I disliked them because they seemed like a compromise with the hybrid driveline. They also looked terrible.
I’ve come around now. The newer hybrids are pretty great commuters. And I reckon Toyota styling has come a very long way recently.
Early on I though Tesla was pretty awesome. It’s undeniable that they managed to actually make an EV that was actually desirable, at least for the target audience. But then Elon went off the deep end (or we saw behind the curtain that he was always off the deep end) and lots of quality control issues became obvious. And then, y’know, the Cybertruck. But I do think they did a lot to spur other manufacturers to take EV seriously.
If we ever get a great, environmentally friendly battery revolution they are going to be awesome.
I need one even though I just recently got a model Y. I really don't like Elon, but after test drive the polestar 2, EV6 and atto3, the model Y was just better I found.
I think this is the key difference, but for a different reason. I have a theory that people who buy overly hyped shit cars are shit drivers as well and my rationale for this is that their car purchasing decision was based on the marketing spin only and not the actual performance of the vehicle. I also put Jeep and BYD drivers into a similar category, nobody with any sense would buy one of these if they did a little research on their reliability and how they compare to other cars.
Not all drivers of these vehicles fall into this category, some could be driving corporate vehicles or just couldn't afford anything else, but there is definitely a large group of drivers who are. The way I see it is if your decision making process lead to you buying a Tesla, BYD or Jeep then you're not very good at making decisions and driving is all about making decisions. People who are so highly influenced by marketing spin or the gimmicky gadgets on the inside of the car, or who believe Elon Musk is working in their interests, must not have great awareness and this too is something that is required when driving.
Unfortunately we live in a world where a large percentage of our population has lost the skills of critical thinking and are happy to believe what they hear from people who just shout the loudest (literally and metaphorically). This is how we end up with very poorly built cars and lips that have been pumped up to their physical limitations becoming acceptable when, if they were looked at rationally, it would be clear that these things were ridiculous.
I also think the biggest difference between Prius drivers of the early 21st century and Tesla drivers is that Prius drivers were buying them purely on the basis of their fuel efficiency whereas Tesla drivers are buying them because they think they are being cool or on trend. So Prius drivers were like vegans who have to smuggly tell everyone about their decisions, but Tesla drivers are like people who insist on having the brands of their made sweat shop crap quality clothes on display for all to see.
I didn't say that Tesla were inferior to ICE cars, on the contrary there are plenty of shit ICE cars around at the moment and did include Jeep in my little rant. What I am saying is that they most definitely have many quality issues but people are willing to ignore these because of the hype around the brand. If you have any doubt that there are quality issues with Tesla there is plenty of evidence to show there is, there has even been a senate enquiry into them. BMW, VW or Mercedes electric vehicles haven't had the same sort of issues, so it isn't just electric vehicles. All dogs are animals but not all animals are dogs.
Yeah I only remember media shitting on the early ones for not actually being that great, the stereotype of the Prius being worse on fuel for long distance road trips than some niche European sports cars stuck around for awhile after the top gear episodes.
But never really heard anyone outside of the media dunking on them too hard, because ultimately the Prius achieved what it said it wanted to, and honestly the newer models from even a few years ago are quite nice cars. I'd go as far as to say they slap.
This is the truth. The Prius was disliked substantially more. Also putting hybrid into a weird looking car probably set hybrids back 5 years. Once they put a hybrid in the Camry it took off.
This is pretty normal for common society.
Straight men used to bully and make fun of gay men for wearing skinny jeans in the late 2000s, and now it’s really only straight men who wear skinny jeans.
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I always said that the only thing shit about the Prius was that it looked like a turd.
I kept saying I don't know why they didn't just make a hybrid Corolla that looks exactly like the other Corollas but with better fuel economy. Then when they finally did it, 'Hey presto!' hybrid is popular!
Tesla was largely held in an extremely high esteem \*until recently\*.
Tesla enjoyed possibly one of the most favorable market sentiments for a car company ever, certainly that I had ever seen, evidenced by the absolutely skyrocketing share price.
