Autocar - First for car news and reviews

Toyota has sold 1,028,000 Prius hybrids worldwide since its 1997 launch.
Though the model only ventured beyond Japan as recently as 2000, over 100,000 units have been sold in Europe since then, with 23,893 of them here in the UK.
The Prius continues to perform strongly, despite being an old model in a struggling new-car market. UK sales are up 7.1 per cent in April this year compared with the same period in 2007.
It’s claimed that since the car’s launch, Prius vehicles have contribute...Read the full article

Light the blue touch paper and............

Over 1 Million - Wow! They've almost caught up to the number recalled then which passed that figure some years ago!

It will be a milestone if their production numbers overtake the number recalled which already holds the record as the most unreliable Toyota have EVER produced!

Prius models up to 2003/4 for example are the 4th most unreliable/faulty of all cars on sale in the US according to Motor Trend survey (2007).

The Legend grows...

... err splutters, rattles, squeeks, gets towed back to a dealership near you!

JJBoxster:

Prius models up to 2003/4 for example are the 4th most unreliable/faulty of all cars on sale in the US according to Motor Trend survey (2007).

 Maybe you're right JJBoxster, but also the 23,000 or so that have been sold here seem to have been ok:

http://www.whatcar.com/NonCar/75881243591.jpg

"No matter what aspect of the Prius you look at, it shines. From reliability to interior quality and the driving experience, barely any criticism was made of the car."

.......must be an awful car to own! 

 

I'm literally 'overjoyed' the latest models are considerably improved on the reliability front and more are on the road blending their dullness into the roadscape in an un-noticeable way - would be nice if owners could follow the lead.

If however Prius owners, infamous for their smugness, want to gob-off about 'greeness' can I remind them the Earth is greener than ever (no deforestation)... the planet has not changed temperature in 100 years of industrialisation so no you're not "helping the planet" you're as insignificant as all other car users, Prius or Porsche... and no you haven't got much to show in fuel economy against a diesel or a patch on petrol for performance... and yes your car has space but it's a rather bland space.

That's the lines. Just so EVERYONE is clear.  

As for WHAT Cars article "No matter what aspect of the Prius you look at, it shines" are they referring to shiny plastics or the profit margins for Toyotas £2k premium or the reflection off the nickel in the battery produced in a factory surrounded by a 1mile enviromental dead-zone?

I notice Toyota are dropping the Nickel batteries in 2010 - better late than never - pile in and buy one while Toyota talk of saving the planet from 4 tons of CO2 so you can extend the dead zone right across Canada! 

JJBoxster:

If however Prius owners, infamous for their smugness

 

An accusation often and correctly thrown at Porsche owners too i might add!! I don't own a Prius just to clarify but have driven one and suggest you try the same. They are nothing like you describe and are actually a very impressive car. As for your diatribe about the environmental conditions of the planet, I can only suggest you read some of the thousands of articles written on the subject by people who ACTUALLY know what they are talking about. Even if you couldn't care less about the planet, the Prius has a reasonable purchase price, decent fuel economy, cheap tax, cheap insurance and is exempt from London's congestion charge. It also has low Co2 and near zero Nox, something no diesel can ever achieve. All of which make it a good buy in my mind. When the new model comes out in 2009 (April i believe) i am seriously considering selling my DSG Golf GTI for one.

Saddo. Golf GTI to a Prius. Too awful for words. Dreadful car and nowhere near as well built or as good value for money as a GTI. GT Diesel Golf is probably the car to switch to. Its has 170bhp and is very gentle on the fuel and you'll still have great VW build quality and materials that a Prius driver could only dream about.

Why is it that when someone has a reasoned argument for not believing that humans have anything to do with global warming that you are immediately branded as someone "who couldn't care less about the planet" ? A typical green smear trick.

 

Davinade - believe me I've read more articles than 98% of people in the UK on climate science and I can quote chapter and verse on any subject (myth) you think is damaging the planet. There's NO problem on our lovely, warm, green planet anywhere - try to find one, bet you can't?

