Re: Dreaming of Bigger, Better Hybrid cars!

But man, you wind that thing up in the twisties and it's a whole other game.

Incredible as you will find this to be .... it is NOT "all over" in the twisties. With an automatic, you need to carry a little more speed into the corner and just keep your foot in the motor, that's all. There aren't -that- many people who are really practiced with a stick shift in the mountains anyway.

Some of us hold more tightly to facts than to authority figures. The trick is achieving balance between seeing what is and what ought to be. Hoyt is giving Toyota's official line, which (for a little while) is that fuel cell cars will own the future. This is severely unlikely unless the huge problems of economical hydrogen production, distribution and storage are solved. Even if they were solved today it would take years to replace $200 billion worth of retail distribution infrastructure. Robinson might elaborate on why he thinks hybrids will never dominate, so that we can explain why he's wrong :_>

And I, for one, intend to be here in 2012 to be held accountable by anyone who might care. Don't you?

That is NOT what Hoyt said.

By 2012, I'll be a seasoned septuagenarian. >:-)

Approximately 11/15/03 08:15, Philip® uttered for posterity:

And most stick drivers pretty much do everything wrong when driving on twisties and mountains. The only thing that keeps the shiny side up is that most cars are reasonably forgiving and they never drive at 10/10ths.

Not true. If the traffic is stopped, you put it in neutral and take your foot off of the clutch completely if you're using the transmission properly without abusing the clutch and throwout bearing. If the pavement is level (and most of it is) you don't have to keep your foot on the brake either. With an automatic you have to keep your foot on the brake continuously while stopped.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other... I've driven a stick for years in freeway traffic.

..... Take a look in ANY used

Dealers stock automatics because they know that they can talk a buyer who wants a stick into an automatic while it is impossible to talk a buyer who cannot drive a stick into buying one. There are a lot of drivers who would prefer to have a stick driving around with automatics because of this and other issues.

Manufacturers push automatics because they can charge a premium for them, and the poorer reliability of the automatics ensures that the vehicles so equipped are junked sooner than manuals, creating more sales of new vehicles. Most American-designed vehicles aren't even available with sticks these days.

George

So because nobody knows how to means the *technology* doesn't work?

I am - and I can tell you the same car in stick versus automatic in the hills where I live(plenty of twisties as the planning dept must have been on acid when they made the roads) is no contest.

You can tell me all sorts of things you'd like me to believe.

Oh please. AS soon as you have 20 feet in front of you, some econobox cuts in front of you in LA/Orange County. Same for most other metropolitan ant hills.

As I said just moments ago, you are not going to tell me anything new about managing a clutch and gearbox that I haven't already done countless times. Good grief. Been all over the US in rigs, in all kinds of weather, driving non synchromeshed boxes with 7 to 13 gears in them at an average rate of 95 to 110k miles per year.

Tilde Phil needs to follow his own advice and re-read the article. Direct quote below: Though Toyota is currently testing a limited number of hydrogen cars, both Hoyt and Robinson are skeptical the vehicles will ever dominate America's roadways.

In a word, they were dismissing the fuel cell cars, not the hybrids.

The Toyota rep said that the hybrid is the bridge to whatever will be the car of the future. There's no indication as to how far in the future he is looking. He could be talking fusion micropiles or flying cars as well as hydrogen or gas.

Daniel