What Drives Us Episode #5 for the week of February 17th, 2010

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This week Danny and Russell joined by Tony Schaefer to discuss, sorry, more on the Toyota recall, ton foil hat conspiracies, why does “sudden acceleration” occur (hint: it has to do with the gas pedal), more on the Nissan Leaf and the return of Maximum Bob Lutz, GM’s prognosticator supreme. We also pass along our most sincere sympathies to the families and staff of Tesla Motors for the tragic loss of three of their engineers in a terrible plane accident.

Download it through iTunes here.

Get yer newspaper – sort of a Socratic inquiry

There was time when America was informed by newspapers. Don’t get me wrong, half-assed journalism has always been with us. There never was a “golden age” where all journalists (in any medium) were daring and sought naught but the truth. But I would contend there is a reason that newspapers have been declining in readers steadily for the last twenty-five years.

Kiah Haslett of the Chicago Tribune contacted me via email yesterday about the Toyota recall. I called her back while on my way to a job (I’m a working photographer, but no, not for a newspaper, I do commercial work). I spent probably twenty minutes chatting with her in detail about the 2010 Prius and carefully explaining the “brake problem”. I thought we were really communicating. Maybe we were. But if you read this story, it’s difficult to to tell.

The lead off graph is about how a man is “distraught” and cannot relax since the recall. Lucky man if the worst thing in his world is a car recall in a year when the economy is cratering, hundreds of thousands die in natural disasters and we’re still involved in two wars which kill Americans nearly every day.

Which isn’t to say that the gentleman Haslett profiles in the beginning of her article is foolish for being concerned about his daughter. That’s natural. It’s the way he characterizes and what he thinks the solution is that is downright stupid.

Lucy Liu says she’s getting rid of her Solara and doesn’t want another Toyota. So she’s buying a Lexus. All that beauty apparently surrounds less than a probing intellect. That’s sad.

We get a one liner from another Toyota owner and then, me.

The problem with doing a “phoner” is that I didn’t record my end so I can’t compare how she quoted me to what I actually said. Suffice to say, I thought I spent more than enough time trying to explain the situation and the jumbled mess there attributed to me makes it seem as though I’m comfortable with brakes that don’t work so much as entertain.

Sigh…

The finale of Haslett’s article is a redux of the distraught man from the top. He says complained a problem to the dealer but the dealer said it was ok. Well, what was the problem she complained about? Is it too much to ask a reporter to report critical details? Is he alleging the dealer ignored an out of control acceleration issue? or something else? Readers of the Tribune won’t find out.

The article ends with this plaintive but utterly pointless quote,

“When I signed for the car, I didn’t sign for this,” he said.

Does anyone ever buy a car thinking it won’t be perfect and trouble-free forever? However unrealistic that is, I get it, but so what? It’s silly to think that way. There’s a reason why car companies offer warranties and reason why car buyers love them. Because we live in an imperfect world. But that’s trivializing the issue and I’m here to do that. I am here to point out how shallow that ending sentence was.

Look, I’m not minimizing how much it sucks to have a car recalled especially for something potentially serious. That said, out of millions of Toyota out there, we’re talking about, quite literally, a handful of complaints. To my knowledge, no accidents or injuries have resulted. Again, that’s not to minimize that a recall sucks but let’s be adults here. We live in a world of mass produced goods. Sometimes, with some of the things we buy there are problems. To expect otherwise is to live in some odd fantasy world filled with marshmallow clouds and unicorns. Cars get recalled all the time. If this were a Chevy recall, it wouldn’t be a story. Want me to prove it?

This week the NHTSa announced it was investigating 1,132 complaints about steering defects in four model years of the Chevrolet Cobalt affecting more than 900,000 cars.

Have you heard about that on the Today show?

Maybe the president of Chevy made a video and apologized for it?

Maybe your local news station went to their Chevy dealer to ask about it?

None which makes the Toyota recall any different but it does highlight the unique nature of this story, something which I think, is fueling this media feeding frenzy. It’s weird. Toyotas don’t usually have problems. Toyota isn’t typically involved in a mass recall such as this one. So it’s different. So it deserves the insane amount of coverage it’s getting, right?

