Blessed by the Potato

Well, one of the busiest highways in the world has a new name (at least for a section of it). It’s a name befitting a hair metal band.

I don’t really care for the name change, after all, we already have several Veteran’s Highways (the former Airport Rd. in London, and the 416 near Ottawa). And it’s a pretty cheesy name, I don’t know how much it really honours our soldiers (and other domestic heroes). The quotes in the article make little sense to me:

Capt. Mark Bossi, who served in Afghanistan, fought back tears as he rode along the stretch with CTV Toronto.

“That’s amazing — it really is,” Bossi said when he saw one of the signs. “It’s on (Highway) 401 — people are going to see them everyday.”

The signs are in response to an online petition in support of renaming the highway that was overwhelmed with responses.

Bossi understands why the grassroots movement to dedicate the stretch grew so quickly.

“If you think about it, every soldier has a mom and dad,” he said, his voice trembling.

“A lot of guys have wives and children. I think that’s one of the reasons Canadians wanted the highway renamed.”

So seeing the highway renamed made this captain so emotional he had to fight back tears? That makes little sense to me, the highway would probably have to be named after me personally to get that involved in it, and even then… of course, I haven’t suffered unknown amounts of PTSD. The last part of his quote makes even less sense. Every grad student has a mom and dad, and many have wives and children, but that really doesn’t make any sense for a reason to rename a highway. In fact, he seems to imply that the highway was renamed to appease/coddle the survivors of soldiers killed rather than to actually honour the soldiers themselves.

At least it’s not something that’s really going to affect me. For brevity’s sake alone, I think most people will still call it the 401 in everyday usage, similar to how nearly everyone still calls that stadium beneath the CN Tower “Skydome”.

I didn’t mention it when I first heard about it, but I figure now enough time has passed that I can slip in another (boring) post on hybrid cars. Toyota has decided to drop the price of the Prius in Canada, and increase the standard features list (notably, to include side airbags, something that was standard in the States last year, but part of a very pricey everything-including-the-kitchen-sink option package here). This is essentially to make buying a Prius for Canada in Canada a more appealing option. Last year, one could save nearly $10k (Canadian) by buying a Prius in the States and importing it, and that was after paying the import duties, etc. I haven’t run through a detailed comparison, but it looks like that savings is now about $4k with the lower price, and the word that the federal rebate will not be applied to imported cars. Worth looking into, still, but not quite as much of a no-brainer (how much would you pay to not have to deal with miles and Fahrenheit? Over the life of the car? The speedometer changes to metric, but nothing else does. At what point is the effort of flying down and driving back worth the savings?).

This will, of course, hurt the value of the cars on the used market a little bit, but that’s going to be coming for all cars in the Canadian market, as the stronger dollar makes getting a car in the States more appealing (especially a used one that’s run out its warranty, since the manufacturers can’t put up artificial trade barriers such as not honouring a cross-border warranty).

The Globe article mentions that the Prius’ success is due to the fact that it’s a “unique” hybrid — it stands out as a hybrid because there’s no gas-only Prius (whereas every other hybrid, such as the Civic, Accord, Highlander, Camry, Vue, and Escape share a body style with a conventional car). That may be part of it, but I really have to doubt that “image” plays anywhere near as much of a role as the media seems to be giving it. Instead, I think that the Prius is by far the most successful hybrid for its practical qualities. The Civic, Accord, and Camry are sedan bodies with the battery packs taking up 1/3 of the normal trunk space; they’re nicely sized cars in the passenger compartments, but have tiny, subcompact sized trunks, with no versatility (the Camry has a pass-through, but their seats don’t go down, which some people find handy) and I think that turns a lot of people off (I know it was the major deciding factor for me). The Escape isn’t selling much, but they’re still selling them as fast as they can make them — they just can’t make them very fast (and because the production is slow, they’re not available at all Ford dealerships). The Vue, simply, sucks. The Accord was schizophrenic, and never really marketed for its strengths (really, marketing it as a powerful Accord that gets the same mileage as the 4-cyl model really just makes me want to get the cheaper, bigger-trunked 4-cyl). The Civic and the Camry, while not making Prius numbers, aren’t doing all that badly, and I think that’s because they’re also reasonably practical in terms of fuel economy, price, and performance. The Prius, on the other hand, has the best fuel economy (though its margin over the Civic isn’t huge), and has the most storage of the cars (sure, it gets beaten by the SUVs, but then, they’re SUVs and don’t get the mileage of the Prius).

The 12-volt outlet (cigarette lighter) in my car has been broken ever since my brother had the stereo system installed, possibly since before it came into our family. It’s never really bothered me. While I am a little anal about monitoring the air pressure in my tires, and always carry an air compressor in the trunk, I’ve managed to keep my tires inflated through the use of other people’s 12-volt power or the free air pumps at service stations.

