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The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

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Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#231

Post by ericd »

jajko wrote: post #30
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…

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…

Interesting, we got that charging speed off of a normal US 1.5kw outlet (120v, 12 amps). Don’t most European standard outlets put out more than that?

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#232

Post by ericd »

orev wrote: post #85
lotsofpulp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Seems like you might have a case of SV myopia. The idea that $1640 plus “a few thousand extra” to be able to drive a very expensive vehicle would be not “that expensive” is pretty out of touch.

That was for two chargers, not one. And normal outlets give plenty of range overnight, it’s just a luxury to be able to charge faster when you want.

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#233

Post by ericd »

ctchocula wrote: post #158
lotsofpulp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That’s just SV, though, you would’ve paid <1/3 that elsewhere.

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#234

Post by therealdrag0 »

j_bum wrote: post #89
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 love to hypermile my accord hybrid, but when my wife pulls the exact same mileage without doing anything special, it makes me feel so goofy. I’ll continue to hypermile for fun anyway lol

I hypermile my gas SUV cuz I feel guilty about the inefficiency, but we just got an EV and Im driving like a maniac breaking it in for fun and cuz no more guilt.

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#235

Post by themadturk »

_yb2s wrote: post #167
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…

The Prius system is an excellent design, but as someone that loves driving, it just feels and drives awful- little tactile or audible feedback on any of the controls, and really unresponsive to inputs- arguably dangerously so. My regular daily driver is an old Porsche Boxster, and by comparison the Prius feels like I’m driving a dishwasher or playing a cheap arcade game- it will get you there reliably but it’s just n…

After 15 years of owning a Prius, I recently traded it in for a hybrid Toyota RAV4. I love the hybrid technology.

For me, the hybrid is fun to drive. I've never experienced any unresponsive inputs or lack of feedback in performance. The fun comes in at trying to keep the gas engine off as much as possible -- without going becoming a hypermiler and irritating other drivers -- both in city and long distance driving.

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#236

Post by michtzik »

fy20 wrote: post #126
sandoze wrote: post #108

I know all cars can’t be perfect but as a 2010 Prius owner (I probably shouldn’t complain given it’s 15 years old) it has had several well documented issues that never prompted a recall. I was hit with a bad oil gasket that causes the engine to burn oil. It’s so much work to replace their solution is to replace the entire engine. My solution is to keep putting oil in it. I was told by the dealer this is common over 7…

Another 2010 owner here. I'm at 280,000km, and other than burning some oil everything still works fine. Usually by this age cars here are pretty rusty, but so far my Prius has held up well. There's a few spots of surface rust in places, but nothing serious. We had to replace the inverter a few years ago (apparently there was a software update to prevent this failure, but we didn't have it), but even when that broke t…

Have you (or any other 2010 Prius owner) heard about or experienced problems with the brake booster / actuator assembly?

I think the issues might be described in this article: https://www.carcomplaints.com/news/2019/toyota-brake-booster...

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#237

Post by _yb2s »

dieselgate wrote: post #229
_yb2s wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do have a wife, not planning on more kids. I'm a bit of a car nerd and have a bunch of older cars I maintain myself- including several that fit the whole family- all of them together costing less than a newer economy car. There are plenty of large cars that are still fun to drive. A Porsche Cayenne/VW Touareg/Audi Q7 can tow as much as a full sized truck, seat 5 in comfort, offroad as well as almost anything, and p…

I tow with my mk4 tdi all the time, it’s incredibly handy. A lot of towing is bulky stuff that’s not necessarily heavy. There’s still a time and place for a truck, or a full-size truck, but not for everyone.

Haha... weirdly, I've also done a ton of towing with MKIV ALH TDIs. They're absolutely excellent vehicles for towing, and hardly use any fuel while doing so. Sometimes it gets a lot of unwanted attention - especially at a boat ramp, because Americans don't expect cars to be able to tow like that.

When I was in Ireland for work, I saw that a huge fraction of the farmers use MKIV TDIs for their farm work vehicles- they're all over the place pulling huge trailers full of livestock and hay, and still using half the fuel of most cars that are unloaded.

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#238

Post by epolanski »

_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…

I'll take the bait, what part of what you wrote makes it funnier in a Boxster than a Prius?

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#239

Post by sobriquet9 »

recursive wrote: post #107
sobriquet9 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is interested in used EVs, therefore resale values are very low.

Resale values are low compared to new prices. Tell me, why does your logic not apply to new prices?

For the same reasons people are interested in new iPhones, but not last year iPhones. And tax incentives.

Re: The Toyota Prius transformed the auto industry

#240

Post by Kon-Peki »

loeg wrote: post #132
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 wish Toyota would make enough Siennas to satisfy demand. Instead, there's are long wait lists at dealers.

There is only one factory, and it also makes the Highlander, Grand Highlander, and Lexus TX. The Sienna would need to become a lot more profitable for Toyota to reduce production of the other 3 to make room for more Siennas.
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