A different vision of performance

An Editorial:

The Daily Telegraph says a lot of good things and stupid things. This one falls into the latter category:

‘Top Gear effect’ blamed for environmentally unfriendly image of motorsports

Look, I love Top Gear but it’s a TV show and all which that implies. It’s sometimes silly and shallow. It’s sometimes quite stupid. It is however, frequently entertaining, something which more TV shows could look into.

And with all that said, Top Gear isn’t the problem. It’s “motorsports” which are the problem. Let’s be realistic. Motorsports are defined as sports with motors in them, and by that I mean, gasoline motors, often, large, loud, polluting, fuel inefficient motors. It’s the way the genre has been defined for generations. Top Gear is hardly to blame for this.

And while I’ll leave the main blame laying to others I’ll tell you who I think is also to blame for this, many of us eco-driving warriors, that’s who.

Look, cars, motorcycles and the lot are fun. They are. You can do all sorts of exciting things with them and people do. They drive them in circles really fast. They drive over exciting and challenging dirt surfaces. They drive them in marathons. They crash them into each other. They do things with vehicles that are exciting, for many people, to watch.

What have we, the alt-car crowd come up?

MPG challenges.

Seriously. That’s our contribution to motorsports.

Why aren’t having fun with fuel efficient cars? Why aren’t coming up with exciting new ways to compete in vehicles that aren’t necessarily wasting inordinate amounts of fuel and creating enormous clouds of oil tinged pollution? What have we done to change the existing paradigm? Nothing. Well, very little.

It’s partially our fault the public thinks fuel efficient cars (and EVs and electric scooters…) are boring because that’s all we shown them. We can drive them slow, we can compete saving fuel. Chess is exciting in comparison. And don’t get me wrong, MPG Challenges are fun (for some of us). I’ve been to more than a few but frankly, it’s never going to be a widespread phenomena and for good reason.

It is incumbent upon us, the fuel efficient, low pollution devotees to come up with something less environmentally disastrous than the Daytona 500 and slightly more exciting than watching corn grow. I think we can do it if we try.

One of the most fun things I saw at the Tour del Sol in 2006 was the autocross competition amongst the vehicles there (EV’s, biodiesel, hybrids and whatnot). That was fun. It was relatively low impact and it was a chance to use those vehicles in ways most people never consider. Why aren’t we, we being the green car community, doing more things like that? Why aren’t we sponsoring efficiency contests that not only reward MPG but add in a real life element, time. If all you are doing is managing your MPG chances are, you’re a road hazard. However, if you had to do that and stay within a realistic time bracket, suddenly your skills must be a bit more attuned to, dare I suggest, the real world? The world most people live in? I’d like to see more rally style competitions where timing and efficiency are the point. Rewarding only efficiency is too narrow. There’s no reason why we can’t organize fun rallies that aren’t tortoise versus tortoise competitions. Car clubs do it all the time.

And I don’t mean to limit these competitions by other traditional definitions. Why doesn’t a car company who is often proud that so many of their older vehicles are on the road honor that more tangibly? Yes, building a great car is the main point but again, we’re talking about changing paradigms here. For most of my life I was a devoted Volvo owner (until I bought my very first new car, my 2005 Prius). Volvo has a wonderful program whereby they send very nicely done metal plaques to owners of Volvo who have clocked over 100,000 miles. They also do it for 250K and 500K. What a great program, rewarding and recognized longevity. And while this isn’t exactly related to what I am discussing here, it is outside the “norm” when we think about cars. It’s this kind of thinking that we need to engage in.

I’ve always wanted to put one of these logos on my Prius. Why? Well, I love the idea that TRD isn’t just about bigger, louder, faster. I love the idea that anything can be “raced”. A great driver can compete, in any number of ways, in any vehicle. So yes, right now I love the TRD logo that isn’t (but should be) on my Prius because it’s kind of ridiculous. But I also love it for what it could represent, a rebellion against the louder, faster, bigger and towards something else. A whole new definition of performance that isn’t so narrowly defined.

