Tesla all-electric car on Top Gear

ummmm...but your Prius isn't an electric car.

You're comparing apples to oranges.

You might as well be talking about a motorcycle and how it can't seat four comfortably and doesn't have A/C, therefore you'll stick with your Prius.

Two different vehicles, two different solutions to two different problems.

The Tesla price, however, is purely ridiculous.

GM is going to discover it hard to sell the Volt at $41,000 after the initial rush of buyers who have to have the latest, for that matter.

A successful car has to be in the mid $20s. One midsize hybrid has already been withdrawn due to low sales.

Like I said a completely different solution.

the video in question

The segment also showed the car's batteries running flat after 55 miles (89 km), saying that the recharge would take 16 hours and also that the car then broke down. Tesla Motors' spokesperson responded with statements in blogs and to mainstream news organizations that the cars provided to Top Gear never had less than 20% charge and never experienced brake failure.[113] In addition, neither car provided to Top Gear needed to be pushed off the track at any point.[114] Finally, although Clarkson showed a limp windmill and complained that it would take countless hours to refuel the car using such a source of electricity, the car can be charged from a 240V outlet in as little as

( source ==

I have never driven on a race track and it sound cool but Top Gear's testing environments is no where close to my real world driving experience or environment. With all the photo speed traps and traffic lights in the Washington DC area, speeding around the way Top Gear's Clarkson is doing would be a sure way to rack up a mountain of traffic tickets or worst yet get into a traffic accident. During rush hour, even our local superhighway slows down due to traffic congestion. So even the fastest and most expensive sports car is crawling at a snails pace next to the slowest and cheapest econobox.

Vehicle height and Size turns out to be more important in DC. Vehicle height allows a driver to see further ahead of traffic ( and block the view of any competing traffic behind you). Vehicle size/mass protects the driver in a traffic accident against smaller competing vehicles and can be use to intimidate drivers in smaller vehicles to stay out of the way.

I'll be the first to say that the 2010 Prius is not perfect and it could still be improved but here in the USA - the Toyota Prius is the defacto green car standard and full hybrid to beat.

The 2010 Toyota Pruis cost is in the 20K range and it can gets 50mpg without much effort. It's closest rival, the 2010 Honda Insight is slightly cheaper but does not match its fuel efficiency and it is a smaller car.

Currently, my 2010 Prius main computer estimates that I am getting about 65.5 mpg for the last 400+ miles that I've driven . While the Prius on board computer MPG estimates tend to be one or three mpg too high - that's still significantly higher than the EPA rating and four to six times more than the mpg one would get from a conventional gas powered SUV or high powered sports car.

The 3rd Generation Hybrid System Indicator and the MPG bar display is a significant FE ergonomic improvement over 2nd Generation. The EV mode is also useful for quick electric accelerations under 24 mph.

Lastly, the Toyota Prius has a large and active user group which is extremely useful when learning and taking advantage of a new technology.

What you meant to say was, "While its closest rival, the Honda Insight, hsa slightly lower mileage, it is cheaper."

Cost of ownership. You're falling into the same trap that Top Gear tried to make in your mind. 45 vs 50? How about $25K vs. $18K? That extra $7K can buy quite a lot of gas, more than enough to offset the

Yes and I'm saying that one of those soultions is totally unacceptable to anyone but an utter moron. You had to see how badly the Tesla kept breaking down and the wait for spare parts too lol...forget it!! As I said the Prius is THE car for me.

The Tesla can't be used for touring. 200 miles a day with a 12 hour recharge time might be useful for local business driving with a guaranteed place from which to recharge; but why would I want a low-slung roadster for that kind of driving? For comparison, think of the history of the Doble steam powered auto. Very high price, very low production--and the Doble could be refueled and watered in minutes, not hours.

Screw the payback calculations. The fact alone that the Prius is a series-parallel "full" hybrid with 2 motor/generators instead of the Honda IMA "assist" with 1 motor/generator is enough to make me want the Prius.

Why is a fuel usage payback period so damned important anyway? People who throw giant 20 some inch chrome spinners on their car certainly aren't expecting a payback but they shell out the dough anyway. As I still say, I would almost kill to have an NHW20 Prius but if all you want is pure, cheap FE, go buy a Geo Metro with the 3 cylinder and play "In a Yugo" by Paul Shanklin while you drive around. BTW IaY is a damn funny song despite my hatred of Rush.

