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http://www.auto123.com/en/news/toyota-prius-sets-land-speed-record-for-hybrid-vehicles?artid=33860&pg=3

I guess its time to trade in my Prius for a car costing twice as much, but can't go as far? But just think about how cool I'll be not getting there!

Actually, I do want one. Disregard all my snide cynicism above. I'm sure its one nice vehicle, but I had to point out the minor speed difference. I can certainly attest to how fast the Prius can go, just don't ask me how I know. ;)

I'm not expecting a "major technological breakthrough" either; whether adoption is "anytime soon" is a matter of definition of "soon."

I figure 'soon' equates to 'when someone like my mom would buy one.' which means it has to be good for daily driving and the occasional 400-mile road trip to visit family across the state.

today's "daily commute only, no long road trips" range cars

Which cars are those? All the models I know of are capable of both (granted, due greatly in part to existing gasoline-based infrastructure). Anyway, a gasoline ForTwo can theoretically go from KC to STL on a single tank (71 MPG, 8.7 gal tank), whereas the electric model (84 mi on a full charge) would have to be charged at least 3 times one way, at 8 hours per charge.

will, in a decade or two, be up to the full range of gas vehicles.

"A decade or two" is a long friggin' time. Who knows what we'll come up with between now and then? (P.S. this is why I think futurists, AKA self-proclaimed oracles, are idiots).

Over the same time period, suitable infrastructure will get gradually rolled out into place.

Right... and in the 1960's, they were convinced that 20 years in the future we'd all have jetpacks and live on space colonies. Pure speculation, then and now.

By the way, do you have any reference about battery production --- for the types going into current and near future electric cars --- being "insanely polluting," comparable to the insane level of pollution released over the lifetime of a gasoline car? I've seen various FUD articles trying to "prove" points like that, but nothing that actually stands up to much scrutiny.

Funny, in my research I saw the opposite - various articles that tried to downplay the fact that hybrids and EVs pollute as much if not more than their gasoline or diesel counterparts. C'est la vie, eh, mon frere?

Anyway, here are some links:

http://www.auto123.com/en/news/hybrid-and-ev-production-pollutes-more-than-gas-cars-but?artid=132278

http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2012/04/electric-cars-may-pollute-more-than-gas-models-study.html

http://healthland.time.com/2012/02/14/why-electric-cars-are-more-polluting-than-gas-guzzlers-at-least-in-china/

http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/does-hybrid-car-production-waste-offset-hybrid-benefits1.htm

Cheers.

I'm not going to repeat what's already been said, but....

- They stopped making the Crown Vic, that means 3 child families must use SUVs and Vans.

They still make station wagons, and full size sedans can easily fit 3 children comfortably in the back. Some of them can fit 3 adults comfortably in the back. And as has been said, Minivans are still a better option most of the time.

- Modern cars are often rather small, making them worthless for big trips with young children (try to fit two decent strollers in the trunk of something that isn't a Crown Vic, I dare you)

I have no problem fitting a mountain bike in the trunk of my car, if I fold down one of the seats. Given that strollers collapse, I have no problem believing that I could fit two of them in my car.

- Modern cars have small engines. This is great around the town, but on the highway, mileage suffers horribly. SUVs get much better highway mileage (not better than cars, but not all that far away) because they often put an appropriately sized engine in them.

Not sure what kind of car you've been shopping for, but I'm driving a 2011 with a 270hp 2.5L 4cyl engine. It's certainly *not* underpowered by any stretch of the imagination, and even though it only has a 65L tank, I had no problem driving from London, Ontario to Ottawa, Ontario, a trip just over 600km (about 400mi for the Americans in the audience) on 3/4 tank, and I was not paying much attention to speed at all. (I was taking the country highways instead of the superhighways, and had the cruise control set to 95km/h). I would like to see the SUV that could make a 400 mile trip on 10 gallons of gas.

- Some modern cars (not all) do not support roof racks. So you can't even use it to bring a bicycle with you (since you can't tow with it, either) on a small fun trip.

As I already said, I can fold down one of the seats in my car and have no problem putting my bike in the trunk. Actually, I can fit two bikes in there, if I take the front wheel off and put it in the back seat. I also have mounts on the roof for a rack, but I don't have one installed.

- If you like to do your own repair work, modern cars are hell on earth due to their cramped engine compartments, unibody construction, and independent suspension (of course, most SUVs have that nowadays too, but not *all* are terrible to work on the way it generally is with cars).

*shrugs* it's under warranty, and most soccer moms don't do their own repairs. I think that's a moot point for most people, and while it is a valid point some of the time, I've never heard my mechanic complain that he doesn't like working on the car. I've heard of trucks that are a pain in the ass to work on, too, because of bad design, so the problem isn't unique to cars anyway.

- They quit making station wagons (give or take) so those customers bought SUVs (which are now being downsized to CUVs, which I guess is the modern day station wagon).

No they haven't. further reading

- It sucks ass getting a flat in a car on a long trip, since most modern cars have a toy tire, or worse, tire goop and an inflator ("clown shoes" as I like to call it). Many SUVs offer a full size spare--extremely handy!

My car came with a donut, but the space for it is big enough for a full size tire. I keep one of my winter tires in there as a spare in the summer, and the inverse in the winter.

- Stop using gasoline, use LPG or CNG and all of a sudden driving a V8 doe

You are aware of something called the auto pact. Basically the deal is that we agreed to allow Canadian makers to be taken over in exchange for complete integration into the north american market. So our branch plants of automakers represent approximately double the number of employees, per capita of population in comparison to the US.

We didn't get the names, but we got the jobs. Canadians used their noggins for what was important to them. And the most popular segment in the late nineties was the Chrysler Mini-van, which was designed and built in Canada from day 1 until today, where it is now sold as a VW Touran.