Which brings me to the final bit of finger-pointing, I’m going lay part of the blame one other place. The car companies. All of them. They spend tens of millions of dollars supporting motorsports as they exist now. They have, as much as anyone else, created the paradigm that bigger, louder, faster and gas-hoggier is better. It’s time they diverted a small amount of that money in a different direction. It’s time for, especially the companies for whom fuel efficiency is a major selling point (Yes, my dear friends in Torrance, I’m talking to you) to invest some small part of what they pump into F1, NASCAR and all the rest helping to build a new paradigm. A paradigm which, I would hasten top point out, supports their long term business model much better than NASCAR or Formula One. This won’t be changed overnight. It will take decades but now is the time to help the pioneers reshape the perception of the personal transportation device, help people who are trying to reframe the conversation away from horsepower and torque to one where agility, efficiency and versatility are more important. You can do it. After all, you built the existing motorsports model. Imagine in fifty years people looking back with a whole new view of “motorsports” and seeing what we could do today as groundbreaking. Now that’s exciting. If we do it.

Toyota’s official press release statement on the Prius Family

Straight from Toyota to you…

DETROIT, January 11, 2010—Toyota Motor Sales (TMS), U.S.A, Inc., today unveiled the FT-CH dedicated hybrid concept at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit. The FT-CH is a concept that would address Toyota’s stated strategy to offer a wider variety of conventional hybrid choices to its customers, as it begins to introduce plug-in hybrids (PHVs) and battery electrics (BEVs) in model year 2012, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCHVs) in 2015 in global markets. Read the rest of this entry »

Responding

John Voelcker from Green Car Reports was kind enough to respond in comments below to this POG piece. I wanted to republish it on the front page, as it were, because I thought it was a great response and deserved better billing than the comments section.

Russell: Thanks for the good words. All of the questions in your last paragraph are very apt, and many of us will ask them as the cars get closer to the hands of actual drivers.

As for your comment on my closing question, I could probably have phrased it better. Here’s the point I was trying to get to …

Both cars are plug-ins, and hence will be perceived as “electric cars”. That is, users will expect them to run in electric mode some or most of the time.

From talking to Toyota and GM tech folks, I gather the Prius Plug-In may start its engine under many circumstances: Heavy load, full acceleration, a catalyst that’s cooling down, cold weather, and so forth. It remains fundamentally a power-split hybrid with a larger battery, and operates as such.

On the other hand, the Volt engineers tell me it switches on the engine only under one circumstance: The pack is depleted, which they say occurs only after 40 miles. (It may also fire the engine to start the car in extremely cold weather; must ask about that.)

SO, my question might better be: Will plug-in buyers expect continuous electric running for the stated range (12 or 40 miles)? If they do, I suspect the Prius Plug-In may have a perceptual problem, because it may well not run all-electric for 12 continuous miles. If not, no problem.

In either case, GM and Toyota are likely to be sold out of their first couple of years of production.

It’s in 2014 and after, as volume rises, that they’ll actually have to start to market these guys. That’s when it’ll get interesting!

The real cipher here is the Volt. As I said below, the Prius is a known quantity and, as John points out, perhaps the potential weakness of the Prius PHEV is that it is a Prius and not a brand new, designed from the ground up PHEV. Over the last couple years I’ve said the same thing here several times. While I love the Prius and can’t wait to see the Prius PHEV, I would prefer to see a brand new, designed to be nothing but a PHEV vehicle from Toyota. I think a PHEV should be smaller and lighter than the Prius (more range, better performance). I question whether or not the Prius is the ideal platform for a PHEV given where battery development is right now. All that is moot because this year Prius PHEV testing will begin.

Back to what John said…

I don’t know what the public perceptions of the PHEVs will be. None of us do (as John points out). It will be interesting to see if the Prius’ hybrid PHEV suffers in competition to the Chevy’s take on the PHEV concept. One thing both cars seem to insist on is that gas powered motors augment a pure EV concept for extended range.

I still think that two huge things give Toyota a leg up on producing a real PHEV. One, is using an existing, proven platform. For whatever drawbacks there are to using the Prius platform, there are also huge advantages and, let’s face it, Chevy’s been blowing smoke about the Volt for what, three years now? It’s still a mostly mythical car whereas the Prius is very real. Toyota has established itself in this altcars genre and I think that for every person who wants to buy a bowtie because it is a bowtie, there are just as many people who want the implied reliability and sound engineering that goes with the Toyota name.

John Voelcker wrote:

SO, my question might better be: Will plug-in buyers expect continuous electric running for the stated range (12 or 40 miles)? If they do, I suspect the Prius Plug-In may have a perceptual problem, because it may well not run all-electric for 12 continuous miles. If not, no problem.

My take on it is this, I don’t think consumers are going to care, too much, about how the ICE interacts in either vehicle. What will drive consumer reaction to the Prius PHEV and the Chevy Volt are the basics, MPG, ease of use, comfort, price, reliability. I don’t think that consumers will care overmuch about when the ICE starts and stops as long as it delivers on the PHEV potential of using very little gasoline. I could be wrong and if so, here are my words for future embarrassment but I don’t think I’ll be bummed out by what I’ve written in a few years.

