I think a lot of it is explained by the HCHII being brand new, current, and GH has a lot of members now to talk about it. The Prius has not changed since GH was born (or right after?)- there were but a handful of members back then to gab about it.

Although, IIRC, the HCH forum was always the hottest even before the HCHII came out. Hmm.

Weird, isn't it? One of the other mods pointed this out a few months ago, I was amazed when I went and looked at the numbers.

Well, gonavy and lakedude, you 2 have over 10% of the posts.
Do you contribute at all to the Prius side?
I wonder what the average poster contributes to each of the forums.
I think we just have a few SUPER moderator-contributers!

Steve

STOP terrorism - Drive a HYBRID

Vehicles:
350 miles a week ------------ 2006 HCH II, Magnetic Pearl, w/NAVI (born on May 25, 2006)
350 miles a month ---------- 2003 Mazda Tribute ES-V6
350 miles a year (for now) - 1986 Mercedes 560SL

They have both made appreciated contributions to the Prius forums from time.

With rare exceptions, I don't visit the non-Prius, vehicle specific forums because I don't have empirical data to contribute. I don't own, drive or maintain the other vehicles so I'm loath to speculate about them.

Hybrid electrics have different architectures and even between the NHW11 and NHW20 Prius, there are areas I've never been. But when a question shows up in a general area about statistical analysis of data, I may have something useful to contribute.

Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.

I do. I tend to post in the forums I'm most interested in. Right now that would be (of the specific vehicle forums) HCH, Prius, TCH and Insight. I could never afford any of the fancy trucks so I don't even look in those sections unless there is trouble.

Do a lot of Prius owners do their posting primarily at other Prius forums? There seem to be at least a few websites focused on the Prius. However, upon checking them out, I didn't notice a mileage database. Are they using this site for the mileage database and others for their posting?

As for the HCHs, this seems to be the most popular and useful forum (at least to me).

You might be on to something there Mr Kite!

You know, this data would probably show some interesting statistics if you look at it in other ways.

For example, if you actually did comparison of data based on cohorting (setting analytical start-end points based on commonality) over time dimension where time is represented in <start point + x days/miles> you might be able to tell whether there is truly something in the numbers with regards to new drivers of hybrids, or new hybrid cars that are 'breaking in.'

Just a thought. When I get back from being on the road, I would be glad to contribute if someone were willing to send me the full dataset.

+ Craig

It depends upon the subject:

GreenHybrid.com - in addition to the mileage database, it has excellent tracking of hybrid-electric and related technology. It is also a place for advocacy, within limits.

priuschat.com - tends to have more technical but not much depth . . . opinionated experts comes to mind but not in a bad sense. Just they're not quite as rigiorous in their technical representations as I'd like.

Prius Technical Stuff - and associated Yahoo Groups has the SAE papers and engineering postings. It tends to have original technical content specific to Prius.

I noticed a some HCH folks over at CleanMPG.com but I'm not following HCH technology closely. I've had my 03 Prius for nine months and it has:

• a 1 kW inverter
• synthetic transaxle ATF oil
• a vent pipe to the air cleaner instead of the vent plug
• a Cat-5 cable from the engine compartment to the cabin
• a thermister mounted in the transaxle drain plug
• a trailer hitch
• later tonight, trailer lights
• a "nap board" that can swap with the passenger seat
• XM radio
• pressure sensor tire caps
• Acme, Inc. high mileage magnet demo

The details are at http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/

Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.

Gumby does bring up a point- GH is still pretty smallish and a few of us do have an outsized impact. Similarly to bwilson, I tend to stick with the systems I know- IMA, in this case. There are few of us in the HAH world, and most HAH drivers seem happy with what they have, so that leaves the HCH forum to wander through. I peruse the Prius, FEH, and TCH but only contribute when the topic is not specifically about the vehicle itself, and the other places I hit up only to head off troubles.

I think the bulk of my posts aren't even about hybrids specifically, and more about debunking physics/chemistry/engineering and emissions/fuels misperceptions.