Featured Threads Archive

With thanks to 0101Zero for this week’s title. Here’s the links to this week’s stories… Russell’s rant Breathing gets more difficult Repeat after me, there is no such thing as clean diesel Car companies insist on being evil, all of them and the original story Mark Bolt autonomous driving Tony Toyota recalls all 1100 US […]

Read more about this episode on WhatDrives.Us

With some reservations because the title is misleading. It would be more accurate to say, Toyota fuel-cell experiment ends. Sorry CARB, you can regulate against physics and chemistry but it won't last.

Source: Toyota Shifting Bet from Conventional Hybrids to Plug-Ins | TheDetroitBureau.com

It's not set in stone - yet, but here's a chart, relating to proposed taxes - for manufacturers building mostly - or partly beyond US boarders:



This is accouring to Blumberg associates
Your Car Could Cost Up to $17,000 More With the Proposed Border Tax - Bloomberg

The irony imo is - Toyota built a nice new manufacturing plant here in the U.S. not too many years ago, that was suposedly going to be cranking out the Prius. But - with low gas prices & pickups reigning supreme here - the choice was made.

So better buy now - or kiss the fed tax credit's helpfulness goodbye if you're looking at that shiny new Prius Prime. The difference your tax & tax credit will pretty much be a wash.
[emoji35]
unless Toyota chooses to retool for a few more models, that is.
.

Over the years I've become skeptical of advocacy groups that claim to rate, rank, and give awards. Too often, I've found the ratings and rankings lacked transparency and seemed disconnected from empirical data but happily, that is not the case with Greenercars.org.

• open evaluation criteria - How We Determine Ratings | Greener Cars although their coefficients aren't posted, it is clear they are data driven.
• easy access to vehicles - GreenerCars Ratings | Greener Cars it appears they use the same downloadable "test car database" that I've often used for my narrow studies. In contrast and to their credit they have institutionalized these data using their evaluation criteria for all of the cars.

Now their focus is narrowly based upon pollution and vehicle efficiency and that is...

Toyota City, Japan, February 14, 2017
Toyota Motor Corporation is proud to announce cumulative global hybrid vehicle (HV) sales of 10.05 million units as of January 31, surpassing the 10 million unit mark. More than a numerical milestone, this demonstrates the staying power of a technology that is now emerging as a mainstream solution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants.

Read More ...

Enjoy,
Ken@Japan

Now, that's a smart move.

Smart Done With Gas Cars In US, Will Now Only Offer Electric Vehicles!

I am loath to post this because it reads like a 'steady, undocumented speed, on a highway' rather than a proper EPA test: Chevy Cruise Diesel gets 52 mpg on highway


Understand I recently ran 1,200 miles in the 65-75 mph speed range in a Prius Prime and got 55.7 MPG. I've often gotten 52 MPG with both our Gen-1 and Gen-3 Prius in steady speed, 65-70 mph on standard days. So I don't doubt the claim for a constant speed. But a constant speed is not one of the standard EPA test protocols. Worse, if the speed is not reported, it is...

My wife and I are looking for a new family car, with that said does anyone know the invoice pricing for the 2017 HiHy? All the info I'm finding is for the 2016.

I'm sorry if this piece of news has already been commented here before. Please merge...

‘Mild hybrids to replace small diesels in three years,’ says VW’s R&D boss

Two days ago, the 1.5TDI - still to be launched in the Polo - development process in this model was said to be stopped. No sucessor for the infamous 1.6TDI.
(portuguese: Autohoje - VW aposta em híbridos para substituir Diesel )

This week’s show starts with a fiery debate between Evan and Russell over Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Come for the excitement and stick around for the excellent news coverage this week. Russell Rant/s… You can’t have it both ways, Elon Musk is normalizing trumps craziness Thanks Igor For posting info on the prime availability […]

Read more about this episode on WhatDrives.Us

It mostly stays black and when it does work it stays on the Toyota screen or just freezes after it loads

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

I'm buying this car. It's called the Whisperdiesel in Europe:

"The first nonhybrid car since the 80s to get an EPA highway rating of 50 mpg or more." The previous record-holder was 51 mpg for the 1987 Honda CRZ HF (which would fail to meet current emission standards).

"The Cruze with the six-speed manual will get higher fuel economy than the model with the nine-speed automatic..... to keep diesel chatter low, the fuel injectors shoot as many as 10 squirts of fuel per stroke."

