As evolutionary as the changes to Toyota’s third-generation Prius may seem on the surface, beneath the familiar sheetmetal lurks enough new technology to justify over 1,000 new patents. The Wall Street Journal reports that through three generations of the Prius, Toyota has generated over 2,000 patents on hybrid technology, half stemming from the latest generation alone. Toyota’s hybrid patent filing nearly doubles the number filed by Honda, its closest hybrid competitor. And the WSJ casts this “thicket of patents” as Toyota tightening its stranglehold on the hybrid market.

The August issue of Consumer Reports has started to arrive in subscribers’ mailboxes and features a review of the 2010 Honda Insight Hybrid. Guess what. They concurred with Michael Karesh and panned it, citing the lack of oomph, room, and refinement. CR didn’t like the original 2-seat Insight, either, citing the lack of oomph, room, and refinement, but at least it got 65+ mpg.

Ever since Farago’s fateful appearance on Autoline After Hours, I’ve been hooked on the weekly spectacle of Detroit-think. Talk about a fly on the bunker wall. Anyway, the Vines’s and DeLorenzos of this world never tire of talking about how the recent economic collapse was the sole cause of Detroit’s downfall (not true—see TTAC archives up to last year) and how “everyone is hurting right now.” The first assertion seeks to absolve Detroit of its systemic failures, while the second hopes to show that every automaker has sunk to the depths of, say, GM and Chrysler. Of course the second point is more true (for what it’s worth) than the first, but a few news items show that Toyota is succeeding admirably where GM and Chrysler have abjectly failed.

Bloomberg reports that Honda has dialed-back its US sales predictions for the Insight hybrid by a third. “First-year Sales of Honda’s gasoline-electric Insight, which debuted at U.S. dealerships in late March, may be between 50,000 and 60,000 units, John Mendel, the company’s U.S. executive vice president, said in a June 11 interview at Honda’s U.S. headquarters in Torrance. ‘I don’t think we’ll get to 90,000.'” (Bloomberg sat on this story for four days?) Apparently, Mendel forgot to explain the discrepancy between expectation and reality—so Hizzoner’s family firm did it for him . . .

Speaking of GM’s ambivalence towards energy efficient vehicles, Bob Lutz’s determination that 95 percent of America won’t pay a hybrid premium seems to be bearing more fruit. GM’s 26/34 mpg Malibu mild hybrid has been canceled, reports Left Lane News (blog). The news is hailed as “unsurprising,” considering the hybrid Malibu’s $2,000 premium only improved mileage by 4 mpg in the city and 1 mpg on the highway over a six-speed auto, four-pot ‘bu LT. Meanwhile, despite Penske’s rescue of Saturn, the planned Vue Two-Mode Hybrid has also been axed.

Plug-in diesel hybrids? Anyone? Only 50 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer! Of course, Volvo’s plans are plagued with the usual “big plans, little company” problems. Like the fact that Volvo has no money. Ford’s Swedish division will build diesel-hybrids with about 30 miles of plug-in capacity for this latest project, while utility company Vattenfall will develop infrastructure and charging systems. In other words, like Mama Ford’s planned plug-in this puppy is only in play because of outside help. Speaking of which, there’s just one more piece to the partnership. “We do of course expect that the purchasing price will be higher,” Volvo’s Stephen Odell tells Reuters. “In this area we are keen to see further subsidies and incentives from the political arena to promote green choice among customers.” Of course.

Whoever has been on the inside of Volkswagen knows that they are devout skeptics when it comes to alternative energies. Sure, they do some token research into hydrogen and hybrids to give the blue VW logo a greener hue, but deep in their hydrocarbon pumping hearts, they are devoted pistonhardheads. The aggressive incremental improvement of internal combustion has been their true strategy. Under the “ BlueMotion” moniker, they tweak existing technology to wring every last drop of gas (or diesel) out of it. So far, the conservative (and conserving) strategy has succeeded: The new BlueMotion Golf VI, fitted with a peppy 1.6L TDI oil-burning engine, gets 61.9 mpg, handily beating the 2010 EPA 51/48/50 mpg numbers of Toyota’s third gen Prius (YMMV, as you well know.) Suddenly, Wolfsburgologists are registering a change in VeeDub’s secretive Forschung und Entwicklungs Abteilung (R&D Dept., see picture above.)