Like James I think you going from a Golf to a Prius is a decline in living standards (quality of engineering, quality of interior components, performance etc). Unless you've kids and need a bit more space. But you won't make one iota of difference to the planet going hybrid.

BTW when I'm not on here I'm spending time on a Canadian website and the magazine New Scientists website both whose 'journalists' (hard to call them that frankly!) are miserable b*stards trying to turn a fantastic period in Earths climate history into a guilt trip for manic depressives. I'm having fun ripping the crap out of them because they're so bl**dy ignorant about climate.

And I'm pleased to say I've also has replies from some of the worlds leading climate scientists I've emailed. A stark contrast to the none-replies I've had from British and worldwide global frauds that perpetuate this deceipt. Maybe these frauds just don't like answering questions for a reason? Go figure.  

JJBoxster:

 

Davinade - believe me I've read more articles than 98% of people in the UK on climate science and I can quote chapter and verse on any subject (myth) you think is damaging the planet. There's NO problem on our lovely, warm, green planet anywhere - try to find one, bet you can't?

Like James I think you going from a Golf to a Prius is a decline in living standards (quality of engineering, quality of interior components, performance etc). Unless you've kids and need a bit more space. But you won't make one iota of difference to the planet going hybrid.

BTW when I'm not on here I'm spending time on a Canadian website and the magazine New Scientists website both whose 'journalists' (hard to call them that frankly!) are miserable b*stards trying to turn a fantastic period in Earths climate history into a guilt trip for manic depressives. I'm having fun ripping the crap out of them because they're so bl**dy ignorant about climate.

And I'm pleased to say I've also has replies from some of the worlds leading climate scientists I've emailed. A stark contrast to the none-replies I've had from British and worldwide global frauds that perpetuate this deceipt. Maybe these frauds just don't like answering questions for a reason? Go figure.  

 

Again - you clearly have no idea of how you come across.

And this figure of 98% - how did you come up with that then?

How can you 'rip the crap' out of them but burst into tears when we 'rip the crap' out of you?

 

Up early Scummy or getting in late ?

Here's a link to a Daily Telegraph article about the British governments Stern Report (ie 700 pages of junk-science). It underlines the basis of the British Governments anti-car agenda - the atrocious economic, political and environmental cost of the high-tax, zero-freedom, bureaucratic centralism implicit in Stern's report.

Gordon 'Bankrupt' Brown and his chief economist, Sir Nicholas Stern (or is it 'Stalin'), both said global warming was the worst "market failure" ever. That loaded soundbite suggests that "climate-change" is less about saving the planet than, in Jacques Chirac's chilling phrase, "creating world government". Politicians, scientists and bureaucrats have contrived a threat of scorched Earth, floods, droughts, plagues, sea level rise and extinctions (all absolute rubbish and debunked by real scientists if you care to look).

Sir Nicholas Stern's report on the economics of climate change says that the debate is over. That's as far from the truth that you need a telescope to see where you left your ethics and integrity. There are more greenhouse gases in the air than there were, so the world should warm a bit (0.6 degrees in 100 years - try not to fall asleep!) but that's as far as any "consensus" goes.

In it's politicised aim (the corruption of science and deceipt of the Worlds peoples) the United Nations abolished the medieval warm period (global warming at the end of the First Millennium AD). In 1995, David Deming, a geoscientist at the University of Oklahoma, had written an article reconstructing 150 years of North American temperatures from borehole data. He later wrote: "With the publication of the article in Science, I gained significant credibility of scientists working on climate change. They thought I was one of them, someone who would pervert science in the service of social and political causes. One of them let his guard down. A major person working in the area of climate change and global warming sent me an astonishing email that said: 'We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.' "

So they did. This is one of a dozen major global climatic lies perpetrated by UN, EEC and British politicians to tax, control and dominate our lives.

Link. http://tinyurl.com/4eqpsf

James Read:

Up early Scummy or getting in late ?

 

 

Up early - off to work.