The Prius is marketing hype, nothing more, we could debate this but it's been done many times before. Sure, it's ok but the numbers it produces are nothing fantastic considering some of the technology in it and the cost to produce it. You can buy similar sized cars for 1/2 the price that get fuel economy that is close to that of a Prius, you can buy smaller cars that do better.

Case in point: My dad has a VW passat, it's a big car, almost commodore sized. It has a 2L turbo diesel and on the hwy it averages 5-5.2L/100km...not to far off a Prius; it's only about 6.5L/100 around town too. Put a 1L even a 1.5L turbo diesel in a small light car and it will obliterate a Prius even without a Hybrid drive train, add that in and it's daylight.

Case in point, not very surprising, but 1L/100 is definitely impressive.

do a google for the "gordon murray T 2.5"

intersesting new type of car and manufacturing process I read about a while ago.

stephen

Somehow the $30K car in America will cost over double that here. Whats the point in buying something like this when you should be able to buy a little diesel car that uses about 4 litres per 100 kms for about $20K?

ok said...

Thirsty cars are so much more fun! Why would you even bother?

lol yep.

Compare the 2 lists on this page: www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/best-worst.shtml

I know which set of cars I would rather choose from!

Our bunch of engineers who got slightly fed up with Oil & Gas Engineering (Exploration, Pipelines, Processing, Delivery, etc), used their combined knowledge to create a successful micro brewery.

3 of the guys are loaded for various reasons, and a fourth guy who is loaded, and is departing the engineering firm, just bought 20% in the brewery side project...

Anyway, the engineering wheels are in motion for a light weight vehicle...