CR tested a 10 year old, 200k mile 2002 Prius versus the original performance data.
The 200,000-mile question: How does the Toyota Prius hold up? Check out the chart in the link. Everything is near identical in mpg and acceleration. You're hybrid "facts" sound like the stuff out of the widely rebuked "dust to dust" study. Payback is long term with hybrids, I agree, but I place a value on using less fuel, so it is worth it to me. I spent $1600 or whatever on a leather interior for my 4Runner. Where is the payback on that? Based on my 14k miles/year, @ $4/gal gas, paying $2000 more for a hybrid version (based on the price difference between similarly equipped gassers v. hybrids) would be paid back in under 7 years if the 4Runner's fuel economy was boosted from 22mpg to 25mpg. That isn't entirely unreasonable, IMO. If it performs better than the regular V6, that payback becomes far easier to swallow.
BTW, the Prius is regularly listed as the one of the lowest cost to maintain cars. You go through brakes less frequently and oil changes, engine coolant, AT fluid, tires, etc is the same as a normal car. Poorly done hybrids are expensive to maintain, yes.... just like poorly done normal IC engine vehicles. Battery replacement costs are around $2k for a Prius, last I checked. No one I know with a Prius has had to, so getting firm numbers is difficult.
Wait, how can having a hybrid gas engine be a bad business case, but adding an expensive diesel drivetrain that puts you well into diminishing returns be a better business case? Regulations are already pushing diesel away in the US due to requirements of particulates and stuff like urea injection. Take a look at all the problems the newer VW TDIs are having on the reliability front that are directly related to their emissions equipment. I've taken a hybrid Toyota transmission apart as well as several of their 6ATs. I would say it has about 1/3 as many parts as their equivalent 6AT. It is brilliantly simple.
I'd consider a TDI in the 4Runner as a high torque drivetrain is well suited to an SUV, but the fact remains that there is no way to recover the energy lost when applying the brakes in a standard TDI drivetrain. Looking at the total energy equation, application of the brakes = energy lost in heat on a diesel. A hybrid can recover a portion of that energy. That is precisely why you see such large benefits in stop and go driving with a hybrid. If the price premium is the same, and considering I don't really tow, the hybrid has a bigger bang for buck
for me.
Your home cooked bio diesels won't work in the new diesels. Diesel is still way cheaper to produce, on a large scale, using good ol' oil. I feel it will remain that way for some time. I don't like the method of rare earth metal extraction presently, but batteries have improved leaps and bounds over the past decade. They are still very much in their infancy. Batteries can also be recycled.
It depends what you consider to be a pollutant. Diesel has way higher NOX than gas. Every time I visit a European city, I immediately notice the smell. It isn't particularly unpleasant or anything, but it is there. Plus, one gallon of burned diesel has higher CO2 content than one gallon of gas.
What are you talking about power plants? I'm not talking about a plug-in. I'm talking about a hybrid that charges the batteries by using regen braking and the gas engine. No power plant required. I simply like the idea of recovering otherwise lost energy via regen braking and getting awesome torque at low RPM.
