When you drive a Prius, your testarone instantly goes down so no need for women. On the other hand, I don't remember being passed by many cars...that may explain the 30 to 35 MPG :(

Interesting note here, if you've ever been to the Porsche museum, one of the displays is an electric motor which is integrated into the wheel. The jaw dropping part of it was that it was Mr. Porsche daddy himself who actually designed a wheel which integrated the electric motor (~ 100 years ago or so). I often wonder if there were no distractions like TV and the internet, what would people be developing right now? Why we'd be in space! Yeah you could go blind, but you can go blind rubbin one out. It's all ok, just stop when you need glasses.

As far as a diesel in the city, it too gets damn good mileage, seeing as all it is doing is idling. I 've driven in Orlando city (lots naturally), but a couple of times I also drove around in DC (visiting friends for a week) . Granted it's not as good as something which can either run all electric or stop/start the motor but nonetheless not bad!

The big-3 are in Europe and they do have diesel offerings over there. It's sad that they don't do something over here to give the driver some choices as we're limited to either VW/Audi, Mercedes, and BMW (though they seem to offer then take away only to offer again). Not that those are bad, it would just be nice to have some choices.

The true hybrid will be when they replace the gas engine with a diesel engine! But by the time they get around to it, fuel cells will be here.....

As far as Toyota and their Prius, I am going to venture a guess that Honda's hybrid is better. Nevertheless, I have to applaud Toyota for making the commitment and moving the hybrid concept forward. We can expect things to evolve and I am sure Toyota will be there.

I know that some diss the Prius's shape and shall we say overallness. However I also have to say, there's something when you see it that says, that's gotta be a Japanese designed car (a good thing) and I like that about it! I am always saddened when I see either Japanese or Korean cars try to mimic or fit the bill of some other line of cars from other continents. They need to do their own thing. It's what makes cars so unique. They've had some pretty cool cars over the years which to me seem like a substantial amount of original thought.

Well with all this talk about other cars, my 2 Porsche babies are clucking in the garage thinking I'm going to add another car to the harem. MAybe I should. Time to grab some Hennesey XO and go calm the garage harem down. Yes I have a Jetta TDI, but they haven't accepted it into the harem so it hangs outside.

^^^ awesome post

Diesel/Electric Locomotive

Train Train....

When it was three lanes, on my trip to watch the shuttle launch, I was doing 55MPH in a 70MPH. Amazing how when there is plenty of space to pass my, some people just sit on my bumper. If I see its clear for them to pass, I'd drop to 45MPH, one blonde stayed on my tail at 45MPH, finally I saw traffic over the hill behind, so I went back to 55MPH.

Two lane interstate, some of the traffic levels made 55MPH bat crazy. If I knew it'd be tight for anyone to pass, I'd move up, had to cruise at 60-65MPH, move to 70MPH speed limit if it looked like someone was going to get stuck behind me.

I have to admit, when I roll up to a light, instead of coming in hot and slamming on the brakes, the light goes green, and I'm still moving, and dust their over agressive short sighted over sized SUV behind me, I do feel like a smugtard.

However, holding people up on the interstate, I avoid that as much as safely possible.

According to everything that I've read, the Toyota hybrid is a superior system to the Honda's but sometimes you can't believe everything that you read.

Great thread.

Best of both worlds: Diesel C-class. Look for them later this year as a 2013.

In the meantime: TDI Jetta or Passat. Me, I prefer the TDI Jetta, as I like to drive a stick.

I'm still po's that I saw that C-class diesels were so extremely common in Germany during my trip there a few years back, and we couldn't get them here.

Heck, in some markets, the diesel is a PERFORMANCE option - for example, the BMW120d & 123d in the UK.

It is also notable that gap between gasoline and diesel fuel prices has dropped, at least in my area.

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday to see a Prius sporting USMC and "Support Our Troops" stickers, versus the usual 0bama and ACLU stickers typical of Santa Monica...

Even if I were considering a hybrid, the Prius would not be on my list. Fugly and no appeal at all from a driver's standpoint.

Also FWIW, a guy who works for me has an A3 TDI and loves the darn thing...

I would kick a pretty baby for a BMW120d/123d but no such luck in the US.



edit: I really wouldn't kick a pretty baby, maybe an ugly one but definitely not a pretty one.