I don’t know how long this has been going on, but I stopped at two different Esso stations in the past week, and both had started charging 50 cents to use their air compressors. Outrageous! For now, Petro-Canada, Shell, Sunoco, and Loblaws/Supercentre gas stations still have free air compressors (though the new Shell at Hwy 7 and Woodbine hides theirs around back halfway along the car wash lane). Considering how relatively cheap an air compressor is, how long they last, and how important properly inflated tires can be for safety, I’m really surprised at that move. Providing free air is just a cost of doing business for a gas station, and not a very big one, either. While I don’t run a gas station myself, an educated guess would suggest keeping the windshield cleaning stations topped up with cleanser, paper towels, and squeegees would cost more over time than the air compressor. I find this especially disturbing and surprising since they jumped straight to a 50 cent charge, instead of starting at just a quarter, and since they jumped into the mess all on their own.

Well, looks like I won’t be buying gas from Esso any more… which is a good point that Wayfare made: how much can they possibly be making, 50 cents at a time, from the few people who actually check their tire pressures regularly? Does that at all compare to the amount of goodwill they stand to lose from cheapskates like me?

I took the opportunity today to head up to the Toyota Hybrid Tour at the Bass Pro Shops mall off the 400 (just north of Hwy7). Man, nobody would have found that place that wasn’t already looking for it. It was way around the north-east corner of the mall. I had exited onto Bass Pro Mills Drive like my map told me to, and there were no signs or anything to indicate where it might be (but I did see roadside signs for a mattress and piano sales). In fact, it would have been closer to get off at Rutherford. The size of that shopping district (it’s not really one continuous mall) was pretty amazing though, I had never been up there before.

The preview of the event I had seen (can’t remember where now) had pavilions with videos describing the hybrid technology, and flags, banners, and all sorts of promotion. This was much more low-key: 4 staff members in a tent, 6 cars standing by to be shown off and test-driven, and that was about it. It actually worked out pretty well like that, though. Since this is an event not linked to any particular dealer, there was absolutely no sales pressure. They didn’t care if I was interested in buying or not, they didn’t try to get my number to call me later for a follow-up sales call, they didn’t try to sell the car at all. They just wanted to show me how the technology worked, where all the secret compartments were, and give me a few minutes to press all the buttons and see what it was like. If you’re at all interested in the Prius or Camry Hybrid (I didn’t see a HiHy, but they might have had one out on a test drive) then by all means go up and take a look: they’ll be there until 5 tomorrow and Sunday (July 14 + 15). After that, I think that’s the end of the run for Ontario.

After seeing the Civic Hybrid, I was fairly pleased, but there was a significant question surrounding the trunk space. The Prius, it was clear, had a bigger trunk than the Civic, but how big it was exactly was tough to say. Looking around the internet, there are pictures of the insane amount of things people have stuffed in there, particularly of large things that the hatchback and folding seats allow one to carry (water heaters, clothes dryers, fridges, lumber…). That showed off well how versatile it was, but versatility is a bit different from gross carrying capacity. I wanted to know what would fit with the seats up. Of course, there are other owner stories showing a completely stuffed hatchback for a road trip, with the cargo going right up to the roof and blocking the view out the rear window. Those weren’t hugely helpful, since as a safe (read: paranoid) driver, I’m hesitant to block my rear view with cargo, and have only done so a few times on my current car. They also didn’t help me see how big the trunk was relatively speaking since I didn’t know how big the owner’s luggage was. The Prius is rated as having 456 L (16 cu.ft) of cargo space, compared to just under 300 L for the Civic hybrid, and somewhere in the neighbourhood of 370 L for my Accord. The Prius is often Tardis-like in its ability to fold space and become larger on the inside than it looks on the outside, but that cargo capacity looked too good to be true, and I figured it must be measured up to the windows.

So, one burning question I had when going to the hybrid tour was how the actual (that is, non-visibility blocking) trunk space compared to that in my Accord. To test this I grabbed some collapsible laundry bags that Wayfare loves (we’ve got like 5 of them now) as well as a big green transport bin. My Accord trunk fit two “full” (opened/expanded) laundry bags, the green bin, my backpack, and had space to spare: some laptops or small items could have gone on top of everything, there was some room on either side for more stuff, and in the back cut-in part (perhaps I’ll have to MS-paint up a diagram of my trunk’s layout) there was just enough room for a small-ish backpack beside the rearmost laundry bag. Note that my backpack isn’t shown in the picture because I took it out to get my camera. You can see where it would fit though.

Then I went to the Prius, and was at first fairly disappointed that I only got the green bin and a laundry bag:

But of course a tiny bit of intelligent packing showed that two bags and a green bin just fit. This is low enough that it wasn’t blocking any visibility out the rear window, but just barely (due to the angles, some stuff could be put closer to the rear headrests, but not closer to the window). There was a bit of a nook to the left of the green bin, but not so much on the right side (I believe the jack or an enclosed cargo compartment is on the right).

That’s a fair bit smaller than my trunk, but workable, especially since that isn’t the sum total of the Prius’ trunk. There’s also the hidden compartment in the floor, shown here with my backpack for scale. It’s bigger than I thought, but not very deep; my backpack was too full to let the door close on it. Of course, the door can be taken out (I think) and leave a single, somewhat awkwardly-shaped cargo compartment. Combined, the total cargo space is close enough to that of my Accord that it will work for me, so that’s one fear assuaged (and when the need calls, I can fill it to the roof, block the view, and get more space than the Accord; plus for most things, the higher/shorter trunk of the Prius would be more useful, as there have been times when seats folded or not, I just couldn’t get something like a chair through the low hole for my trunk).