My thanks to John Voelcker for taking the time to read my original article and add his thoughts to it.

Oops

Green car reports (link here) misses some important details. They say,

The 2010 Insight is the least expensive hybrid vehicle sold in the US, coming in at a base price of $20,400 including delivery. The EPA rates it at 40 miles per gallon city / 43 mpg highway, for a combined rating of 41 mpg.

Problem is, it’s not the base LX that got the high rating, it was the EX which sells for a bit more. So price not being a factor, if the safety between the Prius and the Insight is the same, if the Prius gets better MPG and is more comfortable, which one is the right choice?

High Voltage

Right now there is a lot talk about the Volt. With a provisional “MPG rating” of 230 MPG, there is no doubt GM will crank the hype machine into high gear. It’s really what the Volt project has been about, created positive publicity for GM.

One thing is clear to me, GM is still floundering, badly, with poor management, in whatever random direction seems to work at the moment.

This is great little piece which highlights one small problem with GM, promising more than they can deliver. At this point we don’t know exactly how the production Volt will perform. But GM is sure that talking about 230 MPG is the right thing to do.

It’s arguable that plug-ins should not be measured in MPG at all. BusinessWeek’s Ed Wallace argued the same thing here. Consumers need a touchstone, something to compare one vehicle to another but MPG on a plug-in a dangerous guide but MPG usefulness may have jumped the shark. With Nissan claiming 367MPG for it’s all electric Leaf, we see the ridiculous get downright insane. Yes, that’s right. Nissan is claiming their all electric vehicle will get 367MPG (or the equivalent of it) even though it will never use an ounce of gas. Wallace also points out that over-promised and under-delivering has been about the only thing GM has been good at it and it’s never helped them in the past and it won’t help them here.

And then, we still have far too much of the media trying to reduce issues where they shouldn’t be reducing. Here’s CNN/Money‘s latest travesty, it’s about which car makes sense, the Prius or the Volt. Funny, comparing a car that’s been out for a decade to one that doesn’t exist yet. Seems like an odd thing to do. And of course, being CNN/Money, they try, once more, to go down the “which car makes sense based on gasoline costs” which is odd for numerous reasons I’ve pointed out here again and again. CNN/Money dabbles in the typical comparing the Prius to a standard gas car half its size, to try to make the math make sense. I guess that’s why I was an art major.

Head, meet desk. Let the pounding commence.

What’s more, the work that Toyota and to a lesser extent, Honda have done in delivering reliable, long-lasting battery electric hybrids could be undone by a spectacular failure of the Volt’s (or the Leaf’s) battery pack. Batteries are still a huge question in most consumer’s minds even though the Prius has been on the road for a decade now. Add in a nationwide, media saturated, Volt flame out and we could see a backlash against any car with more parts more comlpex than fuel injection. That would be sad but it could happen.

And the right answer is

Not necesarily from Joanthan Welsh’s WSJ column…

Q: I was interested in buying a 2010 Toyota Prius, but was surprised that they didn’t put the new lithium-ion battery in it. It was rumored to get close to 70 miles per gallon, as opposed to the 50 mpg the current version gets. Is it worth waiting another year for the new battery?

—Jim Nemetz, Newton, Mass.
A: You may as well buy a 2009 Prius instead of shelling out more for a new model. Frankly, after test-driving a 2010 Prius for the past few days, I haven’t found the latest model’s fuel economy to be significantly better.

I had also heard about a lithium-ion powered Prius that delivered much better mileage coming to market soon, as well as a plug-in version able to travel longer distances on electric power alone. The good news: Toyota plans to test a plug-in Prius with a lithium battery in municipal fleets later this year. The bad news: Toyota says it has no immediate plans to sell these cars or any with lithium batteries to the public.

My response: First and foremost, don’t base important buying decisions on rumors. Second, there will always be something better coming down the pike, as it were. Waiting will almost always get something better than what you can buy right now. So how long do you really want to wait? What are you willing to pay for this upcoming (things seldom get cheaper)?

As for Welsh’s advice, buying a 2009 isn’t a bad call. There are incentives on the vehicle and it’s a great deal. That said, the 2010 is, in my opinion, worth the waiting list and worth a few extra bucks. As I said, that’s my call and it may not be true for someone else.