So, back to intrepid reporter Kiah and the Chicago Tribune. Sure, as the story headline makes clear, many Toyota owners are frustrated. Some of them are downright nuts (see the idiot Tundra owner in the post below). But for most of us, it’s an inconvenience and not much more. And that’s the way it should be. Since we can’t expect any manufacturer to be perfect, we hope they are very, very good and when there is a problem we want to them to solve it quickly and effectively. Which, curiously enough, is exactly what Toyota is doing. And yet, the news cycle grinds on.

As I try to wind this epic screed down I want to specifically address the 2010 Prius “brake problem” and compare and contrast this with the accelerator recall. I’m also going to toss a little gasoline on this fire.

Keep in mind, the accelerator recall only involved Toyota’s made here in the US and the part specifically involved is also made here in the US. Toyota’s made in Japan are not affected by the recall or, apparently, afflicted with this issue. Funny how that gets glossed over, eh?

All Prius currently come from Japan, so conflating this “brake issue” (and I’ll get to why I keep putting that in quotes shortly) with the accelerator is really mixing two very different issues together as one.

Ok, here’s the deal on the 2010 brakes and Prius brakes in general. Prius uses a system common to most hybrids where the brakes are a combination of two things, a generator and the standard friction brakes common to every car. The generators are used during the first part of the braking procedure. The generators reduce the speed of the car in the same manner standard friction brakes do but, unlike standard friction brakes, they generate electricity which is used to keep the hybrid batteries charged. Standard friction brakes only generate heat and wear down the braking surface. It’s one reason why most Prius owners don’t replace brakes for 100,000 miles or more.

Now, there is a transition, when braking where the generators are no longer engaged and the standard friction brakes are. Let me put it another way. If you were to index the pressure you apply to your brakes from 1 to 100. As you apply pressure that index number increases. In Prius, you’re not using the standard friction brakes until you hit about index number 80 or so (depending on how you apply them, this is much simpler than the actual process is). From 80 or so onward, the regenerative braking is no longer engaged and the standard friction brakes are.

With me so far? It’s pretty simple actually. The whole thing is controlled under a very much more than I bothered to explain set of computer instructions that react much faster than you possibly could. This computer also takes into consideration whether or not all the wheels are turning (if you were sliding for instance). All in all it makes the Prius brake system very safe and extremely efficient (like the rest of the car). This isn’t much different from the standard ABS braking system. It’s a lot tougher than it used to be to stand on the brakes and make the car skid around. That’s an improvement, not a defect.

So, where “issue” comes up is this. There are times when applying the brakes in Prius, if you happen to traveling over a broken road surface, a pothole or, something that happens to me all the time because of where I live, if you’re going over something like a railroad crossing. If you’re applying the brakes steadily as you go over this surface sometimes you will feel the transition between the regenerative system and the standard friction system. It’s a weird feeling, somewhat akin to being in free fall for a brief instant, then, the friction brakes kick in and you continue to slow down. It’s a fraction of a second but an intense fraction of a second. Next time it happens, you think to yourself, “Oh yeah, that.”

I first noticed this in my 2005 Prius and I’ve noticed it in my 2010. We have especially mediocre roads in Lancaster. Some Prius owners have never noticed it. The thing is, it’s not necessarily a “problem”. It’s not a “defect” in the general sense. It’s the way that braking system works.

Allow me to make a final analogy.

Let’s say you’re a Prius owner. Maybe a new Prius owner. Maybe out for your first drive in your new car. You’re driving away from the dealership and and you see a red light ahead. You stop at the intersection and as you do, the gas motor in your new Prius stops running! Dead silence. You can’t believe it. Your Prius just stalled. When the light turns green, you press on the accelerator and glide through the intersection.

Now, did you just experience a “defect” or a “problem” or was it the normal behavior of Prius?

The answer is, of course, it’s the way Prius works. Same goes for the brakes. Yes, it’s different from “standard” cars. Yes, if you don’t know what’s going on it’s weird as hell. But it’s not a problem.

Did you know that more than three quarters of the people who drive a 2010 Prius are brand new to hybrids?

All of which is to say, Toyota is being unfairly lambasted for this 2010 brake issue. I don’t think it’s an issue at all. And I very much hope that the solution is not something which kills the regenerative braking system, one of the great things about Prius.