LINK: http://www.autonews.com/article/20161011/OEM04/161019959/chevy-cruze-diesel-hatchback-may-claim-highway-mpg-crown

Instead of starting a thread every month, I think I'll just keep adding to this one.

Here's January

• Total hybrid sales at 972 units (+6.7% over Jan 2016)
• RAV4 Hybrid sales total 388 units (+20.9% over Jan 2016)
• Prius Liftback totalled 131 units (+184.8% over Jan 2016)

c and v are down 29% selling around 80-ish units.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
February

• Corolla sales up 36.4% for the month of February (compared to Feb 2016)
• Prius sales up 233.3% for February and 206.1% for YTD.
• Prius v is only down 7 units compared to Feb 2016 but is down 43 units YTD
• Prius c is down 68.2% (to be fair, last Feb was unusually high.. probably because of car share purchases)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

May

• CH-R has...

Some here kept claiming & claiming Volt II was NOT really meeting what customers would want, compared to, and once Prime sales came to town.



seems ok to me
and if one counted both X&S tesla sales together, even the Volt would get nudged out for 1st place.
then again - if you smushed volt AND bolt together ... GM would be kicking everybody's can down the street.

.

Thank you Jeff Cobb: January 2017 Dashboard

	Model	01/15/17	12/15/16	11/15/16	10/15/16
1	Fusion Hybrid	4856	3577	3372	4915
2	Prius Liftback	4553	7786	7284	5421
3	RAV4	2898	4773	3757	3551
4	Transit Diesel*	2720	4570	2583	3571
5	Accord Hybrid	1711	3124	1879	1296
6	Volt	1611	3691	2531	2191
7	Prius Prime	1366	1641	781
8	Camry Hybrid	1238	2181	1693	1802
9	Model S*	1200	5300	1800	1200
10	Bolt	1162	579	1
11	Prius C	1143	1644	1372	1543
12	Sonata	1113	1374	1867	1479
13	Model X*	1000	3300	1400	1000
14	Leaf	772	1899	1457	1412
15	Prius (again	lowercase v	Jeff won't fix it but you can Bob)	767	1373	1058	1168
16	Fusion Energi	606	1099	1817	1372
17	Highlander Hybrid	571	1018	483	356
18	Colorado Diesel	490	909	886	1056
19	C-Max Energi	473	1289	721	571
20	C-Max Hybrid	473	895	811	398
21	MKZ	467	667	552	450
22	Avalon Hybrid	448	1026	639	673
23	RX 400 / 450 h	443	985	666	535
24	CT200h	393	968	550	564
25	A3 Plug In	387	589	394	348
26	i3*	382	791	629	442
27	Grand Cherokee...

TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Outlines 2017 Motorsports Activities | PRESS RELEASE | 2017 | OTHER MOTORSPORTS | TOYOTA GAZOO Racing

There's a couple things that are of interest here.


(2016-specification TS050 with Gen 4 Prius)

Toyota's announced that there'll be a third TS050 entered into the 6 Hours of Spa-Franchorchamps, as well as the 24 Hours of Le Mans. José María López joins Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi in one of the two full-season World Endurance Championship entries, displacing Stéphane Sarrazin, who will drive the third car at Spa and Le Mans, along with two as of yet unnamed drivers. (Worth noting that Porsche is not entering a third 919 at either race, so Toyota may have an advantage here.)


(2016-specification...

This week’s news… Russell’s Rant: Toyota is losing prius prime sales, already Mark The FIRST Chevy Bolt arrives in Canada January EV sales numbers, Bolt races but Volt is KING Paul Kia Niro Tesla parts Tony Not so clean diesel

Read more about this episode on WhatDrives.Us

There are multiple sources for this story but some 'buried the lead'. Source: New Crash Tests Reveal Which Plug-In Cars Are Safest - Consumer Reports

For what it is worth, I'm driving our Prius Prime Plus in EV mode this week. Then I'll probably switch back to the BMW i3-REx.

Here is the IIHS news release:...

Best new hybrid cars for 2017: BMW, Lexus and more | The Week UK

One common theme has been the importance of gasoline prices in helping buyers go green with efficient cars and trucks. So this article bears reading and thinking about: After Steady December Climb, Gasoline Prices Retreat in January | TheDetroitBureau.com


Even though OPEC wants...