Mr Toyoda himself visited the Grand Opening of a new Toyota dealership near us when we were shopping for our new car last February. We missed him by a few hours, but the sales lady told us that the local guys had taken him on a tour of the surrounding areas (i.e. farms and urban cowboys) and explained to him why the Tundra was the perfect vehicle for this type of market. I suppose he couldn't agree more, as Toyota was getting ready to unleash that monster truck upon middle America. Point being, they should also have taken him to a typical after school athletic event (soccer, baseball, what have you) and let him see for himself how many Odysseys there are in the parking lot compared to Siennas. Anyhow, we test drove the Highlander Hybrid that day and thoroughly hated it. The Prius was just an afterthought that somehow got stuck, and I'm still grinning...
Thanks Daniel for expanding on my observation. A great job. <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 31 2007, 11:24 PM) [snapback]532872[/snapback]</div> ShellyT thanks for that, I see what you mean but unfortunately GM will put the series hybrid in a giant size car I don't want to drive although I can see it may appeal to the American motorist's (bigger is better) tastes. If it comes in a medium size package with a no petrol range exceeding 100km then a plug in series hybrid could be what I need. Seems the series hybrid will be hard to make light as it needs an electric motor big enough to provide 100% of the power at peak demand plus a battery plus an internal combustion engine to lug around. Then it needs a chassis strong enough to carry the whole lot.
