Fantastic $36,000 Lexus Hybrid Outdrives Prius: Monish.p.m

It may be a Lexus, but you can’t call it luxurious.

Lexus’s five-door, hybrid hatchback, the CT 200h suffers from an identity crisis. No wonder, given its two distinct personalities.

When many people think of a hybrid they picture the Prius. The car nearly constitutes its own brand -- you hardly have to mention that it comes from the Toyota Motor Company. The Prius stands for an age of pragmatism where technology rules over passion.

Nobody would call the Prius a joyful ride; rather its appeal comes from beating the average fuel mileage of 51 city, 48 highway. Consider it an extremely well-executed appliance. (New Prius models are coming, including a bigger wagon version, the V, and an all-electric plug-in.)

Toyota also owns Lexus, whose customers tend to relish their luxury. Vehicles like the $113,000 LS Hybrid sedan focus on indulgence -- the thrill of driving is secondary to the feel of leather. It even has an automated system that helps parallel park the car.

Which makes the 200h all the more confounding. It falls well short of prestige, yet drives way better than a Prius. The 200h’s base price is $29,995, making it the least expensive Lexus. As tested, my Premium model, with options, was $36,725.

Yet I’ve seen Lego sets with less plastic inside, and I was underwhelmed by the busy exterior. While the designers eschewed the weird hump-back of the Prius, they substituted a number of bulges, creases and sloping angles, especially in the rear. Part boy racer, part European hatch. Not so pretty.

Street Wars

Gas mileage falls short of the Prius, but is still fairly fantastic at 43 city, 40 highway. Using the same technology as the Prius, the CT is a full hybrid and can drive up to a mile on battery power alone, without the gas engine switching on.

The 1.8-liter four-cylinder gasoline engine and electric drive motor have a combined 134 horsepower. Drivers can choose just how fully or thriftily to dole out that power, selecting drive modes of EV, eco, normal and sport. Since all the systems are handled electronically, throttle response is dictated by that selection.

The all-battery setting, or EV mode, mostly thwarted me. Even in city driving, I over-accelerated beyond its 28-mph threshold, which kicks the gasoline engine back on. Eco mode slows everything down, allowing only tepid response from the gas pedal.

I imagine this would work quite well around a sleepy island like Martha’s Vineyard off-season, but on the isle of Manhattan it means you’ll be overtaken and boxed out. It’s war out there.

Power Punch

Normal mode suffices. In sport mode, however, the electric motor lends an extra power punch off the line. Which is when the 200h suddenly becomes a bit more interesting -- and perplexing.

Sure, it takes almost 10 seconds to attain 60 mph, so this little hatch isn’t fast, but it pops off the line easily. It’s got a small footprint in every sense, making it easy to flit through traffic and swing into tight parking spaces.

The Mini Cooper rules supreme to many urban dwellers, but the fact that I averaged more than 40 mph, even in the densest traffic, gave the 200h an edge. Around town, it’s almost deceitfully sporty.

(If you want to be less sneaky, you can opt for the F Sport package, which doesn’t improve speed per se, but gets revised suspension tuning, dark alloy wheels and a bigger rear spoiler.)

Plastic Dash

Steering is good, with an appropriate sense of heft at highway speeds and lightness while pulling out of parking spots. The brakes are regenerative, meaning they recapture kinetic energy, but Lexus has made them feel confident and, well, normal.

The $1,100 premium audio package, with 10 speakers, made a pleasure of dawdling in traffic, and the leather seats are the most comfortable I’ve experienced since my all-time-favorite, the buckets in the BMW 7 Series.

Which is where things start unraveling. The interior is otherwise just not up to Lexus quality standards. Most of the dashboard and door siding are the hard plastic you’d find on any economy box -- making the lovely leather-wrapped steering wheel seem out of place.

The center console is overly busy, with a raft of buttons, dials and the small drive selector. The mouse-like controller that operates the navigation system looks like it was glued onto the console.

The navigation screen itself is small with fuzzy graphics. Systems on the latest Kia and Hyundai models are nicer -- and many of those cars are less expensive. Bringing us to the gas mileage. Hyundai has four models that are getting 40 mpg, only one of which is a hybrid.

The CT’s rear seats are tiny and the luggage space scant. I wouldn’t dare invite three friends on a long drive for fear of whining.

On Manhattan streets, though, I’d ditch the Mini Cooper for this ultimate urban runabout.

The 2011 Lexus CT 200h At a Glance

Engine: 1.8-liter four-cylinder and electric drive motor

with combined 134 horsepower.

Transmission: Continuously variable.

Speed: 0 to 60 mph in 9.8 seconds.

Gas mileage per gallon: 43 city; 40 highway.

Price as tested: $36,725.

Best feature: Surprise! It’s sporty.

Worst feature: Short on Lexus luxury; big on plastic.

Target buyer: The urbanite who needs a runabout.

Peugeot to bring hybrid car to China

Peugeot to bring hybrid car to China

Keep your eyes on this year’s Shanghai Motor Show, where Peugeot will offer the world premiere of a petrol hybrid concept crossover.

The vehicle was developed by the China Tech Centre in Shanghai and will sit alongside the launch of a new Peugeot 508 for the Chinese market. Peugeot is aiming to introduce at least one new model per year in China over the coming years as it looks to rubber-stamp its presence in the country.

According to Peugeot, the launch of the 508 in the Chinese market is important for a number of reasons.
Firstly, one in every two 508 saloon cars will be manufactured and sold in China for a provisional sales volume of 65,000 units in the country over a full year; and secondly, it contributes to Peugeot’s global strategy of enhancing both its model range and quality after launching the Peugeot 3008 in the country and delivering the Peugeot RCZ on May 20.

Now Peugeot has set an ambitious goal of selling 200,000 cars in China this year.

Some Facts About Hybrid Cars In The Early Twenty-First Century

You would almost certainly be surprised to hear that hybrid cars have been with us since the very earliest days of automotive history, but you will not be astonished to be told that the technology has come on in leaps and bounds for the last ten years. In fact, the technology in hybrid cars has reached the level where fuel consumption in a hybrid can be half that of in a conventional internal combustion engine only car.

Half or even less than half under some circumstances like driving in town, especially in heavy traffic. In fact, while a hybrid is either cruising on electric or stopping and starting in thick traffic, there will be no consumption of petrol or diesel whatsoever, which means that you are driving ‘without cost’.
I put without cost in parentheses because a hybrid vehicle is still considerably dearer than a car with a traditional engine. However, even given the added price of a hybrid vehicle, you can save that excess cost over the average life time of the vehicle because of the saving on fuel. Obviously, the higher the cost of fuel, the sooner you will recover your extra initial outlay on the cost of the hybrid.

Perhaps you are thinking that hybrid vehicle manufacturers are profiteering on the backs of car drivers who would like to do their bit for the environment. Well, you would not be alone in thinking that, yet the cost of developing hybrid technology was and still is costly and someone has to account it.
That is you and me, the end-users. Well, that is standard, but in some countries, the government has stepped in to subsidize individuals who purchase a hybrid vehicle, because governments all over the world are under an oath to reduce their country’s carbon footprint.
That means that now is as good a time as any to buy a hybrid vehicle.
There are other reasons why a hybrid is costly though. The hybrid actually has two engines. A hybrid has a traditional engine run on traditional fuels, yet it also has an electric engine which runs off costly batteries. It is not that you have to replace the batteries as with a radio. The batteries are costly because they are very heavy duty rechargeable units.
The technology for recharging these batteries is also ground-breaking. The car uses traditional alternators to recharge them but it also uses braking power to recharge them too. Not just that but the car’s on board computer switches between the two motors automatically, depending on the quantity of power that is needed by the driver.
Keep an eye on the hybrid car market because prices are declining and together with subsidies, the time to buy a hybrid car might come sooner than you imagine.