We, as the public, must grow up and not be lemmings eager to hurl themselves into the sea at the slightest provocation. We need to demand, because as customers, we deserve to know, good explanations and complete resolutions. But we also need to be reasonable and fair. Acting like a spoiled child may be satisfying for some but it’s not any more appealing than it sounds. I know a lot people at Toyota. To a person they are nice, reasonable people who work very hard to build honest cars at a good value. History shows us that they’ve been successful at it for a long time. Toyota builds a lot of cars here in the US. Toyota employs tens of thousands of Americans. This isn’t about bashing a “foreign” car company. When Ford builds the Fusion in Mexico and Toyota builds the Camry in Kentucky, we have to revise our thinking on who is “foreign” and how that word even applies anymore. Piling on Toyota and allowing a pathetic media to do so is not good for us. It doesn’t inform us. It’s infantilizes us. We’re not spoiled children.

A long time ago one of my bosses told me, “No one is perfect. To err is indeed human and what distinguishes us is how we deal with those imperfections both ours and of others.”

Wise words indeed. It’s how we fix mistakes that distinguish as human beings both good and bad. Expecting things to be perfect isn’t human. It’s just stupid.

If you have questions about your Toyota drop me a line. I’m always here to help.

Drive safe,
russell@priusownersgroup.com

Video from Toyota’s concept debut in Detroit

I can’t say I think much of the video game music used during the reveal but I love the car. I would, quite frankly, love to see a small, two-person vehicle as well.

The most interesting thing is Mr. Lentz’s recapitulation of this morning’s press release announcing that Toyota USA would be working towards building a family of Prius models. Something which, if you haven’t been following too closely, was raised about two years but apparently squashed by Japan. With the go ahead from Japan the question becomes, how will Toyota fill out the Prius family? What will see first? I still the natural would be a Prius wagon and a Prius sports coupe. Maybe, since Toyota has not yet announced a US hybrid mini-van, maybe a Prius mini-van (though I think that whole mini-van concept is really played out).

I am also glad to see Toyota talking, publicly, about moving towards an entire line of electric vehicles. I think that is what the future holds for us and to pretend that gas will (or even should) be around forever is silly. If for no other reason, we need oil for a lot of other important things, we can use electricity to move us from place to place. So cheers to Toyota to taking a big public step and saying, yes, we’re going electric.

What do you think?

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 »

Bad Influence

One way to find out what will not be happening in the consumer trends for just about anything is to listen or read “industry analysts”. I tend read a lot of this stuff and I’m astonished at how often these people can be staggeringly wrong and go on to make fourteen new predictions the next week as though they’ve never stumbled.

Here’s a piece from the Detroit Free Press on why EV’s will continue to be a very small niche product until at least 2020 according to the Boston Consulting Group. BCG is a gun for hire, management consulting company. The obvious question here is, who’s paying for this study?

Curiously enough, there was an interesting link in the Free Press story by Justin Hyde, this blog post from, of all places, gm-volt.com, says that the Mini-E chokes in the cold, badly. I’m somewhat surprised to hear this but this is exactly companies test prototypes before going to production.

According to the writer of the gm-volt.com blog post, who is testing of the Mini-E’s, not only are the batteries battered by the cold but the driving performance in snow and ice renders the car almost unusable. The writer admits he hasn’t followed BMW’s recommendation to change the all-season tires to snow tires however.

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.

The Good and the Silly

Like financial sites reporting on the auto biz, it’s always a little scary when gadget sites start talking about cars. Engadget is one of the better sites for electronics geekery but I ran across this article this morning and stopped for second because of the lead in:

As Tesla continues on its commendable journey to surpass Ford, GM, Toyota and everyone else in total sales, it’s evidently hoping a tie-up with Panasonic will help it accomplish said goal.

That’s a very long journey my engadgety friends. Tesla is still, very much, the struggling startup and for good reason, their cheapest offering is now nearly $50k. Given that the only other vehicle they make sells for over $100k, it’s not likely anyone at Ford, GM, Toyota, Kia, Hyundai, Dae Woo, Suzuki, Nissan, Fiat, BMW, Volkswagen, or even the folks at Chrysler are going to be worried about seeing Tesla in their corporate rear view mirrors. I suppose I take umbrage at the idea that Tesla is even in the same league with Ford, GM and Toyota. They’re not and it’s bloody unlikely they ever will be.

Now, Tesla’s leading edge attempt at creating all electric car is certainly helping to push EV development but it would push those companies a lot harder if they actually developed, say a $25K EV. Taking the EV out of the realm of the high-priced niche would be a great goal, a goal which, I do not think, Tesla is really positioned to do.

Enough of that, on to the point of the article which is:

The two outfits have just agreed to work together in order to develop next-generation battery packs to be used within electric vehicles, which are based around “Nickel-based Lithium ion chemistry.”

