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The thing about diesels is that they also give you great overall gas mileage and are now considered "fun to drive". Your typical hybrid is only efficient in the urban environment. Once you go out into the rural areas, the gasoline engine takes over and it has to lump around that heavy electric engine and batteries. This affects fuel economy - and not in a good way.  |
Agreed.
At this stage in hybrid technology, the vehicle isn't exactly fun to drive, or sporty, or agile in any way, so that is definitely a BIG plus for diesels, because it pretty much means you're driving the same type of car you've always driven, just the engine is a whole lot cleaner and efficient. I do have faith in Toyota being able to address this issue in a few years by creating hybrid vehicles which have a sporty feel to them (probably begin this phase with a hybrid supercar to try and INSTANTLY dispell all this talk of hybrids being slow, cumbersome, and un-agile cars).
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In Japan and America where most Lexus hybrid owners probably live in the big cities, it makes sense.
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BINGO!
Just stop and think for a second... where do the vast majority of people live and work? They live in/or close-to cities and they mostly work in cities. So it's very clear that for most people a Prius with its outstanding city mileage would be more than ideal, because you can't exactly do a whole lot of 'fun' driving in and around cities any way.
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Big heavy cars + overpowered gas-guzzling gasoline engines + heavy electric motor and batteries = good fuel economy outside the city. Huh?
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Fair enough... once on the highway the Toyota hybrids still perform just a touch better than their pertrol equivalent
(eg: compare the highway mileage of a Camry hybrid with a normal 4-cyl. Camry, the hybrid still performs better on Hwy Mileage)...but of course on the highway these hybrids get surpassed by diesel engines. But on the other hand, most people do City driving, so compare a Prius hybrid against a diesel in City conditions and the diesel will get its butt kicked by the hybrid's secondary electric-motor system.
So it kind of balances out in the end, except for the fact that Prius-style hybrids will always have lower CO2 emissions than diesels.. so in terms of true 'green-ness', the Toyota Prius-style of hybrid engines are more enviro' friendly.
But if I were in the market for a new car, I would seriously consider a diesel more so than I would a hybrid due to the limited variety of hybrids at this time.
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I agree, you have to take advantage of people's stupidity in every way possible. I'm just wondering why these people can't figure it out for themselves
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I certainly wouldn't put it down to 'stupidity', just a blind faith. Imagine if Kia or even Tata came out and said
"we've developed a super-efficient hybrid engine which we will be launching soon throughout our models!". Would you honestly believe them whole-heartedly? I certainly wouldn't. I'd be very skeptical.... BUT.. with Toyota, they've created such a rock-solid reputation within the general public, that people believe all this ultra-hype about hyrbids without asking questions or doing a bit of research on their own. People simply have no reason to doubt Toyota because of the way they conduct themselves. They don't go around with negative campaigns saying
'you should choose our hybrid engines because the diesel engines the German's are creating are just crap no matter what they try to tell you!". They have an unbelievable level of respect from the public. Even those people who do not own a Toyota still very quickly and clearly know what Toyota stands for...so it's no suprise at all that Toyota is able to preach about hybrids being the future of green cars without the public sitting there and saying
'hey, hold on a sec, what other forms of efficient engines are there on the market and how do hybrids compare to them?'.
So yeh, it's not
stupidity per se.. it's all the hard work Toyota has put in over their
ENTIRE history in gaining the public's trust and respect which has allowed them to say whatever they want to
(as long as it's on a topic which the public like to hear about, eg: green technology, very good pricing, reliability, fuel efficiency, and now they are even promoting their styling -- which I have to admit I'm a bit of a fan of now, love the Camry w/ sports kit in white!!).
Simply put, every single mainstream car company would absolutely envy Toyota's reputation, market position, strengths, knowledge and productivity in the motor industry. As a company, I have as much respect for them as I do BMW AG.
Just about a year or so ago I was biased against Lexus and Toyota. I always classed Lexus vehicles as a clear step lower than the German 3, and I viewed Toyota is just the average man's car, nothing special...just boring and simple. But now, after putting all this irrational biased aside and having a more open-mind on the issue, I've come to really appreciate and applaud what Toyota has been able to achieve as a whole. They're an absolutely incredible company in how they go about their business, and in how they view their customers (car owners). As a result, I'm a BIG fan of Toyota in NASCAR (not F1, BMW's still #1 for me in there
)!!