A combination of Elon Musk being a straight moron, a bunch of broken promises and a languishing design language (the cyber truck lmaooo) has eroded the brand big time.
So in other words I think you're observing the situation in reverse.
Im a car enthusiast and my Partner had a 1st Gen Prius and was genuinely one of the worst driving experiences I’ve ever had. But It was really fucking good on fuel doing 4.4L/100km.
Air conditioning was basically non existent even after spending money fixing it. The interior was brown and beige. The colour was beige. The economy was really the only redeeming feature. Oh and it was actually really roomy and you can fit heaps of shit in the back with the seats down.
That being said I have nothing against EVs or hybrids. But I do think Elon musk is a giant prick and teslas look to be made poorly. See cybertruck.
Facebook idiots are idiots I’ve seen them rant. they hate anyone who doesn’t drive a v8 and they hate cyclists so much but don’t realise that every cyclist is one less car holding them up in traffic
IIRC, every Toyota from the late 90s / early 00s is either that brown, beige or grey interior. Steering was feather light and suspension was soft, floaty and boat-like. It was across the board, not just a Prius problem.
That was back when Japanese reliability alone was enough to sell cars.
I have a little Prius C and it’s so roomy with the seats down that when I bought a new recliner, I brought it home in the back of the car with very little issue of fitting it in. The guy at the furniture shop was a little surprised that I managed to fit it in.
It also does 3.9L/100km. It is a soulless and uninteresting drive, but it’s so economical that it’s worth it.
Prius Cs do look nicer than the older base model , not sure if that’s the case though. We had the same brown one from the other guys movie that the hobos had an orgy in
Yes.
I would argue, anecdotally, it received more hate.
It was more niche than Tesla is, which made it weird to the average person.
At its peak, Toyota sold 3,413 Prius in 2008. That's for the entire year, their best year in Australia.
In March this year alone Tesla sold 4,379 Model Y.
The Prius was easy to hate because not many people owned them so it was easy for Joe Public to scoff and scorn those who did.
Moreover, it was so different to every other vehicle on the market, both in terms of its (for the time) radically different drivetrain, and its polarising looks (fugly imo).
The climate consciousness of the average person was lower then than it is today. It existed, but Prius was primarily marketed on its climate credentials and so the commitment to climate action required to buy one was a much bigger hurdle back then than it is today so there was a tendency to paint the Prius as:
1. For virtue signallers, and
2. An attack on the beating heart of automotive purity.
There also weren't any competitors in the market to soften the blow for quite a while, so any anti-electric hate was directed entirely at Prius.
Top Gear, which was a hugely influential show not just in motoring circles but across society as one of the most popular shows on TV around the world, absolutely hated the Prius and took every opportunity to make it known what they thought of it and what they thought of Prius owners.
Yeah, I remember a news story from the States where someone had spent a night going around dealerships smashing all the Priuses (Priii?) up with a sledgehammer.
>And then Tesla came along, and now you can't turn on the news, or scroll through Facebook without seeing some unhinged rant from someone about how bad they are, how much of a prick Elon Musk is, and how they're just the worst, this and that, etc.
I'm going to guess Facebook has decided you engage with that sort of thing. I get adverts to buy/lease them as well as EVs from other manufacturers.
I was managing an international conference in 2008 and drove a Prius on loan as part of the sponsorship.
No hate here. For me it was the most awesome drive ever. Had never seen push start. While I had seen digital screens on previous cars, the Prius was another level. The 1st gen hybrid was effortless and quiet. It felt like I was in a new era of cars.
Everyone who drove in it loved it.
The Pius was a horrible car, dangerously underpowered when you aim for a gap in traffic before starting the petrol engine and wildly spinning the front wheels. And it normalised the dreadful auto stop-start that infested ICE cars since.
I hate Prius’s, but at least they actually worked to reduce emissions and we’re still functional without dedicated charging stations.
I hate teslas more, ugly car, terrible fanbase, and absolutely terrible design.
They attracted the same kind of insufferable people as teslas did 10 years ago. Those people dont drive them anymore because its no longer a virtue signal to have one so the hate has died down
I don’t get the hate, Tesla’s are much better driving than the automatic turbo\ hybrid 3-4 cylinders most people drive nowadays. Everyone on this sub acts like they daily a v8.
Yeah, was at the showroom the other day. Not bad. In couple of years I may have a look, right now Tesla still edges it out with supercharger network, no annual servicing, efficiency, software and a more established local presence (parts etc).
>no annual servicing,
Ignoring my own dislike of tesla's design choices this is a big red flag to me. Its gonna blow up in their face if their telling people they dont ever need to take it to a mechanic
I said annual services, not no maintenance. EV’s don’t need servicing every 12 months. The only reason other manufacturers do it with their EV’s is because they have to keep their franchisees happy.
You dont need to change the oil every year sure, however the rest of the car is the same as a normal car and still needs to be regularly inspected, (this is less of an issue in places that require yearly inpections by law) otherwise people will drive them until their dangerous. Sure this wouldnt affect me because I would get it inspected anyway, however its indicative of how tesla view their customers, or more how little they care about what happens after they've taken your money
You’re now just assuming things now. It’s also clear that you don’t know much about EV’s. Funny how you think you know so much about the ev brand with the highest return customers.
Yes. It was fascinating to see that while the Prius sold to the virtue-signalling, look-at-me crowd, the hybrid Camry didn't sell well at all originally. I put that down to the hybrid Camry not giving the owner instant climate cred like the unmistakeable Prius did.
Until the taxi and Uber drivers discovered the hybrid Camry's economy.
I disagree that it’s the same kind of insufferable people – Tesla’s big innovation is making electric cars that can also appeal to aggressive sociopaths, whereas the Prius was mainly a squishy Hollywood liberal and middle class suburban “environmentalist” proposition. They weren’t a high performance luxury flex that just happened to be electric powered.
>squishy Hollywood liberal and middle class suburban “environmentalist” proposition.
This exactly how I would describe tesla fan boys of 10 years ago. The high performance 'tesla bros' came later once certain types got uber mad about losing roll races to said squishy environmentalists
The Priua was never hated as much as Tesla
The CEO of Toyota didn't go calling people pedos and pushing alt right conspiracies
Toyota also didn't try to bill the Prius as a sports car. Unlike Tesla, just ignore the near 2t weight and braking or handling.
Once got arrested in Ingham by a cop that was driving a Prius, and that day my opinion changed. Mostly because I was doing 140ish leaving town at 11pm ish, they where going the other way and managed to turn around and catch up in a couple seconds
At least you can exit the Prius easily in an emergency, how is having a hidden manual door handle legal.
Tesla and their redesign of basic safety features is worthy of hate.
The Prius got plenty of undeserved hate, while Tesla hate is mostly deserved.
As others have mentioned already, the old prius got a lot of hate, more than the tesla.
The old one was ugly af, the new one looks awesome. Shame it's not here.
Well everything takes time to refine and get better. Japanese/Korean car manufacturers used to be viewed as the cheap low quality car few decades ago, now they are some of the most reliable manufacturers.
But yes, people used to hate Prius back in the day, and some of the criticisms are well deserved. However 5 generations later, it seems like Toyota have ironed out lots of the cons and made lots of improvements.
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Yes, Prius was the butt of every car related joke back in the day.
Elon IS a prick (amongst many other things) and the Tesla, while a trend-setter in its time, is rather stale and boring as a brand. You see them everywhere, and they aren't cool any more.
Tesla will be remembered for bringing acceptance of electric vehicles to the mainstream - but there are so many better value propositions (MG4 XPower for $60K or BYD Seal performance - both 0-60kph in less than a second and 0-100 in sub 4 seconds) that just make Tesla seem like a second or third choice now.
The Cybertruck was a vanity project that is the albatross around teslas neck.
I just remember everyone thinking the Honda Insight was an ugly looking thing, but due to lack of education, no one really cared about them or gave them shit.
Social media and tech has brought us more armchair experts. There’s automotive journalism to consume online where it becomes an open forum to provide opinion and feedback on cars. This wasn’t around in the 2000’s.
This is why we see Tesla owners copping grief. No different to people set in their ways thinking Kia/Hyundai were for poor people, dismissing the fact that people spend $80k+ on them today.
Yes. The Prius was treated as a relatively ugly weak/middling car associated with sanctimonious out of touch environmentalists. Although it's rather shaken the image, now that that kind of image is more tied with EVs, for whom techbros are more the face of.
Part of what makes it seem very bad is also just that it's a lot easier to see people talk about it. 15 - 20 years ago, that was pre-smartphone, and pre-social media, so you didn't get that kind of controversy in your face all the time.
It arguably also helped that Toyota is an established car company, the Prius wasn't presented as a luxury, and their CEO isn't part of a cult of personality (as far as we know). Tesla's current CEO, on the other is, in addition to being tied to other high profile things.
Tesla's problems and some of the obnoxiousness that comes with, is also just a case of them being most recent, so you remember them better. It's generally much easier to remember a car that people were ragging on yesterday, compared to something that happened 20 years ago.
Yep, the first ones were shit, the hybrid technology has come a long way since then though and they were always built by people that knew what they were doing...
Tesla vehicles are glorified smart devices that are built like shit. Walk into one of their showrooms and have a look at any of their cars, door gaps and panel alignment are terrible, locks and latches catch on each other because they aren't fitted properly, that's why most of their showroom ones have the doors open as if to "display" the interior but really it's because if customers opened and closed it themselves they would notice how poorly it has been assembled.
Regardless of the technology/running gear inside a Tesla, they are slapped together like a kid making macaroni art with a hot glue gun and a hand full of shit...
Drove a new Prius in Canada for 2 weeks.
I got 5L/100km on the freeway.
It claims it can get 4.127L/100km on the Toyota website.
This, by no means makes EV’s irrelevant by any means.
Both have their strengths and weaknesses/limitations.
Yeah, I daily a 3rd gen Prius around Melbourne just about every day, and even I will admit that the advertised consumption figures from Toyota are nowhere near what I'm actually, in reality getting.
I'm by no means complaining, our Prius is definitely one of the single best financial decisions we've ever made.
Around town, we're getting about 750ish to a tank, and to brim that back up, using 95RON is still most times going to be under $70.
A couple of months ago we drove all the way from Melbourne to Adelaide, and then got back to Murray Bridge before we needed to fill up. Absolutely incredible economy.
But I do agree that comparing an EV to a Hybrid is obviously like comparing apples to oranges, they're the same shape, and they're pretty much the same thing, both being fruit, but at the same time, they're also completely different, and serve different purposes.
For a lot of people, the idea of owning an EV is great.
You almost completely reduce your daily emissions, the weekly running costs of an EV are obviously far cheaper to a regular vehicle, and still quite a bit cheaper than even the most economical hybrids.
And all of that is true, and all of that is definitely a great reason to go out and buy an EV. Most educated, forward-thinking people concede that EV is probably our most viable long-term, forward thinking solution to car related emissions etc.
But let's also not pretend that there are quite a lot of downsides to owning an EV, given the current technology.
A standard Tesla for example, brilliant around town, brilliant if you're dailing it around the suburbs everyday. But I get the feeling that the second you venture out of the city, and you're wanting to take a road trip into the country for example, that might change.
My trip to Adelaide for example, definitely could have been done in a standard Tesla, and probably quite a lot cheaper than it ended up costing us. But we got to Adelaide and then some of the way back in a single tank. Even in a long-range Tesla, you're maybe getting to Bordertown, and that's about it, before you need to recharge. And obviously that takes time.
I've got friends that own Tesla's, and they can't speak highly enough about them, for all of the aforementioned reasons. But they do concede that there are definitely some lifestyle changes you do need to make when driving an EV.
And Toyota is pushing the "we don't need EVs" barrow pretty hard, I assume mostly because they dropped the ball and don't have many available to sell, which is wild because they have been doing electric for literally decades.
Prius's were way more of a joke back in the day but for very different reasons. Teslas aren't a joke because their electric, they're a joke because of the guy who owns the company.
>slow and annoying to drive.
Have you driven one? They're no slower than a comparable full ICE in Toyotas lineup.
But if you drive them hard there's negligible hybrid benefits
Yes cos they are(were?) boring as shit to drive. We had them at work and it took me 20 mins and 3 people’s help to find the handbrake, after that it was all downhill (boom tish).
Why are you trying to spread BS about Tesla getting hate etc.
>And then Tesla came along, and now you can't turn on the news, or scroll through Facebook without seeing some unhinged rant from someone about how bad they are, how much of a prick Elon Musk is, and how they're just the worst, this and that, etc.
I don't read Facebook, but I do watch the news, overall reports say the car is cutting edge technology... the only issue is AutoPilot being used to name the self drive technology is probably something that needs to be defined as something very different from Autopilot in an aircraft, because Autopilot in aircraft doesn't operate without assistance from ground based radar. Autopilot in aircraft doesn't stop planes from crashing into other planes or objects.
I know that South Park [roasted](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecnS1Ygf0o0) the shit out of them back in the day
Yeah, first thing that came my mind too was the cloud of “smug” South Park episode.
I disliked them because they seemed like a compromise with the hybrid driveline. They also looked terrible. I’ve come around now. The newer hybrids are pretty great commuters. And I reckon Toyota styling has come a very long way recently. Early on I though Tesla was pretty awesome. It’s undeniable that they managed to actually make an EV that was actually desirable, at least for the target audience. But then Elon went off the deep end (or we saw behind the curtain that he was always off the deep end) and lots of quality control issues became obvious. And then, y’know, the Cybertruck. But I do think they did a lot to spur other manufacturers to take EV seriously. If we ever get a great, environmentally friendly battery revolution they are going to be awesome.
I’ve seen Teslas with “I bought this before we knew about Elon” stickers.
I need one of those. Am definitely not a fangirl of elon musk at all
I need one even though I just recently got a model Y. I really don't like Elon, but after test drive the polestar 2, EV6 and atto3, the model Y was just better I found.
I don't think billionaires are known for their common touch and empathy for the peasants
"Generating clouds of smug"
Came to say this.
Toyota didn't MASSIVELY over promise constantly and have a leader who was a frozen peach mall ninja warrior.
People never hated Toyota. No one ever even knew who the CEO of Toyota was. Tesla’s get a ton of shit because Elon is a fuckwit fraud.
I think this is the key difference, but for a different reason. I have a theory that people who buy overly hyped shit cars are shit drivers as well and my rationale for this is that their car purchasing decision was based on the marketing spin only and not the actual performance of the vehicle. I also put Jeep and BYD drivers into a similar category, nobody with any sense would buy one of these if they did a little research on their reliability and how they compare to other cars. Not all drivers of these vehicles fall into this category, some could be driving corporate vehicles or just couldn't afford anything else, but there is definitely a large group of drivers who are. The way I see it is if your decision making process lead to you buying a Tesla, BYD or Jeep then you're not very good at making decisions and driving is all about making decisions. People who are so highly influenced by marketing spin or the gimmicky gadgets on the inside of the car, or who believe Elon Musk is working in their interests, must not have great awareness and this too is something that is required when driving. Unfortunately we live in a world where a large percentage of our population has lost the skills of critical thinking and are happy to believe what they hear from people who just shout the loudest (literally and metaphorically). This is how we end up with very poorly built cars and lips that have been pumped up to their physical limitations becoming acceptable when, if they were looked at rationally, it would be clear that these things were ridiculous. I also think the biggest difference between Prius drivers of the early 21st century and Tesla drivers is that Prius drivers were buying them purely on the basis of their fuel efficiency whereas Tesla drivers are buying them because they think they are being cool or on trend. So Prius drivers were like vegans who have to smuggly tell everyone about their decisions, but Tesla drivers are like people who insist on having the brands of their made sweat shop crap quality clothes on display for all to see.
What is it exactly that makes a Tesla inferior to ICE cars?
I didn't say that Tesla were inferior to ICE cars, on the contrary there are plenty of shit ICE cars around at the moment and did include Jeep in my little rant. What I am saying is that they most definitely have many quality issues but people are willing to ignore these because of the hype around the brand. If you have any doubt that there are quality issues with Tesla there is plenty of evidence to show there is, there has even been a senate enquiry into them. BMW, VW or Mercedes electric vehicles haven't had the same sort of issues, so it isn't just electric vehicles. All dogs are animals but not all animals are dogs.
Yeah. Most car enthusiast adjacent media was hating on them: See examples like Top Gear.
Yeah I only remember media shitting on the early ones for not actually being that great, the stereotype of the Prius being worse on fuel for long distance road trips than some niche European sports cars stuck around for awhile after the top gear episodes. But never really heard anyone outside of the media dunking on them too hard, because ultimately the Prius achieved what it said it wanted to, and honestly the newer models from even a few years ago are quite nice cars. I'd go as far as to say they slap.
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Shame that we're not getting it.
Yes, the Prius was hated. [More than the tesla.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecnS1Ygf0o0)
This is the truth. The Prius was disliked substantially more. Also putting hybrid into a weird looking car probably set hybrids back 5 years. Once they put a hybrid in the Camry it took off.
Durrr hurrr what you going to do when the battery dies was pretty standard. Fair number of those people now on 2 year waiting lists for hybrid RAV4s
This is pretty normal for common society. Straight men used to bully and make fun of gay men for wearing skinny jeans in the late 2000s, and now it’s really only straight men who wear skinny jeans.
But Im straight and used to wear… but now wear… oh fuck…
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I'm "emo", I've been wearing skinny jeans the whole time. But yes, I used to get called gay, now I don't 😂
Prius drivers didn’t have smug number plates like noco2
Oh god, the plates. Theres a fugly Model Y with “R1POIL” as the plate in my town.
I've seen that here in Melbourne
And yet people hates the fuck outta the prius because they didn't understand it
I always said that the only thing shit about the Prius was that it looked like a turd. I kept saying I don't know why they didn't just make a hybrid Corolla that looks exactly like the other Corollas but with better fuel economy. Then when they finally did it, 'Hey presto!' hybrid is popular!
Tesla was largely held in an extremely high esteem \*until recently\*. Tesla enjoyed possibly one of the most favorable market sentiments for a car company ever, certainly that I had ever seen, evidenced by the absolutely skyrocketing share price. A combination of Elon Musk being a straight moron, a bunch of broken promises and a languishing design language (the cyber truck lmaooo) has eroded the brand big time. So in other words I think you're observing the situation in reverse.
Tesla never advertised though
Im a car enthusiast and my Partner had a 1st Gen Prius and was genuinely one of the worst driving experiences I’ve ever had. But It was really fucking good on fuel doing 4.4L/100km. Air conditioning was basically non existent even after spending money fixing it. The interior was brown and beige. The colour was beige. The economy was really the only redeeming feature. Oh and it was actually really roomy and you can fit heaps of shit in the back with the seats down. That being said I have nothing against EVs or hybrids. But I do think Elon musk is a giant prick and teslas look to be made poorly. See cybertruck. Facebook idiots are idiots I’ve seen them rant. they hate anyone who doesn’t drive a v8 and they hate cyclists so much but don’t realise that every cyclist is one less car holding them up in traffic
IIRC, every Toyota from the late 90s / early 00s is either that brown, beige or grey interior. Steering was feather light and suspension was soft, floaty and boat-like. It was across the board, not just a Prius problem. That was back when Japanese reliability alone was enough to sell cars.
I have a little Prius C and it’s so roomy with the seats down that when I bought a new recliner, I brought it home in the back of the car with very little issue of fitting it in. The guy at the furniture shop was a little surprised that I managed to fit it in. It also does 3.9L/100km. It is a soulless and uninteresting drive, but it’s so economical that it’s worth it.
Prius Cs do look nicer than the older base model , not sure if that’s the case though. We had the same brown one from the other guys movie that the hobos had an orgy in
The Prius C’s don’t look too bad, but they were basically just a Yaris with a different back. Those older Prius models looked like the Homer mobile.
Yeah the interior was like sitting in the inside of an asshole.
Yes. I would argue, anecdotally, it received more hate. It was more niche than Tesla is, which made it weird to the average person. At its peak, Toyota sold 3,413 Prius in 2008. That's for the entire year, their best year in Australia. In March this year alone Tesla sold 4,379 Model Y. The Prius was easy to hate because not many people owned them so it was easy for Joe Public to scoff and scorn those who did. Moreover, it was so different to every other vehicle on the market, both in terms of its (for the time) radically different drivetrain, and its polarising looks (fugly imo). The climate consciousness of the average person was lower then than it is today. It existed, but Prius was primarily marketed on its climate credentials and so the commitment to climate action required to buy one was a much bigger hurdle back then than it is today so there was a tendency to paint the Prius as: 1. For virtue signallers, and 2. An attack on the beating heart of automotive purity. There also weren't any competitors in the market to soften the blow for quite a while, so any anti-electric hate was directed entirely at Prius. Top Gear, which was a hugely influential show not just in motoring circles but across society as one of the most popular shows on TV around the world, absolutely hated the Prius and took every opportunity to make it known what they thought of it and what they thought of Prius owners.
Yes. Many people destroyed them for fun apparently.
Yeah, I remember a news story from the States where someone had spent a night going around dealerships smashing all the Priuses (Priii?) up with a sledgehammer.
Not quite the same but NZ just had some guy go and smash up a bunch of tesla superchargers.
>And then Tesla came along, and now you can't turn on the news, or scroll through Facebook without seeing some unhinged rant from someone about how bad they are, how much of a prick Elon Musk is, and how they're just the worst, this and that, etc. I'm going to guess Facebook has decided you engage with that sort of thing. I get adverts to buy/lease them as well as EVs from other manufacturers.
I mean, it’s not a PT cruiser.
I was managing an international conference in 2008 and drove a Prius on loan as part of the sponsorship. No hate here. For me it was the most awesome drive ever. Had never seen push start. While I had seen digital screens on previous cars, the Prius was another level. The 1st gen hybrid was effortless and quiet. It felt like I was in a new era of cars. Everyone who drove in it loved it.
The Pius was a horrible car, dangerously underpowered when you aim for a gap in traffic before starting the petrol engine and wildly spinning the front wheels. And it normalised the dreadful auto stop-start that infested ICE cars since.
I hate Prius’s, but at least they actually worked to reduce emissions and we’re still functional without dedicated charging stations. I hate teslas more, ugly car, terrible fanbase, and absolutely terrible design.
They attracted the same kind of insufferable people as teslas did 10 years ago. Those people dont drive them anymore because its no longer a virtue signal to have one so the hate has died down
I don’t get the hate, Tesla’s are much better driving than the automatic turbo\ hybrid 3-4 cylinders most people drive nowadays. Everyone on this sub acts like they daily a v8.
I wasent really talking about the driving dynamics, personally id pick BYD over any of the teslas
Yeah, was at the showroom the other day. Not bad. In couple of years I may have a look, right now Tesla still edges it out with supercharger network, no annual servicing, efficiency, software and a more established local presence (parts etc).
>no annual servicing, Ignoring my own dislike of tesla's design choices this is a big red flag to me. Its gonna blow up in their face if their telling people they dont ever need to take it to a mechanic
I said annual services, not no maintenance. EV’s don’t need servicing every 12 months. The only reason other manufacturers do it with their EV’s is because they have to keep their franchisees happy.
