Interesting article in Feb '06 issue of Wired Magazine "Teardown Artists"... Find the hottest new car on the lot. Then rip it to pieces. Inside GM's chop shop, they take (apart) the competition very seriously.

 

Hi nokoon;

And the Link is where to read that article. Did you forget to Post it here for us?

Terry

 

Unfortunately it seems to only be in the magazine. I couldn't find it on their website.

 

Google turned up this:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.02/teardown.html

 

A teardown of the 2004 Prius two years ago helped sour GM on hybrid technology.

Toyota is likely to sell a mere 105,000 Priuses this year in a US market of 16 million vehicles. "Prius owners love it, but are the other 16 million-plus people beating down the doors of Toyota dealerships to buy a hybrid?" Lindsay Brooke asks. "Not yet, and Toyota will have to figure out how to drive the hybrid vehicle segment into the meat of the North American market."

this is intresting, isn't it...

 

The PSD transaxle is such a clean design, much simpler than any automatic transmission, I'm scratching my head about by this quote from the report:

". . .
A dissected hybrid lies on display in the back of the VABA, next to
the remains of a Chevy Malibu. The Prius demystified comes down to
this: It has 1,432 propulsion parts (the Malibu has 822). It has two
electric motors, plus lots of software and finely machined gears to
transport power to the wheels.
. . ."

That would mean about 610 extra parts. This seems too high. What could they have 'counted' in the Prius and not counted in the Malibu??

Of course this begs the question:
Can I come over and pick-up those nasty Prius parts?

Bob Wilson

 

lol, yeah I'll take some too