Which is exciting especially if it leads to something practical.

The Difference is Clear

I’ve met and like John Voelcker from Green Car Reports. He’s a nice guy and he’s done some great reporting. This story though, I do not get. It feels like filler to me. Well, that and one more thing, it annoys me. The article annoys me because it’s blending two things that in reporting should not necessarily be mixed up, reality and promises.

Reality is walking out your front door, getting into your car and driving someplace. Promises are waiting on the street for a friend to pick you up. Sure, it’s a friend and they’re reliable and all that, but maybe they’ll be late. Maybe your friend you forgot you needed a ride. The two things, while having some similarities are, in practice, very, very different.

And so it goes with the much lauded Chevy Volt (the promise) and the Toyota Prius (the reality).

The Prius is a vehicle that has been on the market for more than ten years now. It has a track record. There are, quite literally, mountains of user collected data on the vehicle’s performance.

The Volt, it’s still in prototype testing. The Volt is now “scheduled” for release sometime, as John points out, sometime in 2011 (a date which has been moved back from Chevy’s original 2010 claim). Maybe Chevy will hit this date, maybe not. Maybe the Volt will do everything Chevy claims, maybe not.

Now, to be fair to John, he’s comparing the not yet in production Prius PHEV (that’s plug-in hybrid electric vehicle for those of you new to the acronym). So in a sense, I’m being a little tough on him. However, the Volt as a platform doesn’t exist at all now It’s all new, designed, according to Chevy, from the ground up. The Prius PHEV on the other hand is merely a modification of an existing vehicle to add PHEV functionality. This is something third party companies such as Hy-Motion have been doing for about five years now. In other words, even though Toyota is carefully testing the PHEV Prius this year for release next year (possibly), there is already data on how the vehicle performs modified as a PHEV.

My point here is this, it’s not really fair or even reasonable to compare one car that does exist to another that is still vaporware. Aside from the basic design differences between the vehicle (which are significant), the Volt is far from production ready. The Prius PHEV could go into production very soon if it were not that Toyota is a very conservative company that rigorously tests new concepts before releasing them. I think that’s a huge difference and it’s not realistic to compare the vehicles, at the very least right now, for that reason among many others.

Finally, John ends his article with this:

The big question: Will the experience of pure electric drive for three times the distance give the Volt an edge over a Prius Plug-In engine that stops and starts whenever it wants?

Here’s why this is NOT the big question and frankly, why John’s question is a terrible one, the Volt’s ICE will start and stop to charge the vehicle. Technically, the vehicle is “pure” electric drive but it’s a gas generated electric system so the idea that one has a motor that stops and starts and the other is “pure” is incorrect and misleading. Yes, what drives the wheels in the Volt is electricity only but what keeps that power flowing, is gas powered.

The big question is actually a few questions. Will the Volt be what Chevy says it is? What level of performance will the PHEV Prius offer? Will auto buyers flock to the established PHEV system in the Prius or run to the novelty of the Volt’s new hybrid system? Which system will hold up better over the long term and produce promised results? Will the size difference between the two vehicles be a factor for consumers (positive or negative)? trying to boil all this down to one question isn’t a reason able goal right now.

Frustration

If there’s one thing about car shows that annoys me more than this I’m not sure what it is. “Concept cars”. I get why they build and I completely understand these mythical tour the country’s convention centers, sports arenas and fairgrounds.

That said, Honda and Yamaha have both shown “concept” electric motorcycles at the current Tokyo show. Why? Just make them? This can’t be that far off and if it is, then they’re less than forthright in showing this stuff. Just make it and sell it already.

Sometimes the hype is irritating. Especially about things that don’t really need hype. If you can make it, make it.

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.

That old thing?

MSNBC, never one to be left out the stupid race for long, jumped back with this article on those dangerous, silent hybrid cars. Once again we have to go down the road of how dangerous hybrids are because they’re quiet and they use electricity. Neither of which, in the real world means anything. To date, not a single injury can be traced to a hybrid vehicle and electricity is somehow more dangerous than exploding gasoline seems like a stretch to me. In the end, it’s more sad, misguided politicking from another blind advocacy group and more tripe about emergency being electrocuted (when none have been) by hybrids.

Cheers to MSNBC for not only being dumb enough to report this stuff but extra stupid for reporting them years after everyone else has walked away from these non-stories.