EV Skeptic To Become Chairman At Toyota

If you're willing to pay $50-$60 grand, you're going to want/demand a level of comfort, convenience, and yes, performance that mitigates against high fuel mileage. I want a comfortable, luxurious commuter car that can fly coast to coast and sail around the Hawaiian Islands, but I know I'll wait forever. There are too many trade-offs involved.

You may individually get excited about the idea of a 80 mpg car, just as other car buyers get excited about 400, 500, 600 hp cars. But both are equally useless. If you "do the math" and convert miles/gal. into gal./mil you can see that the dollar payoff in going from, say, 40 mpg to 80 is really quite small. Except in the Pacific Nortwest, where most electricity is generated by falling water, there is practically no "pollution" case for electric cars. Indeed, in parts of the country where burning coal is used to generate electricity, electric cars are probably worse than hybrids from a "pollution" standpoint. At best, electric cars displace the pollution from the point of us to wherever the generating plant is that supplies the electricity.

@DC Bruce I compared my former xB1 to my current Leaf using this handy calculator: http://www.infinitepower.org/calc_carbon.htm For the same number of monthly miles, the Leaf 'produces' about 17% less carbon than the xB1 (30 mpg), using the worst-case Eastern coal (which is where I live, anyway). If its electrons are produced by other means, then the comparison improves even more. So a car getting 36 mpg would be a wash by comparison (again, using the worst-case Eastern coal).

Thanks to a smaller and lighter battery and powertrain, the 2015 Prius will get 20% better mileage (60 mpg) and have more cargo area than the Gen III.

Its pretty hard to beat a Prius Hatchback in terms of economy.. you would have to compromise the power, size and sound proofing.. Its even rumored that Toyota tweaks the wheel alignment to increase economy at the expense of tracking comfort on the hwy. Americans will not accept a car with 0-60 of 15 seconds. Wayne Gerdes compares the economy of two Priuses vs the C-Max at several steady hwy speeds, here is the chart: http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/523/C-MAX_vs_Prius_v_vs_Prius_liftback.jpg http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45723&page=28

The C-Max is arguably a more-desirable car than a Prius V...BUT...I would be a bit worried about Ford's reliability and tendency to slant its fuel figures. Toyota's Prius V may look like an aardvark in sheetmetal, but at least it has a proven ancestry...

@DC Bruce "You may individually get excited about the idea of a 80 mpg car, just as other car buyers get excited about 400, 500, 600 hp cars. But both are equally useless." Bah! You must not live in an area riddled wiht antiquated uselessly short on-ramps and traffic flowing in the right lane at 70+ mph 400-600hp cars aren't useless at all.

You'll spend $60,000 on a Toyota compact??? I'm thinking $40,000 buys a lot of fuel.

@Lorenzo For that price, Tesla will be happy yo deliver a car with that level of refinemenobe. But you have to wait in line with all of the other people rich enough for one, and the supercharger network is not yet national. Also, the Model X (my personal favorite, since I really want a plugin Sienna) won't be available until 2014. But, still, there is a market for $60k-$80k green luxury cars, and someone has stepped up to serve it by selling real cars like the Model S.

@DenverMike That assumes that dollars are an accurate measure of Value... And also the only kind of value that matters. Don't get me wrong, dollars are useful and I find they're worth working for. But let's not confuse a fascinating and economically useful commodity with Value. People value different things differently, which is one of the reasons why trade makes sense in the philosophical sense. A guy who is willing to pay $80k for an 80mpg Prius V values burning less gasoline more than you, or even me, but if he wants to spend his money on that, more power to him! I did point out elsewhere, though, that Tesla becomes an option at that price-point, and they use 0 gallons of gasoline and appear to be very nice cars by other criteria as well, despite the luxurious looks and the exclusive badge on the hood (both of which I'd find mildly embarrassing, but could probably get over for the Tesla's other features).

On the highway at constant speed, the battery in a hybrid isn't doing anything for you. If anything, it's hurting mileage because of the added weight. Your mileage is going to be governed by drag coefficient and fontal area.