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cwerdna · 06-16-2006, 11:22 PM

Ok, besides the simple calculations that I mentioned earlier here are are some probs with the sheet and figures. In short, these calculations are TOTAL BS. Who knows where they got their numbers from? A lot of them seem way bogus even for non-hybrids.

- The worksheet is password protected. There's no way to see the formulas. They seem to have something to hide by preventing people from playing what if scenarios (by replacing their bogus figures w/more correct ones).
- Their estimated lifetime miles seems bogus. Where do they get these numbers from? Somehow these cars last that long:
Prius: 109K miles
Honda Civic Hybrid (HCH): 113K miles
Toyota Camry: 198K miles [seems believable, but look at some of the ones below]
Chevy Tahoe: 268K miles [huh?]
Ford Expedition: 284K miles [huh? It has an awful reliability rating in Consumer Reports]
Toyota Sequoia: lasts 175K miles [it has much better reliability than the Expedition, yet doesn't last as long]
Land Rover Discovery: 203K miles
Land Rover LR3: 222K miles [HUH? Both of these Land Rovers APPALLINGLY BAD reliability ratings]
VW Touraeg: 186K miles [also terrible reliability so far]
Hummer H2: 197K miles [do you really think an H2 owner even going thru a bunch of owners is going to make 197K miles? Not with it’s appalling gas mileage.]

- Where do they get their years of service #s from?
Prius: 11.92 years of service [too low]
HCH 9.55 years [too low]
Yukon: 21.17 years [this seems unlikely]

The Prius battery in for CA, ME, MA, NH, NJ, NY, RI and VT buyers w/CA emissions is warranted for 10 years/150K miles and 8 years/80K miles for everyone else.

Most of the hybrid components of the above states are covered under a 15 year/150K mile warranty. For those not in those states, the battery control module, hybrid control module, data link connector, ECU and cat are covered by an 8 year/80K warranty. The rest of the warranty is fairly complex (would take awhile to describe beyond the basic 3 yr/36K, 5 yr/60K on powertrain).

The lifetime mileage amounts I think account for the bulk of bizarre "cost/mile" numbers they arrived at. If all else were equal and somehow a car lasts 1/2 as long, it costs 2x as much per mile.

More probs:
Why would the owner of a gas guzzling SUV [rows 153-160] drive 13-14K miles a year while a fuel sipping car a Prius would go only 9K miles a year? Insight owners will only put on 8K miles/year. That makes no sense. I'm sure Ferrari owners put on 11K miles/year on their cars. LOL!

- It seems very unlikely that somehow a Prius that sells for $21K to ~$29K cost $43K to design/develop [~$29K] + manufacture [~$13K]. Why did the Lexus RX400h cost $47K to design and development while the Highlander Hybrid cost $21K to design/development? They have the same drivetrain and hybrid system! Here are some other seemingly bizarre figures:
Chevy Cobalt DD: $3572, manuf cost: $4128: seems somewhat reasonable except that GM loses an avg. of $2500 per vehicle made in North America http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll...06020346/1148]
Scion xB: DD $2121, manuf cost: $1947 [?!!?, it's made in Japan]
Chrysler Crossfire DD $4128, manuf cost $5391 [??? This car sells for a lot more and is made in Germany. Labor is NOT cheap there.]
Ford GT: DD: $9354, manuf. cost: $15690 [Seems WAY bogus for such a limited production car!]
Dodge Viper: DD $5529, manuf. cost $8687 [same comment as above]
Porsche Carrera GT: DD $19K, manuf. cost $18K [this is a VERY limited production car costs $440K to the consumer. How much do you think it shares w/other Porsches?]

- What are these dealer service numbers? Why is there such a disparity here since some Toyota dealers are Scion dealers too?
- Scrion xB: $1797
- Prius: $14377 [where does THIS money come from?]

- Fuel economy:
- Hummer H2: 16.9 mpg in years 1-5??? LOL! That’s WISHFUL thinking. considering it's EXEMPT from the EPA test because of a loophole for vehicles w/GWVR of >8500 lbs (http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/which_tested.shtml). http://trucks.about.com/od/2006truck...06_h2sut_5.htm got 8.6 mpg! http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/...ecs_price.html got 12 mpg.

- Trip lengths, why are the hybrids TOTALLY skewed towards short trips? Is it to make their gas mileage look worse from cold stars? Why is it that a Prius owner would drive 1-7 miles 63% of the time while the large SUV guys do that ~35% of the time? Soccer moms don’t go get groceries in an their huge SUVs?

