"Tony Williams" wrote in message
...
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:

What a shame that a serious interesting thread has to degenerate
into a silly slanging match;--(...............

Yes.

I saw my first Prius in our local town the other day.
It did a left turn up the hill just as I reached the
corner. It accelerated quite quickly, definitely not
a slug. Whether or not the Prius is successful is open
to debate, but it is technically interesting.

It "is" successful. It has been made now for 9 years. There is a waiting
list in some countries. They sell like hot cakes in central London the
congestion charge is waved for it, and free parking in many towns and
cities. They are making millions of them now. New plants in China and the
USA for each respective market are being built. Toyota are also working in
its successor. Citroen have announced a diesel hybrid. I don't know much
about it, in how it is confifured (Toyota have the best arrangement) but it
gets over 80mpg on "average". They exceeded the magic 3 litres per 100
kilometres consumption.
http://car.pege.org/2006-ever-monaco...-c4-hybrid.htm

They Prius is also brilliant to drive. A real fun car. They are highly
reliable as there is little to go wrong compared to other cars with auto
transmissions.