Honda recalls 37,000 Civic Hybrid cars in US

Honda recalls 37,000 Civic Hybrid cars in US

In the latest defect recall to hit Japanese automakers, Honda said Thursday it will recall nearly 37,000 Civic Hybrids in the United States.Honda said a faulty converter in the hybrid control system could lead to the engine stalling and malfunction of the headlights.
No injuries or accidents have been reported in relation to the problem, which affects 2006 and 2007 models.
It comes two weeks after Honda said it was recalling nearly 700,000 vehicles worldwide due to defective parts that could stall the engine and cause problems restarting in certain models.
Honda has now recalled more than four million vehicles since February 2010 over a range of different issues, while Nissan has pulled around 3.5 million in the same period.
Toyota became mired in crisis when it recalled nearly nine million vehicles between late 2009 and February last year due to brake and accelerator defects linked to deadly accidents that tarnished its image of reliability.
As criticism mounted of its slow response and bureaucratic inflexibility, Toyota tightened its recall policy and has pulled around 16 million units since late 2009 over a range of issues.

'Air hybrid' cars would be cheaper than electric hybrids, claims researcher

Storing energy as compressed air rather than in batteries would reduce the cost of green hybrid cars, say researchers in Sweden

 

Electric cars and electric hybrid cars already make use of brake energy to power a generator that charges the batteries. However, according to Per Tunestål, a researcher in Combustion Engines at Lund University in Sweden, air hybrids, or pneumatic hybrids as they are also known, would be much cheaper to manufacture.
"The technology is fully realistic. I was recently contacted by a vehicle manufacturer in India which wanted to start making air hybrids," he says.
The technology is particularly attractive for jerky and slow driving, for example for buses in urban traffic.
"My simulations show that buses in cities could reduce their fuel consumption by 60%," says Sasa Trajkovic, a doctoral student in Combustion Engines at Lund University who recently defended a thesis on the subject.
Trajkovic also calculated that 48% of the brake energy, which is compressed and saved in a small air tank connected to the engine, could be reused later. This means that the degree of reuse for air hybrids could match that of today's electric hybrids. The engine does not require any expensive materials and is therefore cheap to manufacture. It also takes up much less space than an electric hybrid engine. The method works with petrol, natural gas and diesel.
The idea of air hybrids was initially hit upon by Ford in the 1990s, but the American car company quickly shelved the plans because it lacked the necessary technology to move forward with the project. Today, research on air hybrids is conducted at ETH in Switzerland, Orléans in France and Lund University in Sweden. One company that intends to invest in engines with air hybrid technology is the American Scuderi. However, their only results so far have been from simulations, not from experiments.
"This is the first time anyone has done experiments in an actual engine," says Trajkovic. "The research so far has only been theoretical. In addition, we have used data that means we get credible driving cycle results, for example data from the driving patterns of buses in New York."
The researchers in Lund hope that the next step will be to convert their research results from a single cylinder to a complete, multi-cylinder engine. They would thus be able to move the concept one step closer to a real vehicle.

Hybrid Cars are Charging their Batteries for Another Big Jump

As many of us have seen in recent weeks, the price of gasoline has continued to rise. Reminders of the 2007 crisis are popping up across the United States. Wednesday February 23, 2011 marked the first time the price of oil hit $100 dollars a barrel since 2008. This upsurge in price is largely due to civil unrest in the home country of the United States’ main oil contract with Nymex, based in Libya.
The rise in Nymex futures disrupts a gasoline market that had somewhat stabilized since the dramatic days of $5 a gallon. A positive result of past high gas prices was that many people made the switch to alternative energy vehicles. However, since the prices have decreased and stabilized, it seems that most are feeling comfortable staying with their current gas-guzzler. The return of higher gas prices may yield a shift back to energy conscious vehicles.

Since their introduction into the market, hybrid vehicle sales have showed a strong correlation to the price of gas. In early 2007 when gas prices reached over $3 a barrel, hybrid sales saw a dramatic increase as well. This increase continued until gas prices began drop in 2008. Finally, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), in 2009 the average price per gallon was $2.35 in 2009.

As gas prices fell so did the sale of Hybrid cars. According to Ward’s Automotive Yearbook, 2009 Hybrid sales were down close to 20% since their 2007 peak. These sales numbers, while still good, reflect a direct correlation to the prices of gasoline. That being said, it is also important to point out that the struggling economy, along with other factors influenced the sales of hybrids.

