Wednesday 26th September 2007

Prius Loses Ground To Petrol Cars

We all knew it, at last the public will know too.

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Conventional petrol and diesel cars are beginning to outpace Toyota’s Prius on environmental friendliness claims a new study carried out by researchers at Cardiff University along with Clifford Thames, an automotive consultancy.

The iconic hybrid car is still the cleanest for its size, but is outranked by nine smaller models from Peugeot, Citroën, Ford, Smart and other manufacturers in a new environmental rating system.

The researchers also studied cars due to launch shortly, and claim that petrol and diesel cars with new emissions-cutting technology will soon outpace the Prius on a size-for-size basis. They also say that conventional technology will overtake the Prius over the next 12 to 18 months, and consumers won’t have to pay a premium for it.

The research, based on publicly available data, points to the huge improvements manufacturers – under pressure from regulators to reduce emissions – are making on non-hybrid cars with diesel or petrol engines.

Rather than focusing on tailpipe emissions only, the ranking also takes into account cars’ overall environmental 'footprint' – including raw materials, production, and end-of-life costs – based on their length, width and weight.

Though the Prius is the best-selling hybrid in the world, and still one of the lowest-emission cars on the road, it's also larger and somewhat heavier than many rival low-emission vehicles because of its large battery and transmission.

[Vodka Margarine]

The amount of times we've ranted at the Prius

Remember reading somewhere that it loses 50% of its value in the first year.

[potatoboy666]

Article said:

Rather than focusing on tailpipe emissions only, the ranking also takes into account cars’ overall environmental 'footprint' – including raw materials, production, and end-of-life costs – based on their length, width and weight.

This is at least more accurate than just going on about bloody Co2 emissions, and will hopefully stop everyone banging on about the prius so much.

[sprinter885]

PistonHeads -leading the way AGAIN.!!
..FACTS MATTER

[Chris71]

I got shockingly bad economy figures from a Prius when I took it out (for work I hasten to add, wouldn't be seen in one normally)

Any half decent modern Diesel should be able to equal it's 50 or so MPG and the environmental penalty then just depends on the aftertreatment technology.

[2woody]

this all goes to show the fallacy of rating cars only on their grams per km output when on the EU drive-cycle, and not on production, cruising economy, recycling ability, etc.

just compare the production environmental cost of the Prius, together with one set of batteries after five years and the scrapping at ten years old. Then multiply that five times and compare to a 1949 Bentley - still on the road in 2007 ( as most of them are ) now which is the most eco-friendly ?

perhaps the more appropriate name would be Toyota Parsimonious !

[peter450]

The marketing hype has already been firmly ingrained, prius > good, if a bunch of bod's from cardiff suddenly say hang on a minute if you drive X miles take into account the resources required to build the car etc etc no ones going to listen, hence why the story has appeared here, on a as far as mainstram media goes, obscure motoring forum.

Edited by peter450 on Wednesday 26th September 11:49

[Graham]

I SOOOOOOO want a Prius













To rip out the hybrid drive and slap in a 7ltr corvette motor tuned to about 600 bhp and 8mpg

[Petee]

Maybe not so hidden - it made FT.com:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1ba3f928-6b85-11dc-863b-...

Here's that list in full (courtesy of carmagazine.co.uk):
• 1st Smart Roadster - 66.2 points
• 2nd Smart Fortwo Cabriolet - 59.8
• 3rd Citroen C1 1.0 - 40.1
• 4th Peugeot 107 1.0 - 38.6
• 5th Citroen C1 1.4 HDI - 31.3
• 6th Fiat Panda 1.2 Dualogic - 28.4
• 7th Ford Ka 1.3 - 27.5
• 8th Toyota Yaris 1.0 - 27.2
• 9th Fiat Panda 100hp - 23.6
• 10th Pegueot 206 1.4 - 23.5
• 11th Mini Cooper D - 23.3
• 12th Toyota Prius 1.5 - 23.2

http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/news.php?sid=1081&amp...

[marsred]

Vodka Margarine said:

The amount of times we've ranted at the Prius

Remember reading somewhere that it loses 50% of its value in the first year.

