My own fault, but I had typed a nice detailed coherent introduction, and the board ate it (I took too long and I had to sign in again) so now I'm going to be quite brief since I don't have the patience to do that all over again

My parents got a 2001 Prius when they came around because they always wanted to get an EV because we live in a area that produces excess hydro electric power, so would be a suitably clean form of transportation... Unfortunately the Prius is not an EV but more like a wanna-be EV, well better that than... the opposite.

Recently my best friend was in a near-fatal (but near hostpital) accident in his 2003 Nissan Sentra, and so as he's recovering he's been considering what vehicle to replace his car with, and I (and his family) have convinced him to get a Prius, the decision made easier as the gas prices reach $1/L around here. The over $8000 difference in price between his Sentra and the Prius will soon be made up by the savings in fuel costs over the next few years, not to mention the (so far) very reliable track record the Prius has seen, short of the minor glitches that one would expect from a vehicle with so much technology.

My goal is to obtain a totally different Hybrid, one that actually uses AIR as a fuel, as well as electricity, and (in the near future) a model that will also run on gas for highway driving. They use the energy in a much more efficient manner, in the case of air at pressures of 350 bar (5000+psi) it is over 10x as efficient in it's use of the energy contained in that volume of compressed gas. info about them here: http://intdata.homeip.net/mdi.shtml In the meantime I drive a non-hybrid 1991 Mitsubishi (Plymouth Colt 100E) and even with it's little 1.5L is sucking down more gas than I would like http://intdata.homeip.net/gallery/carmods

With the introduction of a Prius to my friend we will see some interesting projects come about as he installs various audio, video and computer equipment into it. There are some photos of his other cars' computer installs:

Chrysler K Car: http://thiscar.doesntexist.com

Nissan Sentra SE-R: http://www.ed2k.dyndns.info/BB/viewtopic.php?t=5

 

Welcome to GreenHybrid! It's a good idea to copy your text if you ever type something long. Air as fuel, eh? That's a concept we don't hear of every day...

 

I believe slashdot (http://www.slashdot.com) referenced an article today about such an idea.

As for recomending a prius. I'm not sure I would go that route. I believe the civic has a better safety record, and since it uses basicly standard civic parts, adding electronics to it is pretty easy.

What do you Prius owners think? I don't have any experience with car/audio or computer installs in a prius. Am I right in what I'm saying?

If the goal was better milage I'd say prius all the way. But in this case I think the civic fits the requirements better.

 

Schwa,
Glad to have you here. Sorry to hear about the loss of your original post. I hate when that happens! Good luck on your future hybrid ownership.
One thing to remember about safety, and saftey ratings of cars is that you are still bound by the differences in cars' weight. If a smaller car and a larger car (or SUV) meet in a crash, it is likely that the smaller car will suffer more damage than the larger car. Regardless of it's supposed "safety rating"

 

The key word there is CAR. The car may suffer more damage but the passenger may not. The ratings are based on slaming a car against a wall or giving it some other sort of impact at a certain speed (if the information I get from watching all those car comercials is correct

Consider the wall as an object with infinite weight becase there is no way its moving. That is probably the most impact you can give to a car at that given speed. So an Suv may even do less damage to a car at the same speed as the impact tests.

So safety rating does matter. If it didn't then we would could all feel safe riding around in the old boats from the 50s. They are after all much heavier than the current cars.

 

Jason, if i'm not mistaken the EPA has a testbed hybrid system (not gas-electric, but gas-air) that uses compressed air to store energy as aposed to batteries.

 

a) There's no way my friend would ever drive a Civic, hybrid or not. Insurance is way more expensive and they get broken into more often than any other car.

b) He is looking for maximum fuel economy with a reasonable size vehicle.

c) I can't recommend the Civic Hybrid as I've never had any experience with it.

While we understand that it may have been easier to go the Civic route for audio/video/computer installs, that's a secondary issue since basically we're confident that it can be done in any car. The Prius is also unique looking on the road without getting into the ugly-unique range. Obviously installing stuff in the Prius II will be more of a challenge than a Prius I as there's no trunk to hide stuff in so all the electronics will have to be concealed reasonably well in the back.

 

Ahh. That makes sense. Given what you just said then I agree. The Prius fits the bill better.

 

So far we've used the Xenarc LCD monitors, extremely high quality (0 dead pixel guarantee, excellent clarity and wide viewing angle) and the touch screen works great too, especially now that it's USB.

Considering the Prius already has a screen, and there's not really a good "spot" for the stand-alone screen we are thinking the in-dash fold-out screen may be the thing to use.



It's rather expensive, but really quite reasonable considering the ridiculous prices they charge for in-dash fold-out NTSC screens.