Pretty funny! Maybe if he had force-charged the Prius he wouldn't have lost quite so badly to the Lexus...
The Prius won, even with a handicap - its driver clearly weighed more than the driver of the Civic The 450h is about as intelligent a hybrid design as the now defunct Accord Hybrid. The gas engine is already more than anyone needs to actually use the car reasonably. Adding the electric motor and associated hybrid components is just a waste. I'd be willing to bet the electric motor contributed almost nothing in the drag race. I do not know if there are extra features on the 450h for the extra $11,000 but compare the cars and tell me why bother with the hybrid?? Why did Toyota not learn from Honda's mistake and make the 450h with a much smaller gas engine such that it would still have good performance but substantially better mileage than an 'equivalent' non hybrid version rather than effectively the SAME mileage? This just gives credence to the argument that hybrids are not worth the extra cost. In this case, it certainly is not and only serves to give the badge 'hybrid' a bad name. Not unlike GM's feeble attempts. Lexus 350 GS HP: 303 0-60: 5.7 1/4 mile: 14.2 seconds 1/4 mile speed: 143 MPH EPA mileage: 19/27 Base price $44,550 Lexus 450h GS HP: 292 plus 197 HP electric motor 0-60: 5.9 1/4 mile: 14.2 seconds 1/4 mile speed: 155 MPH EPA mileage: 22/25 Base price: $55,800
I know someone who's had a Lexus 450H for two years and didn't realize that it had Bluetooth (he didn't even know what BT was). I finally had to show him how to connect his phone to it. The look on his face was priceless.
My wife and I took a Auto Cross Course this spring. The plan was to do it in our Miata, but bad weather caused us to leave the Miata home and enter the Prius. We did not set any track records, but the Prius did us proud. We each did the course in a little under 40 sec, It handled the high speed turns very well and nobody in the group made fun of it. We started the course with a average MPG of about 43 when we turned our screen off. When we went home we and turned it back on we were down to the middle 30's or so.
