2010

Isn't it amazing that they're still hung up on acceleration times after all these years!? Outside of GM bean counters who thought they could continue building 1950's cars in the 21st century, who pays attention to that spec? Who accelerates from 0-60 between stoplights?

The question I would ask would be "Can it keep up with urban and suburban traffic?" Since the answer for every commercial automobile in the USA is "Yes," that question is also meaningless. Driving my '06 Prius, I followed a high-end Porsche* through through town from stoplight to stoplight the other day and he couldn't shake me :-)

Davoud

• "What do you think of my new Porsche?" "Nice. Two doors, steel roof, cramped interior, reminds me a lot of the Pinto."

Amen.

In my '07 Prius, I've never had a problem pulling onto a busy road with

A while back I saw a video on an automotive Web site (sorry, don't recall which one) where they were testing the Gen2 Prius against the Honda Civic Hybrid head-to-head. One of their tests was a 1/4 mile run, which the Prius won. It seem obvious that they weren't happy with the outcome, so what was their next test? "Let's run the race again, with the cars in reverse!" Geez, now there's a useful test.

It still amazes me how they market cars in this day and age. The luxury sedans continue to brag about how much power they have. There's currently a Lexus commercial that shows drivers doing donuts on empty city streets as they scream like they're on a thrill ride, while the car throws up clouds of burnt rubber. And the VW Touarge ad (with its very misleading mileage claims) that mocks the Prius because it doesn't make a lot of exhaust noise. And one of my all-time favorites: a luxury sedan that showed a Yuppie driving from NYC to Maine for his lunchtime. He was apparently able to do this simply because his car had so much horsepower.

Then again, there are many who need a loud and/or fast car to compensate for their feelings of inadequacy, so this type of thinking will probably never go away completely.

Nearly every car sold has more acceleration than the driver will use. I don't think I have ever actually witnessed a full-power acceleration from a standing start on a public road of any car. The 2G Prius's acceleration is sufficient to merge into traffic on an Interstate.

Davoud:

Mr. G:

Peter Granzeau:

Hah! You never saw my '59 Renault Dauphine on the wide-open highways of West Texas in the early 60's. It was awesome. A buddy of mine set out to clock its 0-60 time as we were traveling from San Angelo to Abilene to get a little breakfast. Due to some slight upgrades and maybe a bad spark-plug wire we were unable to reach 60 on the 90-mile trip to Abilene. Coming back we reached nearly 65. Elapsed time from 0-60, including the breakfast stop, was something close to four hours. Victory was assured in our attempt to set a new record for the San Angelo-Abilene-breakfast-San Angelo run when the Renault ran out of oil on the return trip. A kindly truck driver, sympathetic to two poor GI's, gave us a couple of quarts of something resembling oil, but we still managed to set a record of nearly seven hours. If the Renault had just had air conditioning... we would still be trying to get back from Abilene.

Didn't know about the Guinness Book of World Records in those days.

Just thinking about driving that Renault on an Interstate constitutes a near-death experience.

Davoud

Okay, I do admmit to being young once, and drag racing a 1947 Ford on a dark secondary road, once or twice upon a time.

And my own experience with small cars and attempting to keep up with traffic involved a 1957 Fiat 600. A thoroughly clapped-out Fiat, at that. It used oil at a frightening rate, but that turned out to be some kind of leak, not a mechanical problem. I assume that full out, it might have been capable of 55, which at the time (1962) was plenty. Anyway, I had to drive it maybe 85 miles several times between cities, partly on an Interstate, and one day, I was on the Interstate, doing maybe 57 or 58, trying to keep the damn thing going straight in a crosswind, and a cop stopped me. He thought I'd been drinking, what with all that weaving. I said no, just crosswinds and he agreed (I was in fact stone cold sober). But yes, I had to use everything the car had just to make it go at all.