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Toyota sold 8 million hybrids!

Toyota City, Japan, August 21, 2015―Toyota Chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada likes to tell the story of how his team couldn't get the first Prius prototype to move for 49 days. According to him, "We had no idea what was wrong, so we worked late every night trying to figure it out. We finally got it to move around Christmas time, but it only went 500 meters!"

That was back in 1995, when hybrid cars were unproven, experimental machines with a very unclear future. Fast-forward twenty years, and Toyota is proud to announce that it has now sold over 8 million hybrid vehicles1, with just 10 months between this and the last million-unit milestone.

It can be hard to get a sense of what the number 8 million might mean for the environment and for hybrid owners. For a bit of context, Toyota calculates that as of July 31, its hybrid vehicles have resulted in approximately 58 million fewer tons2 of CO2...
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Sergiospl Aug 21, 2015 Read More Replies: 1

U.S. Fuel Economy Since 1923

Source: Before Threats Came Along in the '70s, U.S. Fuel Economy Since 1923 Has Progressed Slowly - HybridCars.com

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Perversely, efforts to improve vehicle mpg have come largely after threats forced automakers to change, and even then, the industry has focused more on what may have been the wrong end of the vehicle spectrum, suggests new research. That is, automakers have been intent primarily on making already efficient cars more efficient, rather that doing all that’s possible to improve the worst mpg offenders, and thus saving even more fuel

These are a couple of the take-away points from a study conducted by researchers Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.

The study – “On-Road Fuel Economy of Vehicles in the United States: 1923-2013″ – examined relevant available data to determine...

bwilson4web Aug 21, 2015 Read More Replies: 10

What Drives Us Podcast - #153 Picking On Evan - What Drives Us

Two minutes news links: Portland airport installs 42 EV chargers http://buff.ly/1EBdsfM Tesla industrial batteries to help reduce power costs to Escondido high schools http://insideevs.com/tesla-power-escondido-schools/ Sexy Tesla charging robot arm https://youtu.be/uMM0lRfX6YI Tesla says, “we didn’t mean ‘unlimited'” http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1099608_tesla-letter-to-rein-in-local-supercharger-use-goes-wrong Where does your energy come from visualizations http://www.vox.com/2015/7/29/9066685/coal-oil-solar-maps my 2M, University of […]

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Danny Aug 19, 2015 Read More Replies: 0