Shirl

Thanks Dave. Though, I'm not sure why a hybrid Lexus is being compared to a Cadillac CTS. Here are some comparison pics:

Would you rather sit in this:



Or THIS:

Shirl

Would you rather drive this:



Or THIS:

Dave68

Shirl,

You might want to read this:

http://lexusenthusiast.com/2012/04/2...infiniti-m35h/

I understand fuel mileage isn't everything (The GS averaged 35 MPG on one loop near mount Palomar) but the GS450's handling surprised everyone at MT - not as track-worthy as the $110,000 Porsche, but superior to GS cars of old. And as you can see from your photo, its massive NAV screen is controlled with a space mouse of sorts - much better than reaching up to touch the screen, which tends to be distracting while driving.
I agree that its interior is bit more plain but the seats are extremely comfortable and that fuel mileage - just dang!

LDB

Hybrid mileage is one of the great myths out there. The true mileage difference for a hybrid of equal acceleration and vehicle carrying capacity is about 15%. If a hybrid has a greater mileage advantage than that, you can be absolutely confident that it has some combination of less performance or less room. And to get that 15% added mileage, you have complexity and the environmental hazard of batteries. Furthermore, they are not economically competitive unless you give them tax credits and/or unless the car company uses them as a loss leader, building them at low or zero profit in order to get good PR. Hybrids are not the answer. I am not being critical of anyone who buys a hybrid. It can be a “statement” car, or if there are enough tax incentives or loss leader behavior by the selling company, it can even make economic sense to an individual owner. But they make no sense as something that could be produced as the mainline type of cars coming off the assembly lines of the world. They are strictly niche vehicles. The technology is not sufficiently advantaged for them to be “the answer”.

Dave68

I think the sales volume of Prius destroys that theory! Many folks have owned their Prius vehicles for more than 200,000 miles with NO battery change at all. Besides, NiMH batteries are readily recycled and are cost-efficient compared to Lithium batteries.

If you doubt the mileage posted in the article, take a look at other magazine comparison tests. The Lexus Ct200h averages 42 MPG in city/highway driving. The Germans have tried beating these numbers with turbo-diesels but to no avail, especially when you consideroverall cost of ownership and the difference in cost between diesel fuel and regular unleaded, which is what many hybrids can use.

Many hybrids also require less operating costs, such as brake pad replacement and smog tests (hybrids are exempt).

All-electric cars like the Nissan leaf have a way to go before they are anywhere near mainstream but hybrids like the Prius are already there. Take a look around you when in heavy traffic or anywhere near a big city. I think you'll see firsthand what I mean.

68ragtop69

I would go and look at other dealers! You can find them out there. I purchased my 2009 V from a dealer that always seems to have at least 3-5 V's on the lot and he moves them!! As for as deciding between the V or the CTS-4...well that is just a matter of whether you want a performance luxury car or just an AWD luxury car.

Have you test drove either car? I made the mistake of test driving my V; I was hooked as soon as I got on the highway and the salesman told me accelerate!! lol

LDB

I’ll stand by my comments. Toyota is right there with GM as the biggest car company in the world. While there are many Prius’s on the road, they are only a tiny fraction of Toyota sales. If Toyota only sold Prius’s, they would have to be much more expensive. As far as mileage, sure, lot’s of hybrids get good mileage. But all cars are trade offs among performance, carrying capacity, and mileage. My statement was that for cars of equal performance and carrying capacity, the hybrid mileage advantage is about 15%. If you are comparing a hybrid to a non-hybrid, and the mileage difference is greater than 15%, then the hybrid will have some combination of poorer performance or less carrying capacity. Just think about where the energy savings comes from. There’s a smidgen from regenerative braking, and there’s another smidgen from the fact that the engine is smaller because it can be paralleled by the electric motor for acceleration, and those two things are what give the 15% after deducting for the added weight of battery and electric motor. It’s not as though there’s a magic gnome under the hood. It’s simply putting a whole lot of complexity into the car to get a modest mileage boost.

Dave68

Okay, let's compare a 4 cyl Toyota Camry with a Camry Hybrid, both being LE models with auto trannies.

Camry LE: 28 MPG average
Camry Hybrid LE: 41 MPG average
Increase in fuel mileage for the hybrid: 46.4%

Now let's figure out payback. The hybrid costs about $3000 more than the non-hybrid but the non-hybrid costs about $600 more per year in fuel costs (based upon 12,000 miles). So in 5 years, the average owner will break even. Most new car owners keep their cars for an average of 6 years and henceforth, the wise choice is obvious.

I'm not sure where you get your 15% but even our RX400h hybrid gets at least 30% better gas mileage than the RX330 or RX350 under similar driving conditions.
And there is no loss of space that I'm aware of.

Many, if not all of the German vehicle manufacturers scoffed at hybrids, saying they would never catch on and that diesels are superior, etc, etc. Fast-forward just 5 years and almost every one of those naysayers have or are developing hybrids. I guess their "not invented here, so it can't be good" philosophy didn't pan out.