The test-drive consisted of a loop around the ring road that enclosed the Vaughn mall. Plenty of stop signs, accelerating to 50 km/h, and a few turns; but no highway test. It was reasonably fun to drive though (of course, my Accord is one of the best-driving/most fun cars I’ve had, just about as good as my BMW); I was afraid there wouldn’t be much of a road feel. Of course, since there was no road in that area 2 years ago, it’s all brand new asphalt that’s smooth as glass, so it’s kind of hard to judge road feel (especially at relatively low speeds). The side/rear visibility was decent, much better than I had been lead to be afraid of. However, I wasn’t happy with the forward visibility. I found the A-pillars were pretty thick, and the left one seemed to cut too far to the right for me. I was half tempted to lean over to drive with my head in the centre of the car. Of course, I got the same feeling from the Civic and the Buick Envoy I drove on PEI, so it may just be that all modern cars have blocky (safe?) A-pillars that drive me nuts from a visibility standpoint. I’d probably get used to it. (I hope). The very unique and minimal dashboard display up high near the road was a different implementation than the one in the Civic (which I really liked), but I have to say I liked this one almost as much. Just something about not having to track my eyes down as far to check my speed. Of course, the minimal display meant that everything else is run through the touch-screen, and I’m a little leery of having to use a touch-screen interface while driving, especially at night (I’d hate to have the bright screen ruin my night vision). There are steering wheel controls for most things though, so I may not be too bad off.

I went there with two specific questions nagging at me, and pretty much got them answered (though before buying I’ll probably rent one to take a longer test-drive on the highway). I was a little too focused though, and totally should have spent more time playing with the car and the buttons — it was pretty slow, and they weren’t pressuring me to get out of the car (just to park it), but I felt bad for taking their time and left. I didn’t even go to the consumption screen on the MFD to see what the fuel consumption was like under my real-life driving test! D’oh!

I didn’t drive the Camry Hybrid (I didn’t want to like it, since its trunk is just as tiny as the Civic Hybrid), but did sit in it just for a minute to have a peek. For the nearly the same price (in the demented Canadian market), you definitely get a lot more car with it. The interior was very plush with attractive plastics and steel/aluminum/metal-looking-plastic trim.

After all that excitement, I took my current car for gas and a routine tire pressure check… and one tire was down to <15 PSI. Damn.

I’m off to Japan! I figured before I go, I might as well blog about some Japanese car makers… I hope to update a bit while I’m gone, but don’t count on any updates just in case internet access doesn’t work out. I’m really dreading this trip, and also really glad I called the hotel tonight to double-check my reservation. The clerk’s english was really terrible (I know, my Japanese was worse, but that sort of thinking doesn’t help me right now) but I gathered that they weren’t expecting me until the 10th. I think I’ve got it sorted out now. The next big thing will be payment; work paid in advance on the corporate VISA, but if this place is anything like the death trap in Cancun, they’ll probably try to bill me again after I get there… Anyhow, if I don’t make it back: remember that I thought it was a bad idea all along.

It looks like Honda is going to be dropping their Hybrid Accord.

I can’t say I’m too sad to see it go: the Accord was a “muscle” hybrid, the most powerful of the Accord options. It also didn’t save much in the way of gas. Which, I’m sure, is why it wasn’t selling very well. The Camry hybrid, by comparison, is slightly more powerful than the standard V4, but gets significantly better mileage. Of course, Honda didn’t exactly go out of their way to market the Accord and its unique offerings, instead sort of just hoping that as a hybrid it would sell itself (a tactic that has been working pretty well for most of the other hybrids). The Accord wasn’t the sort of hybrid I (and many others) thought they should be making, which of course worked against the “if you build it, they will come” hybrid marketing strategy. After all, people who go out of their way to buy essentially unadvertised hybrids are usually in it for the fuel savings or environmental benefits (low emissions), and the Accord didn’t really fit either of those criteria. But even though most hybrids are made for the eco-crowd, I think there were buyers out there for a high-tech performance car, yet they didn’t try very hard to market the car they did make. For starters, a performance hybrid completely tricked out would probably have done better with an Acura badge (and at the same price, might not even have seemed that much more expensive).

I am saddened by the fact that Honda isn’t reinventing it or planning on coming out with another mid-sized/full-sized hybrid option. I know the Prius and the Camry hybrid from Toyota are dominating the market, but if there was a more fuel-efficient Accord, I’d probably go for it (especially if they managed to sneak in a decent-sized trunk). Instead, Honda appears to be focusing on the really tiny, really fuel efficient cars (the Civic and their yet-to-be-officially-announced Fit-esque/Insight-replacement hybrid).

Toyota, on the other hand, has announced that it’s sold its one millionth hybrid car.