- General repair/maintenance, where do these numbers come from?
Prius: $22K? [The Prius has an excellent reliability record and requires almost no more maintenance than an xB. I already mentioned the warranty. In fact, hybrids will likely go through a lot fewer brakes than a non-hybrid due to regenerative braking. I'm almost never on my friction brakes except during the ~10-0 mph where it transitions over to the friction brakes.]
Scion xB: $2.7K?
Ford Expedition: $18,033 [you mean to tell me that an Expedition w/a terrible reliability rating that somehow lasts 19 years will cost me less to maintain and repair than a Prius w/an excellent rating that somehow only lasts 12 years?]
Ferrari [unknown model] $23764.11 [so the Prius costs only $1K less to repair and maintain? Yeah right! Look through http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do...71/pageId=7545 from beginning to end at the probs they had. Their first service http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do...1/pageId=41097 cost them $1237! The oil alone for that was $200.]

- Lifetime accident repair, where do they get these numbers from?
Prius $15K
Scion xB: $1688 [why would a Prius need $15K of accident repairs on avg. and an xB only $1.7K?]
Lexus RX400h: $31K [why?]
Porsche Carrera GT: $14.9K [so somehow a $440K car needs less $ in accident repairs than a Prius? The GT is also supposed to last 186K miles. Haha.]
VW Phaeton: $47K [hmm…]

Energy cost TTL Lifetime resale: Who knows where they got these numbers from?

- Disposal costs. These seem like TOTAL BS for all vehicles!
Scion xB: Somehow, it costs $78K to dispose of it when it costs $1947 (?!?) to manufacture and $2121 to design/development?
Prius: Somehow is costs $325K to dispose of it when cost $13K to make?
Ford Escape Hybrid: This somehow costs $422K to dispose!
VW Phaeton: It somehow costs $2.5 MILLION to dispose of THAT!
Acura NSX: It costs $795K to dispose?
Nissan 350Z: Costs $312K to dispose…. Why is the NSX more than 2x?

Where does this disposal money come from? Given that almost ALL of their numbers seem to be so blatantly off, one can see where they got their conclusions.

Too bad, I didn't know about this XLS file till recently. It's a travesty that so many in the press blindly published their bogus conclusions. Even though I spent so much time looking through all this, I'm now sorta glad I did.

