[Quietcars] Preliminary 2007 Accident Analysis

[Robert Wilson]

Hi Mike,
. . .
> 
> I think that going back to the beginning, while providing a larger sample,
> will not necessarily provide accurate results.  We are now just getting to a
> stage where a large number of these vehicles are on the road.
The Prius hybrids are about 60% of all hybrids according to many industry observers. It is the single largest block and because there was never a non-hybrid Prius, it remains a unique code in the accident data. The only alternative is the Honda Insight but its numbers are vanishingly small.
> So, have we gotten out of the pioneer driver stage?  
With the Prius, there have been a number of model years:
NHW10 - 1997-2000, sold only in JapanNHW11 - 2001-2003, with about 50,000 sold in the USANHW20 - 2004-2009, with about 500,000 sold in the USAZVH30 - 2010-, with the first sold on Sunday in the USA, more coming
The USA pioneer stage ended with the NHW11 in 2000-2001 as the most through engineering analysis date from that period and continued through 2003. But once the NHW20 arrived in 2004, the quantity of engineering seemed to slack off. Other than "plug-in" hybrids, and the Dept. of Energy analysis of the earliest NHW20s, we haven't seen the same "How does it work?" type of research, postings and studies.
> Is the complexion of
> hybrid and silent car drivers changing?
The never ending, increase in gas prices, $3/gallon when I bought mine in October 2005 and $4/gallon last year, pretty well wiped out any distinction about hybrid car owners. We're mostly fuel frugal and any assumptions or claims by others about hybrid owners should be taken with a big grain of salt. For example, the Prius has been the top rated car in "Consumer Reports" for the past five years and they are pretty mainstream. The last self-poll of "Republican" or "Democrat" showed a slight bias towards "Republican" in part because there was no option for "Independent." However, our hybrid forums are not filled with "green" advocacy campaigns. Assumptions about hybrid owners are likely to be wrong other than, perhaps, "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average." (thanks Garrison Keillor.)
Rather than take my point of view, I would recommend visiting if only to observe:http://www.priuschat.com/ - an important Prius advocacy sitehttp://www.myhybridcar.com/ - a mileage database sitehttp://www.greenhybrid.com/ - a former mileage database site, still has activity
There have been a long list of hybrid skeptics with the most recent being Rush Limbaugh, "nobody wants them," and George Will, "Toyota loses money on them." Before them, GM and the European diesel companies had tried to claim we were "greenies" who could be fooled by their 'greenwash'. So GM offered a number of "mild" hybrids that were useless and the European diesel companies continue to advocate for turbo-charged diesels. Recently Volkswagen announced 'auto-stop' to turn off the diesel when the vehicle is stopped. Regardless, these false claims have been met by the hybrid community with research, fact finding, and then a big yawn.
Bob Wilson
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