“The Hummer H3 ReEV is the first range-extended electric vehicle based on a full-sized SUV,” powertrain developers FEV claim ahead of an unveil at the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) hoe-down. Yes, on April 20, the world will be shocked—shocked!, I tell you— as FEV’s Hummer H3 Range-Extended Electric Vehicle (ReEV) proves that a “Raser scalable plug-in series hybrid design provides 40+ miles all-electric range and 100+ mpg fuel economy.” FEV says it performed the full vehicle integration (i.e., built the thing) and developed all software for the hybrid control unit and in-vehicle graphical display. Sweet! But I’m not sure what differentiates the FEV mule from a Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid, or an Dodge Aspen Hybrid—other than the possibility that the gas – electric HUMMER H3 may be slower than continental drift with a top end that just about beats walking while stuffed to the rooftop with batteries. But apparently not . . .

You know that advertisement for the Cadillac Escalade Hybrid where a douchey fellow suggests that “they should hybrid (sic) this thing”? I would post the video, but it seems that Cadillac has pulled all trace of the spot from the interwebs leaving only the marginally less insipid “cupholders” and “checkmate” ads on its website. And though it’s strange to plumb the Tubes of You for hours and not find this mythically inane third ad, it’s disappearance down the memory hole isn’t surprising at all. The spot suggested a troglodyte’s approach to hybrid technology that is only underscored by the reality of GM’s hybrid strategy: quick-n-dirty BAS, expensive and complex two-mode system, and moon-shot EREV. Hybrid this. Okay, now hybrid that. [ED: Zammy found it!] But Nissan’s announcement today that it will be bringing a hybrid version of its Infiniti M to the US market in 2010 has to put the Japanese firm in contention for worst hybrid strategy around.

Many of our Best and Brightest have flagged the fact that cold weather may ding the Chevrolet’s gas/electric Hail Mary Volt’s performance. And now we have anecdotal, real world evidence for the challenge. Underneath an innocuous headline, “Fusion Hybrid Game-Changer for Ford,” a WardsAuto scribe gives us the 411 on the difference between the vehicle’s heavily advertised EPA number (38.5 mpg combined) and its cold weather efficiency. Byron Pope reveals, “The best we can squeeze out of the Fusion Hybrid is a combined 33 mpg (7.1 L/100 km). In all fairness, our seat time came in the midst of a brutal Michigan winter cold snap. Running the heater at nearly full blast most of the time siphons power from the battery causing the car to rely more often on its gasoline engine.” And that’s because using the heater changes the way the Fusion hybrid’s power-train works . . .

When I read in Auto, Motor und Sport about a concept car that looks great, claims 110 mpg (city) and a top speed of 210 mph, I was intrigued. But skeptical too, of course. Since the boffins at the UK’s Frazer-Nash Research (and not just some garage geniuses) are behind the “Namir” Rotary-engine hybrid dream car, I thought it would be worth a call. So, I spoke with company Director, Gordon Dickson. Why Wankel? “A rotary engine is extremely compact and is also extremely energy-efficient at its RPM sweet spot. The Namir is a serial hybrid, meaning there is no mechanical connection between the combustion engine and the four electric motors, so it’s easy to keep the 814cc Wankel engine within its sweet spot. We have already employed this technology in our Metrail system.”

In times of crisis folks tend to look for radical change rather than steady improvement. Before you know it, Steve Jobs is being ( wrongly) touted as the saviour of the auto industry, recent authors are expounding on the Googlification of the industry, and GM is staking everything on the Volt. And I’m not even going to get into the theological implications. But like the old fable of the rabbit and the hare, the steady improvements will be what saves the industry. A study by Carnegie Mellon at Green Car Congress shows that plug-ins with smaller capacity than the Volt’s 40-mile EV range are a more cost effective strategy than the Volt moonshot. Go figure.

Danny Westneat at the Seattle Times apparently wasn’t taken in by the “This Car Gets 100/150MPG!” signage on Seattle’s test fleet of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). And it seems that his journalistic incredulity was rewarded with some disappointing numbers from Seattle’s real-world testing of the much-vaunted PHEVs. Sure, a converted plug-in Prius might get 100 mpg in the hands of a fanatic hypermiler, but in daily use by untrained city drivers, the PHEVs return much more moderate results. Westneat reveals that Seattle’s 14 plug-in Priuses actually averaged about 51 mpg after driving a total of 17,636 miles in all kinds of conditions. And the Seattle case is no fluke.