06-16-2006, 11:22 PM	#25
cwerdna Registered User Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: San Jose, CA Posts: 1,275 iTrader: (0)	what a crock! Ok, besides the simple calculations that I mentioned earlier here are are some probs with the sheet and figures. In short, these calculations are TOTAL BS. Who knows where they got their numbers from? A lot of them seem way bogus even for non-hybrids. - The worksheet is password protected. There's no way to see the formulas. They seem to have something to hide by preventing people from playing what if scenarios (by replacing their bogus figures w/more correct ones). - Their estimated lifetime miles seems bogus. Where do they get these numbers from? Somehow these cars last that long: Prius: 109K miles Honda Civic Hybrid (HCH): 113K miles Toyota Camry: 198K miles [seems believable, but look at some of the ones below] Chevy Tahoe: 268K miles [huh?] Ford Expedition: 284K miles [huh? It has an awful reliability rating in Consumer Reports] Toyota Sequoia: lasts 175K miles [it has much better reliability than the Expedition, yet doesn't last as long] Land Rover Discovery: 203K miles Land Rover LR3: 222K miles [HUH? Both of these Land Rovers APPALLINGLY BAD reliability ratings] VW Touraeg: 186K miles [also terrible reliability so far] Hummer H2: 197K miles [do you really think an H2 owner even going thru a bunch of owners is going to make 197K miles? Not with it’s appalling gas mileage.] - Where do they get their years of service #s from? Prius: 11.92 years of service [too low] HCH 9.55 years [too low] Yukon: 21.17 years [this seems unlikely] The Prius battery in for CA, ME, MA, NH, NJ, NY, RI and VT buyers w/CA emissions is warranted for 10 years/150K miles and 8 years/80K miles for everyone else. Most of the hybrid components of the above states are covered under a 15 year/150K mile warranty. For those not in those states, the battery control module, hybrid control module, data link connector, ECU and cat are covered by an 8 year/80K warranty. The rest of the warranty is fairly complex (would take awhile to describe beyond the basic 3 yr/36K, 5 yr/60K on powertrain). The lifetime mileage amounts I think account for the bulk of bizarre "cost/mile" numbers they arrived at. If all else were equal and somehow a car lasts 1/2 as long, it costs 2x as much per mile. More probs: Why would the owner of a gas guzzling SUV [rows 153-160] drive 13-14K miles a year while a fuel sipping car a Prius would go only 9K miles a year? Insight owners will only put on 8K miles/year. That makes no sense. I'm sure Ferrari owners put on 11K miles/year on their cars. LOL! - It seems very unlikely that somehow a Prius that sells for $21K to ~$29K cost $43K to design/develop [~$29K] + manufacture [~$13K]. Why did the Lexus RX400h cost $47K to design and development while the Highlander Hybrid cost $21K to design/development? They have the same drivetrain and hybrid system! Here are some other seemingly bizarre figures: Chevy Cobalt DD: $3572, manuf cost: $4128: seems somewhat reasonable except that GM loses an avg. of $2500 per vehicle made in North America http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll...06020346/1148] Scion xB: DD $2121, manuf cost: $1947 [?!!?, it's made in Japan] Chrysler Crossfire DD $4128, manuf cost $5391 [??? This car sells for a lot more and is made in Germany. Labor is NOT cheap there.] Ford GT: DD: $9354, manuf. cost: $15690 [Seems WAY bogus for such a limited production car!] Dodge Viper: DD $5529, manuf. cost $8687 [same comment as above] Porsche Carrera GT: DD $19K, manuf. cost $18K [this is a VERY limited production car costs $440K to the consumer. How much do you think it shares w/other Porsches?] - What are these dealer service numbers? Why is there such a disparity here since some Toyota dealers are Scion dealers too? - Scrion xB: $1797 - Prius: $14377 [where does THIS money come from?] - Fuel economy: - Hummer H2: 16.9 mpg in years 1-5??? LOL! That’s WISHFUL thinking. considering it's EXEMPT from the EPA test because of a loophole for vehicles w/GWVR of >8500 lbs (http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/which_tested.shtml). http://trucks.about.com/od/2006truck...06_h2sut_5.htm got 8.6 mpg! http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/...ecs_price.html got 12 mpg. - Trip lengths, why are the hybrids TOTALLY skewed towards short trips? Is it to make their gas mileage look worse from cold stars? Why is it that a Prius owner would drive 1-7 miles 63% of the time while the large SUV guys do that ~35% of the time? Soccer moms don’t go get groceries in an their huge SUVs? - General repair/maintenance, where do these numbers come from? Prius: $22K? [The Prius has an excellent reliability record and requires almost no more maintenance than an xB. I already mentioned the warranty. In fact, hybrids will likely go through a lot fewer brakes than a non-hybrid due to regenerative braking. I'm almost never on my friction brakes except during the ~10-0 mph where it transitions over to the friction brakes.] Scion xB: $2.7K? Ford Expedition: $18,033 [you mean to tell me that an Expedition w/a terrible reliability rating that somehow lasts 19 years will cost me less to maintain and repair than a Prius w/an excellent rating that somehow only lasts 12 years?] Ferrari [unknown model] $23764.11 [so the Prius costs only $1K less to repair and maintain? Yeah right! Look through http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do...71/pageId=7545 from beginning to end at the probs they had. Their first service http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do...1/pageId=41097 cost them $1237! The oil alone for that was $200.] - Lifetime accident repair, where do they get these numbers from? Prius $15K Scion xB: $1688 [why would a Prius need $15K of accident repairs on avg. and an xB only $1.7K?] Lexus RX400h: $31K [why?] Porsche Carrera GT: $14.9K [so somehow a $440K car needs less $ in accident repairs than a Prius? The GT is also supposed to last 186K miles. Haha.] VW Phaeton: $47K [hmm…] Energy cost TTL Lifetime resale: Who knows where they got these numbers from? - Disposal costs. These seem like TOTAL BS for all vehicles! Scion xB: Somehow, it costs $78K to dispose of it when it costs $1947 (?!?) to manufacture and $2121 to design/development? Prius: Somehow is costs $325K to dispose of it when cost $13K to make? Ford Escape Hybrid: This somehow costs $422K to dispose! VW Phaeton: It somehow costs $2.5 MILLION to dispose of THAT! Acura NSX: It costs $795K to dispose? Nissan 350Z: Costs $312K to dispose…. Why is the NSX more than 2x? Where does this disposal money come from? Given that almost ALL of their numbers seem to be so blatantly off, one can see where they got their conclusions. Too bad, I didn't know about this XLS file till recently. It's a travesty that so many in the press blindly published their bogus conclusions. Even though I spent so much time looking through all this, I'm now sorta glad I did. __________________ 04 DB 350Z Enthusiast 5AT; 06 white Toyota Prius package #7 Last edited by cwerdna : 06-16-2006 at 11:49 PM.