee…

> it couldn't decide which gear to pick. I haven't felt that since I've been driving my CVT ICE for so long. Then again, a coworker told me the CVT is likely to break before 100,000 miles. So.... thinking of buying a Prius. I love Priuses.

Honda CVT is supposed to be pretty solid if that’s what you have. Other CVTs are less solid, or so I hear.

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#202

Post by rssoconnor »

cyberax wrote: post #150
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you imagine if the Ford Model T had coconuts installed to mimic the sound of a horse's feet?

Or a pile of manure in the trunk to simulate the smell.

I’d much prefer to smell a car coming than not, personally.

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#203

Post by jgilias »

_yb2s wrote: post #188
epolanski wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fine to demand more from a car, but to most of us it has to move us from point a to b.

I honestly never quite understood this perspective or why it's so popular... in general I try to always find ways to do normal life things a little weird, or make it a little more challenging, fun, and memorable- and try to break up the routine drudgery. Even just getting groceries can be a fun adventure with my kid if we put the top down on the Porsche, play some music we love, and maybe go to a weird store that tar…

What if you have another kid and a wife?

At a certain level of utility/space, cars just stop being that fun. Well, until you get to the vans, those are fun in their own weird way.

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#204

Post by rssoconnor »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #135
rssoconnor wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - No way to defrost your windshield, unless you're already driving I have a 2022 Prius Prime, and I am moderately sure with the car on and in park I can press the front window defrost button, and the ICE will turn on and start blowing hot air on the front window. Also, while parked and plugged in at home, I can use the remote A/C button to start heating the cabin and front windshield while clearing off snow and cle…

Can confirm, I have a 2017 Prius Prime, I keep it set to prefer all-EV driving, but I just got in and turned on the defroster to melt some frost off the windshield, it switches on the ICE engine. My only complaint is that it is not terribly smart about turning it back off during the same session of driving, if I turn off the defrost. I think in theory the heat pump would be able to provide the heat to do the job, but…

It has been my experience that if the ICE engine in the Prius Prime switches on for the first time for any reason, it prefers to remain on for several minutes at a minimum, no matter what. I have a theory for why this happens, but it is purely speculation on my part.

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#205

Post by akount45 »

philwelch wrote: post #142
jgilias wrote: post #36

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 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.

Knew a dude that was asked several grands for replacing his hybrid Yaris batteries. He couldn't afford it, so he drove everywhere with the old battery. Because of the extra weight, he ended up consuming more fuel than the purely ICE Yaris.

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#206

Post by quanto »

bison3 wrote: post #62

I love my Prius. What amazes me about the car is how “idiot-proof” or “smart” it is. I try my best to hypermile and squeeze out every last MPG, while my wife doesn’t make any effort to baby it—and yet, we both consistently get about 57 MPG combined. The car adapts to how you drive it, which is really impressive. I think Toyota deserves as much credit as Apple for its “it just works” ethos. The way they design the tec…

I would go even further and say comparing Apple to Toyota is a high praise for Apple. Toyota, one of the world's largest manufacturers of any product, created its own management and engineering style (e.g. TPS) that continue to edify engineers to this day. Toyota survived and thrived this long in a highly competitive field, especially on a global stage -- a rare instance for a Japanese company. Steve Jobs in his peak had great admiration for Japanese manufacturers like Toyota and wanted to emulate them.

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#207

Post by hollywood_court »

lwhsiao wrote: post #64
jgilias wrote: post #36

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 though…

Naive question: aren't belts lower maintenance than chains, and don't let last longer? Why doesn't a engine with a chain drive require equal or more replacements?

No. Chains are better.

My Land Cruiser has a timing belt. I replace it every 90k miles per Toyota's specifications. My Tundra has the same engine, except that it has a timing chain. I've never bothered to replace the timing chain.

A timing chain is preferable as long as it isn't something like a Jaguar/Land Rover. The chain in those doesn't matter because they use plastic tensioners that eventually become brittle at crack/fail.

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#208

Post by SweetLlamaMyth »

MarkusWandel wrote: post #73
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…

I wanted to like the 2024+ Prius, I really did. I was in the market for a new car anyway, so I went and test drove one (not that I could have got one right away, at the time). Takeaways... - it drives really nice with plenty of power - the "gearshift" (not that it is one, but that part of the UI) is nonintuitive - the interior looks smaller than it is, due to massive A-pillars and little to no rearward visibility - i…

Oh wow, the 2024 Prius Prime has a full 3 seats in back. When we were Prius shopping in 2018, we were disappointed to learn that getting plug-in capability cost an extra $10K and removed the rear center seat. We ultimately just bought a "regular" Prius. I'm sure we _would have_ figured it how to install a car seat in such a tight space, but I don't regret missing that frustration.

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#209

Post by quanto »

It's difficult to overstate how ground breaking Prius was when it came out; arguably more surprising than Tesla's success and paradigm shift. Before Prius came out, people questioned whether it was even physically possible to have a any working hybrid system in a commercial car, let alone a non-serial hybrid system. At least Tesla had seen working prior art in commercial EVs (albeit far less famed than Tesla).

Toyota was mocked in recent years for not going head-first into EVs. As the EVs are becoming less popular and the geopolitics of battery and raw materials escalates, Toyota is having the last laugh.

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#210

Post by jgilias »

akount45 wrote: post #205
philwelch wrote: post #142

Earlier 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.

Knew a dude that was asked several grands for replacing his hybrid Yaris batteries. He couldn't afford it, so he drove everywhere with the old battery. Because of the extra weight, he ended up consuming more fuel than the purely ICE Yaris.

That shouldn’t work. In a Toyota hybrid it’s the electric motor that effectively starts driving, and is also responsible for starting the ICE. So the car doesn’t really work with the drive battery not working.
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