Via Green Car Congress comes a number of perspectives on Plug-In Hybrid (PHEV) adoption fom the 2009 SAE Hybrid Technology Symposium. And there are some interesting lessons to be learned. One consumer study by Dr. Ken Kurani of the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies indicates that mainstream consumers favor less PHEV capability than manufacturers are developing. The ITS study asked a sample of plausible early market households (neither pioneers, advocates nor experts) to design their own PHEV, and found that expectations of all-EV range and battery capacity were remarkably low. Says Dr. Kurani, “consumers right now, given the opportunity to manipulate the idea of a plug-in vehicle, are designing not only very different vehicles, they are designing vehicles that are much more possible than the experts are assuming.” How so?

The vocabulary used to classify hybrid drivetrains has been lagging considerably behind new developments, as Wikipedia’s article on the matter proves. The old parallel, serial, mild and plug-in hybrid categories do little to illuminate public understanding of the underlying technology, and much to confuse it. Enter the BYD Dual-Mode, VW “ Twindrive” and, now, the AVL “ Turbohybrid”. With cooperation from BMW, Bosch and LuK, AVL has developed a mild-ish hybrid drivetrain. The consortium claims it’s cheaper and more fun to drive than a “full hybrid” while offering nearly the same efficiency. Care to deep dive?

Forty miles without a single drop of gasoline. That’s been the pitch for Chevrolet’s Volt since it was just a concept. And it’s a claim that GM has been hammering hard on in promotional materials, advertisements and to the media. But it seems that the claim deserves an asterisk. Green Fuel Forecast‘s Sam Abuelsamid recently spoke with folks from GM’s Voltec battery development team. In the discussion of the Volt’s thermal management system, an inconvenient truth raises its misshapen head. “If you’re not plugged in and the battery is not conditioned and we’ve got to deal with the elements, right now we’re thinking 0-10°C we won’t use the battery. The more we can use it the better but we’ve got that area of refinement we’ll have to do as we get more of the engines, more of the vehicles, more of the batteries and tune it all up,” GM director of hybrid energy storage systems, Denise Gray tells GFF.

But wait, I thought Fusion Hybrid buyers cross-shopped Camry Hybrid, not Prius. No? Oh well, even free PR has its price.

Poor Ford. All they wanted to do was claim to offer “the most efficient midsized car in America.” “We’ve been pretty clear, probably annoyingly clear, to Toyota that we’re comparing Fusion to Camry,” Ford spokesman Mark Truby tells USA Today (via Daily Tech). After all, the Camry gets a paltry 33 city/34 highway rating from the EPA. At 41/36 mpg, the Fusion is clearly a more efficient mid-sized car than the Camry. But wait!

Leave it to a Texan to spin a subsidy of plug-in hybrids as a “damn the greenies and all things Washington, DC” move. Hard to believe, but that is what Gov. Rick Perry just did in his recent State of the State address. It’s an entertaining read for those who enjoy reading between the lines. Perry starts by decrying big spending interventionist government; then goes on to ask for more money for the state’s Emerging Technology Fund, Film Incentives, Enterprise Fund, Skills Development Fund, the Texas Grant Program, the Workforce Commission’s Skills Development Fund …. well, you get the idea. But wait, this is The Truth About Cars, not The Truth About Government (someone start that site, ‘kay?).

The talk about US-based A123 receiving federal and Michigan taxpayer funding to ramp up American-made batteries for the plug-in electric – gas hybrid Chevrolet Volt seems to have been much ado about nothing. The AP (via Yahoo) reports that GM “has picked LG Chem of South Korea to supply the lithium-ion battery cells for its Chevrolet Volt.” Apparently mindful of its precarious political situation, GM makes a big deal about the South Korean cells being “assembled into battery modules and packs at a factory in Michigan.” In the mid-80s, I was a young engineer in Silicon Valley’s then booming semiconductor industry, and we outsourced the low tech, low value added final packaging and assembly offshore to places like South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. Back then, the high value added R&D and primary manufacturing still largely happened in the US. My how times have changed.

“The Honda engineering team wanted something different from the Insight. They wanted a hybrid that was appealing to drive. Fortunately they already had a small car that met that criteria: the Fit. So, naturally, the important dynamic bits of the Fit form the basis of the Insight. The entire front structure of the Insight is in fact common to the Fit. Compared to the Fit, the rear axle has been moved back two inches and the roof has dropped 3.8 inches. Inside, the roof sits two inches closer to the front seat and three inches closer to the rear. That means that occupants in the Insight sit lower to the ground and have a cozier feeling than in the Fit, but the new Insight actually ends up feeling sportier than either the Fit or Prius.” Oh, and ABG achieved a claimed 63.4 mpg.

