On 21/12/11 12:49, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

Only a small part of London is covered by the congestion charge. And
parking within that is likely to be impossible or cost even more than the
CC. So the only sensible way to get there is by PT.

Their emissions are far less than the poisoning crap we now have.

I take it you haven't looked at the vast range of cars in the same tax
band based on emissions?

The majority are smaller in size and in power.



The
low noise levels alone are worth.

But what a horrible noise it does make from that weedy engine straining at
every pore...


Um it's a 1.8L engine. Sounds the same as pretty much any other 1.8L engine
(if anything it's quieter as the ECU limits the RPM to something like 5500).
It will do 0-60 in a bit over 10 seconds, the same as any other bog standard
car of about the same size & same size engine.

On motorway driving you won't beat a good diesel car for mpg. For mixed
driving, well it depends on the ratio of how much high speed/low speed
driving you do. In the Toyota system, even at high speed it's possible to be
running on electric power alone - the choice of power source is related more
to how hard the accelerator is pressed rather than how fast the car is going.
And the system will use the electric motor, petrol engine or both as it sees
fit, to power the 2 front wheels.

Peugeot's new diesel hybrids are wonderfully simple. It's basically a 4WD
vehicle, where the front wheels are driven by the regular stop-start diesel
engine, and the rear wheels are driven by motor-generators.

But the Prius is really intended for the US market, although it's sold
everywhere. Americans just don't buy diesel cars in any great numbers, they
don't like them. In the UK, the main use of the latest Prius is as a company
car. They are popular because the tax benefits are huge compared to regular
petrol or diesel cars, and you get a lot of kit included in the price (cruise
control, reversing camera, sat nav etc). I don't think most of those drivers
give two hoots about the green credentials (but they might find the higher
than average MPG a bonus).