The Prius – A Screaming Teen Hot Rod or Hybrid for the Granola Crunching Crowd?

It was the vehicle, a Prius, not the movie star offender, that grabbed the lime gentle and experienced every person abuzz. Lately, Al Gore III, son of previous Vice President Al Gore, was arrested for possessing cannabis and dashing more than 100 mph on the San Diego Freeway in his Toyota Prius.

Ho hum yet another celebrity in problems with the legislation. What’s new? A hybrid caught dashing around 100 mph that is what.

Pace assessments have revealed that the new Prius can achieve speeds up 103 mph. When when compared with other Toyotas this kind of as a Camry which can go up to 130 mph, that is not as well quickly. Even the Hybrid Camry can go 117 mph.

On the other hand, the Prius is not the slowest motor vehicle on the highway both. Motor vehicle and Driver magazine complied figures which show that the AM Typical Hummer H1 has the top rated speed of only 88 mph.

The equalizer, however, is the pace governor that most American automobiles ought to have for legal responsibility explanations. The governor insures that a motor vehicle will not go way too speedy for its tires. While Pruis tops 103 mph, the governor boundaries equally the Prius and the Corolla to 112 mph.

There are several aspects that limit the Prius hybrid to 103 mph.

First, Toyota designed a aware final decision to restrict the Prius pace to 103 mph. Mike Michels, spokesman for Toyota, mentioned that the Prius hybrid is able of going even faster. But the vehicle is speed limited to 103 mph to stay clear of making use of up its battery.

He said that “It can go 103 mph indefinitely.” Until eventually the fuel runs out that is.

2nd, Toyota developed the Prius to be gas successful which potential customers to it acquiring fewer horsepower than a regular motor vehicle. A auto with less horsepower will not consume as substantially gas, but will also have significantly less velocity.

Hybrids you should not necessarily have to have significantly less horsepower. The fuel motor and electric motor of a hybrid can be put together to produce as a great deal horsepower as a conventional car. For case in point, the conventional, 4-cylinder Toyota Camry has 158 horsepower. Whilst the four-cylinder, Hybrid Camry has 187 horsepower. So, not all hybrid are created for gasoline efficiency.

But, how can the Hybrid Prius achieve 103 mph?

Serveral variables appear into perform. Initially, automotive technological innovation has raised the pace restrict for all vehicles in standard. Russ Rader, spokesman for Insurance policy Institute for Highway Basic safety, reported that if he tried out to go 100 mph in his 1983 Oldsmobile Delta 88, “It would probably shakes its bolts unfastened.”

Second, the globalized car or truck market has resulted in bigger driver anticipations that the Prius has to fulfill. Some European countries have no velocity restrict though the rest have better velocity limits than the US.

3rd, for Prius advocates, “Efficiency is just another way to spell overall performance.” In otherwords, Toyota optimized the Prius hybrid to have a high speed general performance. They realized this by aerodynamically coming up with the motor vehicle to have reduced drag, light-weight pounds, and have tires with very low rolling resistance which reduces the friction in between the rubber and the highway.

Michels states that the motor vehicle has every little thing that a hotrodder would like “from aero resistance to rolling resistance, cooling methods and the powertrain alone.”

Despite the fact that it is no help to Gore, his arrest has exhibit cased the Prius as a significant velocity vehicle to be reckoned with. A poster on Priuschat.com wrote “At the very least the bashers can’t say the motor vehicle is pokey or sluggish.”