LDB

I’m going to do something I criticize others for doing, and cite a reference that I cannot find. I saw it at work before I retired, but don’t remember which journal, don’t have access to that library any more, and could not find it on Google. Since I can’t find it, it badly stretches, or perhaps in some eyes destroys my credibility. All I can say is look at the weight of my posts and I think you’ll see at least in a general sense that I do not spew a lot of BS. The article was one of the very few I’ve ever seen that critically addressed the question of the hybrid advantage. They addressed all the tricks that hybrids play in terms of lighter materials, smaller interiors or trunks to make room for the battery, special tires with low rolling resistance but also poorer ride and cornering, less acceleration, and so forth. They tried to account for those differences as much as possible in a scientific fashion, and came up with the 15% conclusion. They also addressed the cost comparison, admitting that no outsiders positively knew the differences, but concluded that most builders were making them at essentially breakeven on the margin. That means the price charged covered the direct cost of building the car, but did not cover development cost, corporate overhead, or profit. They concluded that over the next 5-10 years (remember, this was about 3 years ago), quite a few companies would introduce hybrids as interim cars to join the bandwagon, and satisfy those demanding gas mileage to the exclusion of other considerations, but the high cost and limited true mileage advantage made it unlikely that they would still be on the scene in 10 years. By then, other, more efficient technologies will have taken over.

To whatever extent you believe the above, then it would apply to your Camry example as follows. If Toyota built all their cars as hybrids, they would have to charge several thousand dollars more per car. A second way of saying it would be that if they built a standard Camry with all the features of the hybrid, namely, less acceleration, smaller trunk, low rolling resistance tires, lighter more expensive materials, and so forth, its mileage would be within 15% of the hybrid’s, and while it wouldn’t cost more than the hybrid, it would cost more than today’s Camry.

As a final note, I’d ask you to think once again about the question of where you think the mileage advantage comes from. I’ll grant you regenerative braking, which adds a few percent (virtually none on the highway, but a nontrivial benefit in stop and go as long as you do gentle braking). I’ll also grant you about 10% for the fact that a smaller engine at wider throttle opening wastes less energy than a large engine at low throttle opening. But after those two things, there’s nothing left unless you want to start calling on the magic hybrid gnome that saves gas out of thin air.

LDB

While on the credibility topic, I should have admitted earlier that your post #33, saying CTSV was low 4000’s in weight, was correct. Way back in post #7, I had said CTSV was similar to other smooth and quiet, high performance cars like M5 and AMG in the upper 3’s on weight, with only the non-smooth-and-quiet M3 in the mid 3’s being lighter. M3 is actually upper mid 3’s, while M5, AMG, and CTSV are low 4’s. I wasn’t intentionally trying to mislead. The conclusion I stated about CTSV weight being similar to comparable smooth and quiet high performance cars was correct. I just had a brain freeze and mis-stated the numerical values of the weights.

C7-Beast

It did not buy my V for good gas mileage. My wife has a Honda Insight for that. I averaged 16 mpg over the first 8k miles. I drive it like a stole it but I don't do much city driving. On a long trip I was able to eek out 20 mpg but that was doing 65 for 5 hours.

Everything is a trade off. Poor gas mileage is minor to me in comparison to the pluses of the CTS-V.

Shirl

I agree which is why I have several cars for various uses/pleasure. The Vette (supercharged) is the fastest car in the family (does 10's), then there's my Eclipse commuter car, my Camaro convertible and my showcar, and now the CTS-4. (I need to sell a couple of these cars btw).

There isn't one car that can just "do it all". And that's the problem. It just doesn't work that way. So for now, a well-rounded car suits us well and can still be used in the winter if need be. The other issue I had with the V is that, I really don't know if the car was abused or not, being that it was used. It had some scratches on the lower driver's side door panel and cleaner marks on the polished wheels (someone used the wrong cleaner and it soaked through the clearcoat). BUT.. the sound upon startup was absolutely amazing with B&B's. What I'm thinking now, is maybe down the road, I will consider a ZL1 with a similar exhaust setup But... there is really nothing out there at the moment that I'm crazy over. That V was almost 60 grand used with 13,xxx miles btw.

Bucknut2006

If you can't afford the gas, tires and maintenance on a Corvette or V, then you are in the wrong car. For the vast majority of the owners, we are not overly concerned with gas mileage and are affluent enough to not be affected. I was more concerned with how much it would cost me to replace the LSA once I start adding power. A $17k engine will buy you a lot of tanks of gas.

Dave68

Apples and Oranges

What you should say is if you can afford a NEW CTS-V, you are less likely to be concerned about fuel costs. There are MANY C5 owners out there who live in apartments and are anything but affluent. Luckily, the C5 weighs in at over 1000 lbs LESS than a CTS-V, making the C5, let's say decent as far as efficiency goes.
The CTS-V is somewhat like a Hummer H2: It can go anywhere it wants and its owners who bought one new can afford the 11 MPG it gets but what's the point? Really, the point is called "bragging rights". It's like packing 6 grenades and a couple of heat-seaking missles in a backpack wherever you go. They surely will build up your leg muscles and you'll consume more food to keep them strong but why? ,,,,because you just may be able to use that "power" some day. Wastefull? Most folks would say so, but if you can afford it.......

Guibo

While I like the CTS interior, I think the GS interior is nicer. It is spartan/plain in line, but that is the point. In the details, the Lexus's smooth-grain vinyl dash looks better than that pebble-grained vinyl that Cadillac uses. And here it is no contest:







If every Toyota/Lexus were a hybrid version, it would still cost more than the equivalent gas-only version, but not by so much since you'd be able to amortize R&D costs over many more units being sold. There's the purchasing power of volume to consider.
Beside the point of breaking even financially, all of those cars would be emitting less pollution, while also reducing the need for oil. Might not be a huge amount in the grand scheme of things, but every little bit helps.
A next-generation CTS-V with hybrid drive, stop-start, direct injection, etc, with available 6-speed manual would be sick...