However, these are different economic times. The economy is recovering and gas prices are projected to continue to rise. The Energy Information Association (EIA) is projecting the price of WTI crude oil to average about $93 per barrel in 2011, which is $14 higher than last year. To put that into perspective, EIA’s 2011 per gallon projection averages around $3.15, 37 cents higher than 2010.

With the average in 2012 continuing its climb up to $3.20 cent per gallon and the economy on the upswing, it seems that Hybrids are poised for another surge.
Despite their efficiency, Hybrids are not the only alternative energy source vehicles on the market. Cars like the Chevy Volt, are utilizing technology to produce an incredibly cleaner automobile. In the coming years new models of electric cars will be introduced into the market and may even out-sell the hybrids.

We all know the environmental importance of these vehicles. Hybrid cars can reduce harmful emissions by 90% of a normal vehicle. Electric vehicles reduce harmful emissions by 100%. Not only will this help the environment, but also it will help reduce our nations dependence on foreign oil. As gas prices rise, whether you are trying to save the planet or save some money, alternative energy vehicles are here to stay.

 

BMW launches new electric/hybrid brand

BMW launches new electric/hybrid brand
The German luxury carmaker BMW unveiled on Monday its long-awaited new brand, BMW i, with two new models to be equipped with electric and hybrid drive systems from 2013.
The group is also creating a venture capital unit to offer mobility services such as car sharing and navigation systems.
"This is BMW i - Born Electric," a statement quoted sales director Ian Robertson as saying as the group presented the BMW i3 electric car for city use and the BMW i8 plug-in hybrid for those seeking a more powerful vehicle.
The group added that it had created a New York-based venture capital unit to "significantly expand its range of mobility services over the years ahead," with an initial investment that is to total $100 million (73 million euros).
The vehicles are to be built at BMW's plant in Leipzig, eastern Germany, which will benefit from an investment of 400 million euros and create 800 jobs, the statement said.
Auto analysts said the company announced little that was completely new, but were interested in BMW's marketing strategy and the combination of an electric powertrain, aluminum chassis and carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) body.
BMW said in November that it would invest more than 500 million euros with a new partner, SGL Carbon, to launch the lightweight i3 city car.
"The decisive point will be the price," which was not revealed, said auto expert Stefan Bratzel from the University of Applied Sciences in Bergisch Gladbach, western Germany.
"If it is too expensive it won't be a big success I would say," he told AFP.
BMW i Ventures will work with the mobile telephone application My City Way meanwhile to provide services such as car-sharing, route planning and local information like the location of parking places.
"Mobility requirements are changing in rapidly expanding megacities," Robertson explained.
The initial roll-out is planned for 40 US cities and 40 others worldwide, including BMW's home of Munich, southern Germany.
Christophe Stuermer at IHS Global Insight called this "the big field of experimenting and guesswork that the auto industry is working on at the moment."
He also noted that "there seems to be a strategy behind the fact that they (BMW) are making the sub-brand so weak, a single letter."
"They want to set it apart just a little bit," but "at the same time, will make sure that the BMW umbrella brand is always mentioned," Stuermer noted.
BMW already has a premium line of small cars in its Mini brand, and the IHS analyst said the new brand will "certainly be a challenge communications-wise for the Mini people," who could well incorporate electric systems in the future.
BMW will face a lot of competition with experience in the electric and hybrid car market, as Nissan of Japan is set to introduce its Leaf model in December.
Nissan's French partner Renault is to sell the Zoe version from mid-2012, while Peugeot-Citroen are betting clients will go for a long-term rental scheme offered with their Ion and C-Zero models.
Daimler plans to launch an electric Smart ForTwo car in Europe early next year and is working with the Chinese company Build Your Dreams (BYD) on a concept for the Chinese market.
VW, the biggest European carmaker is gearing up for the launch of an electric Golf and is also working on several hybrid models.
Chevrolet's Volt model is already on the road, as is the Toyota Prius, the first widely distributed hybrid vehicle.