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Prince Charles buys a Prius

Prince Charles buys a Prius

Posted Jul 19th 2005 10:00AM

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desirable toyota prius TCC is reporting that the Prince of Wales has purchased a Prius, adding it to his extensive collection of automobiles. Unfortunately the official website of Prince Charles doesn't have a gallery devoted to his garage (bonus points to whoever can find a list of his vehicles), so we don't know how cool his collection actually is. What's up with that? The Prius, however, is exempt from expensive city road tolls in London due to its status as a green vehicle, so at least the Prince can save a few pounds on his way to work in the morning. A Royal purchasing a Prius, however, seems more like a PR move than a genuine green gesture. He's still not as cool as his mum who's kicking it with an iPod now.

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Charlie

I just came by to see if anyone has a list of Charles's cars, but instead hit a wall of ignorance and prejudice. Most importantly, it shows how Americans are ignorant of anything outside their own country. First of all, different engine technologies have different features. Don't defend one like it's going to save the world from global warming. Hybrid is a promising technology and is still in its relative youth. Honda has been offering hybrid car in Japan for almost 10 years now, and I'm yet to hear about massive battery failures. Diesel engines work really well in cities. Modern diesel engines are clean, efficient and have tons of torque. I've driven some very new diesel cars from VW and BMW, and they are fantastic for city and relaxed driving, which is what most people do. I still went for a petrol Audi with 2.0 FSI engine for my new car because I do a lot of driving on country back roads and like to rev my engine. But if I lived in a big city I'd definitely choose diesel. Air is cleaner in Europe because they have cars with sensibly sized engines, be they gas or desiel. Per area Houston definitely doesn't have the most dense car population in NA, let alone the world. Go to Europe and have a look for Pete's sake. Engine technologies (DOHC, FSI, valve-timing) used in entry-level European cars are light years ahead of GM and Ford, too. Don't even get me started on suspension and handling. Everytime I go to the US and had to rent crappy American cars I got reminded of my first car (1990), a VW Jetta. It runs circles around any American sedans I've driven. Americans can greatly benefit if they stop watching crappy TV shows and go visit some other countries. Now, does anyone know anything about Charles's car collections?

July 19 2005 at 11:07 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Charles S

"Their air is cleaner than the US!! How does this happen?" If I have to guess, it's probably because there are less cars. If there are as many cars and trucks in Houston as there are in ONE city in Europe, I can guarentee you the air there will be worse. Another guess? They have way more fuel efficient cars than we do, and probably use a lot less gas than we do. Less fuel used means less pollution. I'm just guessing, but there is no "free lunch" as AutoBlog says.

July 19 2005 at 9:06 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

iQuack

The Prius is a nicely designed car, but certainly doesn't fit Prince Charles' image. The reason royalty exists is to retain a connection with England's classier past. The prince shouldn't be seen entering or exiting anything but a Rolls Royce. If he must have a Prius, he should drive it at night when nobody can see him.

July 19 2005 at 4:37 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Autoguy

Yet somehow europeans use more diesels, and guess what! Their air is cleaner than the US!! How does this happen? They use a cleaner diesel than we do. Read the Daimler Chrysler diesel post on this website for more info.

July 19 2005 at 4:26 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Charles S

Hey, J: No problem. I haven't visited the site for awhile, so I hope he is still around. Getting the extra umph to the Insight is nice, but for me, I'd like to see the next gen Insight with even higher mileage numbers. Of course, it's probably just wishful thinking. In a world where trucks and SUVs are valued more, a new Insight just isn't a priority for Honda. Too bad.

July 19 2005 at 3:42 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

ultraF1

Diesel fumes make me nauseous. I cringe whenever I see diesel's disgusting blue smoke and I can say with certainty that there are a lot of folks out there that feel the same way.

July 19 2005 at 3:26 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

"Ah, so easy to make wild conjectures about hybrids, but too bad got no logic to back it up. Please do a little research before making silly comments that have no facts nor logic behind it." I agree. I still don't understand why people hate new technology as much as they do. It is called supply and demand; if you don't demand them, they will not supply them. However, people do demand these cars/trucks and IMO as long as the competition for oil increases people will continue to demand hybrids. Even if these first gen hybrids have some flaws, research and development will continue, and hybrids will improve, just as the IC engine has come a long way since its introduction. I don't personally have a desire to own a hybrid just yet, however, I applaud these companies for thinking outside the box and offering alternatives. Also Charles S thanks for the link to the turbo insight a few articles back.