Bringing teh stoopid

Check out these choice quotes from John Helig of the Auto Page in his review of the Ford Fusion. Apparently, the coolest thing about the Fusion is, it doesn’t look like the Prius. Mission accomplished Ford!

Toyota’s Prius is, arguably, the most successful hybrid. But it, too, looks slightly strange. You know one when you see one, and the owners all have these smug looks on their faces as if to say “I’m special. Look what I’m doing for the environment.” The fact that one-passenger Priuses can go in HOV-2 lanes doesn’t hurt either.

“Arguably”? It is. There’s really no question on this. The sales figures are pretty simple here. As Jim Rome says, “scoreboard”.

And the whole, tired South Park dig, just tired.

The Prius is good for 35-40 mpg in normal driving, but the rear seat is still compact-car size, which isn’t fun for senior citizens.

One has to wonder if Helig has ever driven or been in a Prius. The Prius isn’t a “compact” car by any rational standards and the back seat certainly isn’t small for most senior citizens, at least senior citizens under seven feet tall and 600 pounds.

But there are those of us who aren’t looking for sainthood and expecting “normal car” drivers to bow down to us as we pass. While we appreciate the virtues of hybrids, we don’t necessarily like the sacrifices we’re asked to make.

Yeah, I was thinking about this yesterday as I was driving down the road, sunroof open, relaxing in my leather seats, blasting the stereo. Wow, the sacrifices I have to make just to make a cheap grab for sainthood. Well, enough of that woolgathering. Now it’s time to practice my intimidating smug face.

In the end, I think it’s funny that the first three paragraphs of a review on the Ford Fusion are a diatribe aimed at the most popular hybrid in the world and on its owners. Good luck with that appraoch Mr. Helig. I’ll GM’s PR department has a position just waiting for you with mad skillz like that.

Your old-school, mainstream media, still mostly wrong

Warren Brown, auto columnist for the Washington Post had one of their regular online chats. Here is one particularly stupid excerpt from that chat.

As part of an answer where Brown “clarified” a response from Bob Lutz on American cars not being as competitive as some Asian and European cars, Brown blurted this out at the end.

Ford’s Fusion Hybrid beats the wheels off both the Toyota Prius and Camry hybrids. Don’t believe me? Take a few comparison test drives.

In what sense “beats the pants off”? Not in sales. Not in MPG. Not in reliability. Does the Fusion go faster? Maybe Brown thinks the Fusion is nicer looking? Maybe it’s something else? Maybe.

So I wonder if Bob Lutz is going to return the favor to Mr. Brown and possibly clarify this rather vapid statement from Brown?

I don’t think so either.

I wonder why WaPo circulation continues to decline?

2010 Prius experience report

Here’s the latest word from POG reader Rich in Northern California.

Rich just got his 2010 Prius a few days. I very appreciate him taking the time to share his first impressions.

Here’s Rich…

Hi Russell,

I’m still getting used to all the controls, but the car feels much more solid – a Camry like ride (my brother has a Camry Hybrid – so I’ve driven that a fair amount). He was impressed, by the way.

A few things – no touch lock on the rear (that I could find) – just the two front doors. I guess I’ll have to read the manual. No place in the ceiling to put your sun glasses – oh well, there’s the sun roof controls. The solar cooling fan works like a charm although it hasn’t been hot enough yet (we had some rain today and will have the next two days. When you open the door, it shuts off. I haven’t tried the air conditioning button yet.

My first 150 miles – 47.6 mpg. Now, if you know the SF Bay Area at all, there are lots of hills – and I drive each day from Oakland to Concord – up the hills to the tunnel – then into the next valley with ups and downs – and reverse. Pretty much up and downey travel. Tonight we went to a League of Women’s Voters dinner on Skyline Blvd in Oakland – really up – about 1000 feet (my house is about 50 ft above sea level). I think when I start travelling in the Sacramento/San Joaquin valleys we’ll notice lots of improvement.

I thought the display was a bit underbright – but I’ve adjusted – and yes, the brightness was turned all the way up. You don’t have to turn it down at night – no reflections.

I’ve had just a few strange looks from other Prius drivers – most are totally un-aware – and I’ve yet to see another 3G on the road, but then I’ve only had it three days and I got the first one from our Walnut Creek dealer (where we’ve bought all our hybrids).

My wife doesn’t want to drive it yet – she wants me to put the first scratch on it. She is going to keep our ’04 for now since she knows how to drive it well.

My company is getting new phones Friday, so I’ll do the bluetooth bit then and let you know if it really will download the phone list automatically. XM is great – wow, what a selection. You get it free for 90 days – then you have to subscribe. It’s a good marketing scheme to get you started – and I’ll bet most all will subscribe.

More later – you should have yours shortly, I would imagine. Black, huh. I was surprised how well I liked the Sandy Beach (gold) color. We’ve always had white cars (if you remember your physics – that’s the presence of ALL colors).

Cheers,
Rich

And yes, my new Prius will (hopefully) be black. Since my current one is white, I thought that was the next logical step.

By the way, if you want to buy the POG Prius, it’s for sale! Drop me a line at:

russell (at) priusownersgroup (dot) com

If you’re in the Lancaster, PA area and want to buy a great, used Prius. Here’s the rundown.

2005 Super White Prius
Grey cloth interior
41,7000 miles
iPod integration system added
Kenwood stealth subwoofer added in package tray under rear cargo area
New Bridgestone Insignia tires
Johnson films non-metallic window tint

The first person to show up with $15K in cash, gets it!

A whole new flavor of teh stoopid

So now we have a plug-in hybrid Hummer.

Oh boy.

And honestly, was there anything we needed less?

Sure, the guy from Raser, the company that did the conversion prattles on about how tough it is to carry a sheet of plywood in a Prius (I’ve carried half sheets in mine but oh well) but honestly, who wants a hybrid Hummer? A truly efficient pickup, maybe. An overpriced, cheaply built wanna G.I.Joe car, so appropriately emblematic of California’s failed governator, not so much.

In an economy where the $2K price difference between the two MPG leaders is being touted as significant (I don’t think it is) who is that thinks a $56K plug-in Hummer is going to be a solution? And even if we acknowledge the accomplishment and call this plug-in Hummer a solution, is it a solution in search of problem?

Memo to Ford

Dear Ford,

Hey, nice job on the Fusion. It’s a spiffy car and frankly, I think it’s great that car buyers have another good choice when considering a hybrid. I also think that competition is a good thing so “good on ya” for pushing everyone forward.

Now, with that said Ford, you’re pushing something else and it’s the stuff farmers use to fertilize fields in my neck of the woods. And here it is…

“Fusion gets the best fuel efficiency of any mid-size sedan on the road”

Actually, you’re not even close. The Prius is a mid-size car, almost identical to the Fusion and guess what? From a standpoint of MPG performance the Prius stomps the Fusion. It just does. The Fusion gets 41/36 and the Prius gets 51/48. And do I have to mention that to get a Prius to cost what the Fusion does you have to pretty much buy the top of the line model?

Hey Ford, the Fusion is a great car and it will appeal to a lot of people. Just try to dial back the hyperbole a bit, ok?

Thanks Ford.

Best of luck!

-russell

Not everything on YouTube is stupid

just some of it. And here’s one I’ve seen a lot of on TV of late that is really dumb. Check it out…

So, what we learn from this latest blather from VW are two important things:

-Making loud noises with your car is really cool, quiet car, not so cool
-Diesel is more fun than hybrid, cuz it’s faster, or something

So, what’s the other side? Well, the EPA rating for the TDi is 30/41. But wait, didn’t the cute old timey bug say something about 51 MPG? He did. It was a world record attempt by a couple of who have made quite a career out of hypermiling and there’s nothing wrong with that, just keep in mind where this “world record” comes from. They drove the TDI 9,419 miles in 20 days. There’s no mention of average speed interestingly enough though the phrase “real world driving conditions” is dropped. I’m not skeptical they achieved what they did, I am skeptical about how “real world” it is and given that vroom vroom is a selling point, methinks Volkswagen is contradicting itself more than a little bit.

All of which ignores two things about this comparison.

-The joy of owning a diesel. The noise (oh wait, that’s cool, right?) the smell and the pleasure of memorizing every diesel station in your area.

-That no matter what, that “clean diesel” was pumping out pollution every minute that car was turned on. Sitting in traffic, check. Waiting at traffic lights, check. Unlike the Prius which shuts itself down when the gas engine is not needed.

In the end, yes, I think the Prius is a better solution, environmentally than the VW. Volkswagen makes great cars and the Jetta has had quite a run, there’s no doubt about that. But the idea that the TDI is cooler because it goes vroom vroom seems a bit childish to me and that it can outperform a Prius is just silly. Sure, on the slalom course I’ll take the Jetta. For all the rest of the my driving, I’ll stick with my quiet Prius thankyouverymuch.