#Hybrid

Well, it was bound to happen. The ugly step-child of the Lexus lineup, the HS250h, is dead. And the too-tall corpse has been decomposing for quite some time.

It was a good month for the Toyota Prius Plug-In, with the newest plug-in car outselling the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf in April.

The last time TTAC took a look at the Camry Hybrid was back in 2006. For 2012 Toyota has completely redesigned the Camry from t he “sporty” SE model to the r efrigerator-white base model Michael Karesh took for a spin. The base model’s low price appeals to dealers while the SE allows Toyota to believe the Camry is something other than basic transportation. So what about the hybrid? The gasoline/electric Camry is aimed squarely at shoppers that want more green cred than a regular Camry can deliver and Prius shoppers looking for something more powerful and more traditional. One out of every seven Camrys sold in 2011 was a hybrid, with those numbers expected to grow it is imperative Toyota gets their baby-boomer hybrid just right.

Ferrari’s next flagship will have *gasp* a hybrid system mated to its usual V12/7-speed dual clutch gearbox.

In the geek world we have “Moore’s law” which states the number of transistors in ICs will double every two years. In the automotive world we have the bloat law. Every generation of a vehicle will get more powerful, heavier and physically larger than its predecessor, ultimately requiring the manufacturer to design an entirely new, smaller car to fill the void left by the original.

Remember Heather Peters, the attorney who is suing Honda? Well, if a recent article by Automotive.com’s Jacob Brown is any guide, her lawsuit might be the equivalent of Honda’s IMA hybrid system: unpopular, mostly ignored, and unable to operate without serious help from outside forces.

Hybrids are a tough sell in China. Honda and Toyota want to change this. Honda wants to change it so bad that it will provide its core hybrid car technologies to other Chinese automakers, in addition to its joint venture partners, The Nikkei [sub] learned today.

It’s the end of our commercial week and there’s a hybrid staring you down. No, the Prius v isn’t really a commercial vehicle, but there is a good reason it’s jammed in to this week of cargo haulers: 44 miles per gallon around town. Our own Michael Karesh snagged considerable seat time at a launch event last June, but pricing hadn’t been released at that time. So how much does it cost and what’s it like to live with for a week? And most importantly, is it any good at hauling cargo instead of kids?

Save for some French cabinet ministers, you aren’t likely to find any of the global elite tooling around in French luxury sedans. Citroen is hoping to reverse this trend with a made-for-China luxury limo, seen above. Dubbed the “DS Numero 9”. We suppose that’s French for “Panamera lookalike”.

TTACers have known it for quite some while: Europeans won’t get a Prius C / Aqua compact hybrid, they will get a hybrid Yaris. Today, the first one rolled off the line at Toyota’s plant in Valenciennes, in the north of France.

A study by Polk found that the majority of hybrid car buyers don’t end up purchasing another one – when Toyota Prius buyers are excluded, the number of repeat hybrid customers is as low as 22 percent.

The launch of the Acura ILX kicked off on Sunday, and Acura told the crowd of assembled journalists that their new ILX sedan will cost “around $27,000”.

Geely has chosen their battery technology partner for their new plug-in hybrid vehicle, and their supplier, A123 Systems Inc., may not be a familiar name to everyone, but their wares have been used by other vehicles like the Fisker Karma.

“The electric things have their life too. Paltry as those lives are.”

Phillip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?

At the High School I attended, progress reports were never a good thing. Halfway through each term, students who were averaging a D or lower would receive a print-out of their grade accompanied by a line from the teacher explaining how the miscreant in question was failing to live up to expectations. True to form, the White House’s just-released “One Year Progress Report” [ PDF] on President Obama’s “Blueprint For A Secure Energy Agenda” includes some devastating evidence of abject failure. But unlike my post-progress report conversations with the parental stakeholders, Obama has a lot more to explain to voters than a simple “insufficient homework turned in.”

Consumer Reports recently bought a Fisker Karma, which ended up breaking down in the driveway of their vehicle testing facility.