July 19 2005 at 3:07 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

JBains

To #12 "NOBODY knows the history of hybrids" WRONG!!! Hybrids have been around since 1997 which would make it what, 8 years old now. With your definition of a "recall", would you not conclude that we would have heard about problems from the first batch of 18,000 such vehicles sold in 1997 by now? I doubt you would, given your nonsensical, emotionally-biased, devoid-of-any-logic notion of hybrid technology. You should be driving a horse carriage (or a GM same diff).

July 19 2005 at 3:03 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

rc51

FYI Oski, Diesels suck! While some diesel vehicles get high fuel mileage, it's important to look at emissions when considering a vehicle's impact on the environment. The best diesels on US roads today are allowed more than 17 times more smog-formning emissions than Prius and they emit fine particulates identified by air quality regulators as cancer-causing. Diesel cars are not available for sale in California, New York, Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts because they do not comply with even the most lenient emissions requirements in those states. Hybrids can achieve outstanding mileage and have far less emissions at the same time. As far as the battery issue goes. Look up the facts. The Prius battery (and the battery-power management system) has been designed to maximize battery life. In part this is done by keeping the battery at an optimum charge level - never fully draining it and never fully recharging it. As a result, the Prius battery leads a pretty easy life. We have lab data showing the equivalent of 180,000 miles with no deterioration and expect it to last the life of the vehicle. We also expect battery technology to continue to improve: the second-generation model battery is 15% smaller, 25% lighter, and has 35% more specific power than the first. This is true of price as well. Between the 2003 and 2004 models, service battery costs came down 36% and we expect them to continue to drop so that by the time replacements may be needed it won't be a much of an issue. Since the car went on sale in 2000, Toyota has not replaced a single battery for wear and tear. Is there a recycling plan in place for nickel-metal hydride batteries? Toyota has a comprehensive battery recycling program in place and has been recycling nickel-metal hydride batteries since the RAV4 Electric Vehicle was introduced in 1998. Every part of the battery, from the precious metals to the plastic, plates, steel case and the wiring, is recycled. To ensure that batteries come back to Toyota, each battery has a phone number on it to call for recycling information and dealers are paid a $200 "bounty" for each battery.

July 19 2005 at 3:02 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Charles S

"You'll recall (or perhaps not) that only a "handful" of Firestone tires were defective on teh Explorer and a "handful" of Audis were experiencing engine fires when those were recalled. " Yes, I do remember about the Ford/Firestone incident. The fact that you stated it's a tire issue, I think you have forgotten that Firestone first try to place the blame on Ford, saying that Explorer design was at fault. Lucky for Ford, Firestone back down and now we all can remember the incident as the fault of the tires. All that, of course, is beside the point. There are other problems about all kinds of vehicles around the net, including Autoblog's own post about F-150 able to cause fire. Did you take time to go around posting, warning people about the dangers of a Ford? If Prince Charles bought a Jag, would you take the time to tell everyone that because it's a Ford Affiliate, maybe he should be careful? People who have a bias agenda against hybrids will take the time to spread the negative news about the Prius. Keep on repeating it like a zombie, but like all the hudreds of recalls from all the manufacturers, it's falling on deaf ears anyways. "Secondly, NOBODY (and that includes you and Toyota, for that matter) is remotely certain what will happen with hybrid batteries down the road. Does anyone know the durability of such a new technology over a span of 10 years? Of course not. It's nobody's fault. It's just an unknown." Are you aware that hybrids been around for 7 years now? In your first post you say that the batteries will die in 5 years. Do you have data to back that up? I have a hybrid for 4 years now, not a single problem. If you have some proof that my batteries will die in 5 years, I certainly would like to know. Do any of the hybrid-haters out there know why Toyota and Honda can guarentee that the batteries will last at least 8 years? If you think it's just a gimmick, then it'd be an expensive one for Toyota, cause there are at least 10,000 hybrids that are over 5 years old out there. If people want to say that hybrids batteries will die quickly, I'd like some data to back that up. I want the owner's name, the website, whatever. If you can find me one or two, great! But if you can't find me more than 100, which is out of the a quarter of a million hybrid out there, then you hybrid-haters are just making it all up.

July 19 2005 at 2:49 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply