http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Vehicle_Drivetrains#Types_by_degr...

Just because the damned things have the "capability" of going 15 mph
for .5 miles as long as you don't intend to do anything silly like
accelerate away from a stop light with the engine off does NOT mean
that that needs to be figured in the mileage estimates, in fact it
is
INCLUDED in the estimates as given!

Who said otherwise? However, there are times that the Prius is NOT
burning
fuel are NOT "always buring fuel" as you claimed and apparently now
admit!

Failing to burn fuel every second does not imply that you didn't
burn fuel for every inch you move. You just burned the fuel 30
seconds before you actually used it.

Failing to burn fuel every second means it's NOT "always burning fuel" as
you claimed.

Quibble noted and accepted. It still never moves one inch
without having burned gasoline for the privilege.

Therefore your
quibble is nothing more or less than a semantic quibble of the lowest
and most pathetic order.

I KNOW what the drivetrains look
like, and FWIW, with only 10 times the battery capacity, and a
serious
code rewrite, the prius would be capable of being an absolutely
shitty
PHEV.
Is Toyota marketing the Prius as a PHEV?
No, but you are describing it as one.
I've done no such thing.

Lie noted. The claim that it drives "on batteries" for any
significant fraction of its life cycle is a claim that it has PHEV
characteristics, which it manifestly does not.

That is a gimmick, not a transit regime. In any serious
transit regime,
Just what the hell is a "serious transit regime"? Hybrids get better
mileage in the city as opposed to highway, which many would consider a
serious transit regime. I think that what constitutes a "serious
transit
regime" is in the eye of the beholder. The Prius is an excellent
commuter
car or even a family car.
City driving is a serious transit regime, and you will note that
toyota measures it in MPG!
So? The Prius gets its best MPG in city driving. So the Prius gets its
best mileage in a "serious transit regime".

FINALLY! some substance! Yes, the prius is at it's best in stop
and go traffic at low speeds, IE, city driving. Great. So what? You
will note that it makes no "fuelless driving" claim.

Or "current
driving" claim, or "on battery" claim. ergo, MPG is, as I have been
saying, the only meaningful measure of vehicular fuel efficiency
barring PHEVs.

the prius and every other "hybrid" on the market the
damned things use fuel ALL THE TIME!
Well, that's clearly not true! Have you ever ridden or driven a
Prius?
Clearly there are times when the engine is not running and thus not
using
fuel "ALL THE TIME!" as you claimed!
Again, the only input is fuel, if it's moving it's because it
burned fuel.
therefore, it's burning fuel all the time, even when it
pretends to not be.

So it's burning fuel all the time even when the engine is shut off? Say
at
a stoplight or in heavy traffic at a standstill? Even overnight when it's
parked in the garage? Your "logic" is ludicrous!

Reductio ad absurdum noted and held against you. It's truly
pathetic that you stoop to this. A five year old would know better.

Not only that, but the energy
that the thing runs on when it is running "on batteries" was
generated
by the ICE in the first place!
Or by braking, going downhill, etc.. However, no one is saying that
the
energy is absolutely free only that hybrids like the Prius are very
efficient on using that energy, trying to waste little and recover
what
they
can as opposed to simply throwing it away as heat, such as in braking.

The *RECOVERY* of the fuel burned in accelerating (regenerative
braking), and fuel burned in climbing hills (coasting gains) is NOT
NEW ENERGY!

Who said otherwise?

YOU! You blithered about "Or by braking, going downhill, etc.."
as though those were sources of energy!

Don't get me wrong, it's
great to get that back, it's an eficiency tweak well worth making, but
that is still all it is, an efficiency tweak.

You burned gasoline to make that kinetic energy.
And you recovered some of it! So?

So, COOL! you got a minor efficiency tweak! Congratulations!

Of course, who here is saying otherwise? However, in the mean time
the
hybrids like the Prius are very good.
They are a small improvement that fails to pay for itself in
economic terms. In my experience anything that fails to pay for
itself economically also fails to pay for itself environmentally.

If it's not economical it's not good for the environment? That's an
interesting but ludicrous interpretation.

Correct. If it is uneconomical, it does more damage to the
environment than the best economical alternative.

Look at full life
cycle analysis and you will find that to be true in almost every case,
the prius is not the rare exception. Don't forget to include the
pollution caused by the workers in the factories, they DO count.

The PHEV will make a meaningful difference in fuel
consumption and be better for the environment,
They Prius is about the cleanest practical car on the road today.
delusions.
How so? How many cleaner practical cars are on the road today? Please
cite
how many there are and how they're cleaner & more practical?

Well, the volkswagon TDI that is advocated in this thread is a
*very* serious competitor, it involves far less strip mining for
uncommon minerals, far less toxic byproducts, and far less disposal
hazard.

That is all reflected in the overall lower cost of
ownership.

Scooters eat it for breakfast, Any given motorcycle does
FAR better, Public transport beats the shit out of it, ETCETERA,
ETCETERA, ETCETERA.

The prius is a pretty good car, but realistically,
it is a far more of a statement than it is an efficient car.

They do, regenerative braking is 60% of the advantage that is gained
from going to ahybriddesign. Some even shut off the engine during
that time (if you have the A/C off or in "econ" mode), but when they
accelerate again, the batteries only assist the ICE in accelerating
the car. So I guess there are a few times when the vehicle is moving
and NOT consuming fossil fuels (coasting, braking), but those
represent a very small percentage of the total mileage driven, so they
just go into the mix of the MPG.

And none have 12 hours of continuous battery that could get you the
equivalent of 52mpg with the air conditioner and at 70 - 80 mph.

I am sometimes short with people that are wrong, when I tell them they
are wrong and they don't bother to do a 30 second google search to
investigate, but instead whine that I'm all wrong.

"I'm not sure why you keep making these MPG comparisons.
When Hybrids run on batteries they don't even use fuel"

First.... all vehicles use fuel, battery cars use
coal,NatGas,Diesel,Nuclear.... converted to electric, then stored by
charging the battery.

Plus energy from regenerative braking.

Which energy was previously produced by BURNING GASOLINE! It is
NOT new energy, it is an efficiency tweak.

Well, you could get it by coasting downhill and braking!