Wow, Manny. You need to get with the program bro’. Dissing hybrids is not gonna make you any friends. Not in DC. And not with your hometown homies, who know that global warming is a crock of “I can’t believe it’s not Toyota” with which to butter their bailout bread. What are they gonna say when they read this? “They cost more than most people can — or will — pay; they provide fuel efficiency benefits only for specific and limited driving conditions; and the technology isn’t going to solve America’s oil issues. Sure, they’re still somewhat trendy, and select members of Congress as well as Hollywood hypocrites regularly remind people that they drive the so-called green machines. Good for them and for the few others in America who are all hopped up on hybrids, but they are the few and the proud. And the declining.” Yeah, we know that Manny. But what if gas prices go back up? You know; if there’s a sudden disruption of oil supplies due to tensions in the Middle East or another speculative bubble? It could happen. Not in Manny’s world. And the News’ Auto Editor wants to point out– again– that consumers are friggin’ hypocrites…

We all know that November was a bad month for car sales. Come Monday, we’ll know how bad December was, and with it the whole year. Don’t expect any positive surprises. Pop quiz: What was the worst segment? The much maligned SUVs? Nope, they are back in vogue, kindof. It’s hybrids that suddenly are on the endangered species list. “Americans’ appetite for hybrid cars is evaporating as tumbling fuel prices and tighter household budgets trump environmental concerns,” writes the Financial Times (sub.)

Yes, bound for extinction are the same cars that were the conveyance of choice for Detroit’s CEO’s during the second round of hearings. One of the hottest segments a few months ago is now a thin slice of its former glory. We’re talking the same hybrids that sucked up billions of investments, and were the target of $25b of Department of Energy “retooling loans.” With gas back to normal, hybrids are going out of style bigtime.

For some companies, the ongoing financial crisis will be fatal, but for others, it may turn out to be a historical opportunity to re-define themselves. When weak brands disappear, others can fill their niche. Honda, for one, seems to be one of the first car makers to seize the opportunity that the industry’s re-structuring is providing. “Where we want to be by 2015 is the environmental leader. I mean that in a credible sense, not a greenwash sense,” Chris Brown, the head of marketing for Honda Motor Europe, told The Guardian. Which is easy to say, although Brown says Honda does support an eco-rating system to prevent misleading environmental advertising claims. But the first step in this branding conversion was announced last week, when Honda said it would be terminating its Formula One activities and re-assigning its F1 engineers to work in eco-technology. Egads! Is Honda about to put all that talent towards becoming the car for the dour, anti-car league? Honda is directing its $150m+ ad budget for Europe and Africa towards addressing this question. As Brown puts it, “We want to change the conversation completely. At the moment everything is heavy-handed, preachy and overwhelming. We want it to be positive, optimistic, joyful, powerful.”

Holman W. Jenkins Jr. is not a happy camper. The Wall Street Journal columnist begins his broadside by taking on the Hail Mary-shaped plug-in hybrid gas – electric Chevrolet Volt. Jenkins reckons it’s what the Brits call a “non-starter.” “Even as GM teeters toward bankruptcy and wheedles for billions in public aid, its forthcoming plug-in hybrid continues to absorb a big chunk of the company’s product development budget. This is a car that, by GM’s own admission, won’t make money. It’s a car that can’t possibly provide a buyer with value commensurate with the resources and labor needed to build it. It’s a car that will be unsalable without multiple handouts from government.” While Jenkins’ anti-Volt tirade isn’t especially accurate (you could even call it inaccurate), at least his rhetoric is a moving target, as he changes targets.

Where would we be without Digg? Thanks to the collective hysteria of a thousand Diggers, we learn that the Gas 2.0 blog is baffled by the fact that Toyota builds an AWD hybrid minivan that gets 40 mpg and doesn’t sell it stateside. Gas 2.0’s Nick Chambers has fond memories for Toyota’s old Previa, and damns its US-market replacement, the Sienna for being a gas hog. But the spiritual successor to the Previa, the Estima, has been sold to the Japanese in hybrid form since 2001. The baffling unfairness of it all even had the Union of Concerned Scientists in a tizzy, circulating an online petition urging Toyota to bring the Estima hybrid to the states. Which it almost certainly won’t. A hybrid Sienna is considered likely to arrive sometime around 2010, but that’s not impressing people who are new to the concept that US-market vehicles consistenly lag behind Euro- and J-market offerings in efficiency. “Yo, Toyota,” writes Chambers, “you’ve already got a minivan that half of the families in the US would kill for, what the hell are you doing investing so much energy in redesigning a has-been?” Dude, if you love it so much just buy one. Oh wait, does that say it costs $39,600? Now it’s starting to make sense…