To each his own I guess. I simply can't stand the VFD based MID as a replacement of the touch screen LCD based MFD, that along with many other reasons is why I hate the 2010 ZVW30. My ideal vehicle is a 2006 NHW20, fully loaded, with the following mods: EV button, LED light substitutes, wheel trim ring removal, and front quarter panel hybrid badge removal.

Because it's an important factor in how much the car costs (not its price, its cost).

And people who are buying fuel-efficient cars are, by and large, sensistive to cost.

What you're saying there is that to buy a Prius (or Insight) is a fashion statement, nothing more.

That's bullshit. While some idiots buy a Prius to say "look at me, I bought a Prius!", most are buying it to save money. Using less gas is a big part of that. Yes, the car has a higher price tag than a Corolla; some can't get past even THAT, and they buy a Corolla. But the Prius is bigger and more easily seats five people, and those in back have huge amounts of leg room. And in addition to that, the fuel savings over a long period of time offset the price difference.

Cost. Not price.

You forget the VALUE equation. As I said above, the Prius is a fairly large car inside for what it is, and it's going to last much longer than the Metro--which makes it a much better value overall.

The Insight should be (yeah, well, Honda, let's see you get out of your battery woes) similarly more valuable than the Metro, albeit with a slightly different value equation given its lower price and slightly lower fuel economy. It's also a much, much safer car than a 20 year old Metro, which is part of the VALUE equation.

You're fooling yourself with all these straw men you're setting up. I love my Prius, but I recognize that other cars have value close to it.

I most certainly do NOT say, "I'll buy a Prius no matter what just like that guy buys 20 inch chrome spinners no matter what--like a three year old wanting what he wants no matter what".

I wasn't trying to say it is a fashon statement, I was trying to point out that people buy extra options of all kinds all the time that do nothing to reduce a vehicle's payback period. I was going to mention factory GPS navigation as a prime example but I suppose if it helps you make a more direct route to the destination instead of driving in circles it would save money.

Anyway most people seem to forget about resale value and pretend that everyone just drives a car till it dies.

I didn't forget, the others that bash the Prius forgot, and you can usually spot them easily because they misspell it "Pruis".

I want the Prius for its low emissions along with the electronic goodies and for reasons such as the PriUPS. The fact that it would be roughly double the FE of our current 97 Lumina is just icing on the cake.

Feel free to browse my Q&A on Y! Answers

That's called a "fashion statement".

Note that the choice of Prius vs Insight isn't an "extra option". It's the core purchase.

Fashion statement. Or political statement. Whatever, you're describing the conscious act of making a statement.

In my street price comparison for comparably equiped vehicles (2010 Prius III and 2010 Insight EX ) the difference was that the 2010 honda insight EX price was about $4K cheaper; the Insight was also cheaper to insure by $600 per year too. For initial cost, the 2010 Honda Insight had the advantage over the 2010 Toyota Prius III. The Prius FE advantage was negated by its costlier insurance premiums. However, the reason I purchased a Prius over a an Insight was for a combination of reasons rather than because cost. The Prius was also bigger inside, drived better on the highway, but more importantly the Prius had a stronger, more active and larger owner/user base. The Insight did not have a comparable support groups. So while I though the Insight's driver's ergonomics were superior - I felt that the Prius support group would make the overall transition to hybrid technology easier.

I preferred the 2006 NHW20's location for the transmission shifter on the dash; it made the older 2006 feel more spacious and less constraint than the 2010.

I find that it is easier for me to monitor the 2010 Instrumentation panel than the older 2006 MFD. The only extras I've gotten have been a Garmin Nuvi 265wt and a Scangauge II. I'm thinking of later tinting the windows.

Can't ignore those first two points, but my God, people are mindless sheep who are afraid to do something that not everyone else is doing.

I bought my Prius not to save money (I was getting adequate mileage in a Saturn SL2), I bought it because it represented a lot of original thought and state of the art design. Other designs will eventually pass it, but it is still state of the art.

I agree. It take alot of moxy to take the lead as Toyota has done with the Prius. IMHO it's the Apple thinkpad of hybrids.

One of the reasons, I decided on a Prius over all other hybrids is that the Prius forums on the internet made me think of the PC and Apple user groups in the 1980s and 1990s. The sophistication level of the user groups was one of the sign of a successful design/product and its successful adoption of new technologies.

So, y'all ARE buying it as a fashion statement.

LOL. I agree that many consider Apple products a consider a fashion statement. However, I was refering the reputation of Apple as making leading edge tech products that many attempt to copy.

However, like the fashion world - sales must sustain production, so the contination of the production of popular vehicle is more likely than an unpopular one - a good design is not enough.