As for being alone in the G8... Name me a British automobile brand that is still in British hands, and still in business. Show me a Russian car you can buy in North America (nope, no Lada's) Please attempt to find an affordable Italian Car in North America. Fiat doesn't exist here. Your choices are: Alfa, Lambo, Ferrari, ... If those count, then check out: T-Rex, http://www.auto123.com/en/car-reviews/new/2008-t-rex-1400r-road-test-video?printable=1&artid=91050 or zenn http://www.zenncars.com/ there are a half-dozen other boutique style manufacturers.

Further, there are many non G8 countries with automobile brands, such as Korea, Sweden, India, China, Brazil, etc... So what's your point?

P.S. Canada's Bombardier is:
#1 manufacturer of train wagons in the world, to the point where folks are considering anti-monopoly rules.
#3 manufacture of aircraft, after Boeing, and Airbus.
oh, and they started out in Snow mobiles, and are still big there.

So on the one hand, there are other G8 countries without meaningful presence in one of the largest auto markets in the world (North America), on the other hand, some G8 countries' manufacturers' are economically insignificant. On the third hand, the presence/absence of an auto brand says little about the overall economy... and many non G8 countries have auto brands. So It's hard to see how that could be a condition of entry into the club.

Also coming from GM in model year 2008 is the full hybrid GMT900 truck platform [1, 2, . This encompasses the Chevy Tahoe and Suburban, the GMC Yukon and Yukon XL, and the Cadillac Escalade and Escalade ESV, among others. The hybrid uses the GM/DaimlerChrysler Advanced Hybrid System 2.

The hybrids will feature:

- 5.3L FlexFuel Vortec V8 (able to run using E85, a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline)
- Active Fuel Management (AFM)/Displacement on Demand (DOD), disabling cylinders as needed for cruising
- Two 30kW electric motors inside of the same physical space as the normal automatic transmission
- A continuously variable automatic transmission
- Conventional 110VAC power outlets on board
- Hybrid system derived from the advanced system on already in use on GM's Allison transit buses

This advanced hybrid system, while not plug-in, will be offered on all model year 2008 GM full size SUVs, as well as pickups and fleet vehicles. The expected fuel economy gain is 30% over today's figures on the gasoline/FlexFuel-only AFM variant, approaching 30mpg for city driving. That's a damned good improvement. And when used with FlexFuel, they're using less fossil fuels - even including the fully burdened fossil fuel costs of ethanol - than Prius and Civic hybrid drivers, in addition to contributing to lower overall greenhouse gas emissions. As the process efficiency increases over the next few years, these numbers will improve.

Whether or not one likes or dislikes SUVs, or thinks people should be able to be told what types of vehicles they should or shouldn't be driving, or think subjective judgments can be simplistically made about what other people "need" or don't need, it's still an excellent step forward. While the Volt is very interesting (conspiracy theorists: think of some way the Volt is really still a GM plot to "keep electric vehicles down" or to assist big oil) and using centralized power generation and leveraging the existing electric grid and production capacity is a necessary step to the future, the full hybrid SUVs will be one of the big things that people buy in the short term, not to mention being one of the major things - if not the thing - that may make or break GM in the next decade.

First of all, this isn't even a "hybrid", since it only seems to feature an electric motor. (And how is this news?)

Second, I'm more interested in GM's next generation MY2008 GMT-900 full-size SUV platform (Tahoe, Suburban, Yukon, Yukon XL, Escalade, Escalade EXT): it will have a full/strong hybrid option, powered by both a 5.3L Vortec V8 featuring Displacement on Demand/Active Fuel Management, which can disable 2, 4, or 6 of the 8 cylinders as necessary, two 30kW electric motors and a continuously variable transmission (with the motors and transmission being in the same physical form factor as the conventional Hydramatic automatic transmission on non-hybrid models). These new SUVs will exceed the already-good fuel economy of the 2007 GMT-900 platform trucks which are already using active fuel management, pushing the city fuel economy to around 30mpg. Then is it still "wrong" to drive an SUV instead of an Accord? (*waits for chorus of "yes" for all kinds of ridiculous reasons* - please, bring out the safety and bumper height arguments too! Maybe all cars on the road can be identical, homogenous boxes that all look like Smarts!)

Being responsible doesn't always have to equate to sacrificing things that are genuinely useful. It can mean making the things people like better.

VW must love the publicity. First they set a world record and now this. If they beat a Hummer I'll bet the sales & marketing dept will have a field day !

VW is supposed to do this:

http://www.auto123.com/en/info/news/news,view.spy? artid=30458&pg=1

No anomaly found? Of course not. This guy is full of shit, plain and simple. A similar problem almost put Audi out of business in the 80's because of a "story" on 60 Minutes. These people were just as full of shit as this guy.

How many people actually know someone that is a competent driver that has had this happen?

Linky to the Audi story here (google's first result): http://www.auto123.com/en/info/news/news,view.spy? artid=22184&pg=1

meh.. http://www.auto123.com/en/info/news/news,view.spy? artid=25977&pg=1

linking is retarded today... yay cmdrtaco!

sorry about that....

Toyota doesn't mess around. They've also sold the hybrid technology to ford. Let's not forget that toyota is also releasing a hybrid which does 0-60 in 4.03 seconds and tops out around 155mph. Don't walk away from this thinking Toyota is maniacally evil, if anything, they've got their shit together more than most automotive companies.

Sorry for being a toyhead, they please me immensely. Something tells me, if the author of the article was driving a volta, miles per gallon would be the least of his worries. I think toyota pretty much tops the list of fuel economy, on any playing field. Prius wins in my mind, not strictly because of fuel consumption, but by the name that's behind it.