I needed a new work vehicle. I had a trailblazer never got any crap from people when driving on the interstate but I got 20-21 MPG and it took me 65-70 dollars to drive to a job and I would have to tank up once a week because there are not many places to stay close to nukes. I needed one that had plenty of room in the back so I could haul all my stuff to the job and still get good mileage. So a while ago I had to put my trailblazer in the shop so GM could screw me on mis-diagnosing a cracked head when it was only a clogged PCV port (I won that battle and got my money back) I rode to work with a guy that owned a 08 Prius and during that time we had some horrendous snow storms 8+ inches several of them and that little car got around great in that. So anyway my wife wanted to look at new cars and we stopped by a Toyota dealer and they had several Prius on the lot and I saw a 10 that struck my eye and we took it out for a drive and liked it. It is definitely a Japanese engineered car to fill a specific role one that I needed. To get into specifics I bought this thing for 19,200 total including interest on the loan and a 5 year 100000 bumper to bumper warranty at any toyota dealer on my intial drive to the job I drove at 73 MPH the avg. speed the trip counter said was 69 at an avg. MPG of 49.1. I had to fill up once costing 27 bucks same drive as the one above with the trailblazer. I drove in to work today and my round trip gas mileage was 59 MPG driving the speed limit all the way. It is no Porsche and I will have to go out more often and romp the 911 to get it out of my system and while I am home my wife will drive the Prius because she loves the tinker toy as she calls it. The jist is this car has lived up to all of the hype I have heard about it it is functional for my needs and definately is like a man wearing pink you have to be secure with your manhood to drive it and I cannot believe all the $h!t I get from other drivers when I drive it but you know what it all boils down to is I have 40 more dollars to apply to projects and the gas savings will almost make the payments every month when I am working. So say what you will about it but it lives up to the expectations I have and at a little over 3000 lbs and about 138 hp when in pwr mode it will get up and go and mileage doesn't suffer that bad if you don't do it all day and eco mode it get great economy it has a killer sound system and is quiet cruising on the highway. Just my 2 cents :D

The 335d is apparently a pretty sweet car; although, I just read that the forthcoming new 328i gasoline car offers similar mileage and performance.

Diesel generally hovers at about the price of premium gas or a tad above. Every once in a while it will actually drop down to that of regular. But not often. Taxes on diesel are generally higher than that for gas. Additionally diesel is essentially heating oil so transportation competes with heating in fall/winter. Hence the seasonal price fluctuation. Especially if it is a cold winter. However the increased mpg more than makes up for it. Gas engines are making great strides in increased mpg and approach that of diesel but it seems to me that they are able to do it with the tradeoff of reasonable performance. For example, with the Jetta TDI I can putt-putt but when I need acceleration, I've got it. Compare that to the company car the wife' drives, an equinox. To get any acceleration out of the equinox I have to flip open the floor boards put on special shoes and flintstone it. Even then Segways still pass me. Ok, perhaps a slight embellishiment on my part but you get the idea.

At this time, a diesel engine is more expensive than a gas engine, hence the higher cost for an otherwise equivalent gas model. However part of that is because the sales volumes are relatively low. If sales volume were to increase the prices would come down. We've really missed an opportunity here. Diesel is by no means a magic bullet to completely solving the fuel consumption problem we seem to have, but it would have certainly played a major role in bridging between yesterday and until such time that the fuel cell approach becomes economically viable for the mainstream. As someone pointed out, diesels are used in the direct drive hybrids already, locomotives and done so very economically. The mpg of a locomotive, when taking into account the haul capacity is astonishing!

In any event, we can expect the hybrid concept to evolve and more interesting cars to come onto the scene. Toyota will no doubt be one of the major players.

I hear you.
Why do they have to make these type of vehicles always look like something from a bad sci-fi -movie, made by Ed WOOD!
People only give ****e first and first of all on looks. After ,the goodies follow!

Google Maxwell Technology, they make capacitor starting systems.

Super-capacitors. They're kind of a bridge between a battery and the familiar traditional capacitor. Amongst the mentioned, batteries can store the most energy but are hard pressed to dump large amounts or store large amounts of energy during for example acceleration and regenerative braking. Traditional caps are the opposite of batteries in this context. The super capacitor is a blend and does both and it's sweet spot is in applications such as acceleration and regenerative braking.

One interesting thing about these hybrids (setting aside the boutique makers) is that it is advanced technology being immediately introduced into shall we say the middle/low end car. It seems to me that until hybrids, the car companies always introduced advanced technology into their high end cars and then later on into the middle/low end cars once it became refinements were worked out and it also was more economically feasible to do so. With these hybrids it appears that it is just the opposite. I often wonder if hybrids may have come about more rapidly as well as being more accepted if the major players had stuck with the traditional trickle-down game plan as opposed to trickle-up.

Toyota could come out with a car that runs on water and gives blowjobs and Sammy would still hate it because of the bearded liberals buying them.

Diesels are good on the highway, hybrids are good in city driving...Humm, how come one of the them geniuses in the car factories did not come up with a diesel hybrid? Could even make it turbo diesel hybrid for added fun and efficiency.

I want to here more about the A3.

I have been looking at 06 A3, I know it's not TDI but the gas unit would probably get double the MPG that my full size chevy truck gets.

I have to fill the truck up every other day.

Look at the Golf too if you go for a TDI. Much cheaper.

G

Diesels are better than gas in city driving too. Better efficiency at idle and low rpm puttering around. They aren't as good as a hybrid but definitely much better than a gas car of the same size.

G