I wonder if actually just burning the money you lose would create less CO2 than driving the Prius

Certainly more exciting.

[andyps]

This seems to reflect (without having read the latest report) some of the finding of CNW Marketing Research and their Dust to Dust research, available here

[Chris71]

Graham said:

I SOOOOOOO want a Prius













To rip out the hybrid drive and slap in a 7ltr corvette motor tuned to about 600 bhp and 8mpg

I think there are quite a few of those already. Lost count of the number of times I've been doing about 0.9 leptons round the M25 and a Prius has gone past me!! Next to BMW 316's and hire cars they seem to be the fastest motorway vehicle on the planet.

.....but it's ok because they're at Vmax, foot to the boards, doing 20mpg in a Prius. They're still inherantly better than the rest of us

[odyssey2200]

As a technology test bed Prius is fine and when it was launched there was nothing else to compare with it as othere technolies were way behind or simply did not exist.

Pruis technology was, at that time, the state of the art and has not been updated since.

To be fair if you could now take the latest Petrol/diesel technology and apply that to the engine of the Prius and then keep the Hybrid drive you would have a more valid comparison.

Bluetech and all that stuff is 21st century technology and Prius is 20th century tech.

[The Curn]

I really, really hate these cars and the smug look you get from the drivers thinking that they are whiter than white and doing something for the environment, when in fact all they are doing is pandering to a Hollywood fad started by a bunch of ecomentalists.

I know that this is childish and not doing anyone any favours, and I'll probably get shot down for it, but I love gunning past them in my Range Rover. Very sad but it always make me feel slightly better.

PS: I don't have any real issue with Hybrids in general - just the Prius for some reason.

[B10]

Interim technology. They should pay full wack for the congestion charge.

[Skyedriver]

NOW THEN:

How about a big GREEN ANTI PRIUS CAMPAIGN with additional taxes on the drivers and aditional congestion charges.....

[odyssey2200]

Skyedriver said:

NOW THEN:

How about a big GREEN ANTI PRIUS CAMPAIGN with additional taxes on the drivers and aditional congestion charges.....

No but drivers of cars below a certain C02 level should all be exempt the C Charge regardless of what technology they use to achieve it.

It the congestion "Tax" is really about polution this should not be a problem

[egbert]

Vodka Margarine said:

The amount of times we've ranted at the Prius

Remember reading somewhere that it loses 50% of its value in the first year.

LOL at remember reading somewhere, great source.

As long as the Prius remains tax deductable and congestion charge free it's going to continue selling.

I'm happy with mine after 5,000 miles.

[The Hitman]

Graham said:

I SOOOOOOO want a Prius













To rip out the hybrid drive and slap in a 7ltr corvette motor tuned to about 600 bhp and 8mpg

Surely PH's should do this, that would be an awesome sleeper or retirement rocket!

[AdamT]

Petee said:

Maybe not so hidden - it made FT.com:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1ba3f928-6b85-11dc-863b-...

Here's that list in full (courtesy of carmagazine.co.uk):
• 1st Smart Roadster - 66.2 points
• 2nd Smart Fortwo Cabriolet - 59.8
• 3rd Citroen C1 1.0 - 40.1
• 4th Peugeot 107 1.0 - 38.6
• 5th Citroen C1 1.4 HDI - 31.3
• 6th Fiat Panda 1.2 Dualogic - 28.4
• 7th Ford Ka 1.3 - 27.5
• 8th Toyota Yaris 1.0 - 27.2
• 9th Fiat Panda 100hp - 23.6
• 10th Pegueot 206 1.4 - 23.5
• 11th Mini Cooper D - 23.3
• 12th Toyota Prius 1.5 - 23.2

http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/news.php?sid=1081&amp...

Wow, Im currently driving the number one(borrowing it from GF)! And i thought i was the most uneco friendly car drivers around (on my monday morning commute i averaged 6mpg over a 120km autobahn drive )

[hornetrider]

Shouldn't the Polo BlueMotion thingy be in that list? Is it already out of date?