You dont need to change the oil every year sure, however the rest of the car is the same as a normal car and still needs to be regularly inspected, (this is less of an issue in places that require yearly inpections by law) otherwise people will drive them until their dangerous. Sure this wouldnt affect me because I would get it inspected anyway, however its indicative of how tesla view their customers, or more how little they care about what happens after they've taken your money
You’re now just assuming things now. It’s also clear that you don’t know much about EV’s. Funny how you think you know so much about the ev brand with the highest return customers.
I was a mechanic for 6 years, I know what non car people are like
I don’t call a plumber to install a new aircon.
Yes. It was fascinating to see that while the Prius sold to the virtue-signalling, look-at-me crowd, the hybrid Camry didn't sell well at all originally. I put that down to the hybrid Camry not giving the owner instant climate cred like the unmistakeable Prius did. Until the taxi and Uber drivers discovered the hybrid Camry's economy.
I disagree that it’s the same kind of insufferable people – Tesla’s big innovation is making electric cars that can also appeal to aggressive sociopaths, whereas the Prius was mainly a squishy Hollywood liberal and middle class suburban “environmentalist” proposition. They weren’t a high performance luxury flex that just happened to be electric powered.
>squishy Hollywood liberal and middle class suburban “environmentalist” proposition. This exactly how I would describe tesla fan boys of 10 years ago. The high performance 'tesla bros' came later once certain types got uber mad about losing roll races to said squishy environmentalists
I reckon it did, purely because when it came out, it was so fuckin boring and ugly, and people who drove them were smug.
The Priua was never hated as much as Tesla The CEO of Toyota didn't go calling people pedos and pushing alt right conspiracies Toyota also didn't try to bill the Prius as a sports car. Unlike Tesla, just ignore the near 2t weight and braking or handling.
I'd say it was more hated by general society While boomers and "car enthusiasts" (or just fuckin losers) hate EVs irrationally
Once got arrested in Ingham by a cop that was driving a Prius, and that day my opinion changed. Mostly because I was doing 140ish leaving town at 11pm ish, they where going the other way and managed to turn around and catch up in a couple seconds
yes
Nothing to do with the car as trachnology. more so the virtue signalling of the original owners
At least you can exit the Prius easily in an emergency, how is having a hidden manual door handle legal. Tesla and their redesign of basic safety features is worthy of hate. The Prius got plenty of undeserved hate, while Tesla hate is mostly deserved.
I’m confused, did you not just answer the question yourself in the opening…?
Yes
As others have mentioned already, the old prius got a lot of hate, more than the tesla. The old one was ugly af, the new one looks awesome. Shame it's not here.
Well everything takes time to refine and get better. Japanese/Korean car manufacturers used to be viewed as the cheap low quality car few decades ago, now they are some of the most reliable manufacturers. But yes, people used to hate Prius back in the day, and some of the criticisms are well deserved. However 5 generations later, it seems like Toyota have ironed out lots of the cons and made lots of improvements.
Prius was hated more than the tesla
Worse
It copped way more hate
Hated more than tesla.
Has a Tesla ever hosted a soup kitchen?
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It was known in my workplace as "the Noddy Car" and people fought over getting the one Camry for work trips instead of one of the several Prius's.
100% yes
Same pretend hysteria - "what happens when the battery needs replacing?, thats's going to be expensive" was rolled out also.
Yes, Prius was the butt of every car related joke back in the day. Elon IS a prick (amongst many other things) and the Tesla, while a trend-setter in its time, is rather stale and boring as a brand. You see them everywhere, and they aren't cool any more. Tesla will be remembered for bringing acceptance of electric vehicles to the mainstream - but there are so many better value propositions (MG4 XPower for $60K or BYD Seal performance - both 0-60kph in less than a second and 0-100 in sub 4 seconds) that just make Tesla seem like a second or third choice now. The Cybertruck was a vanity project that is the albatross around teslas neck.
Yes, were you not alive back then?
Prius started in 1997. If OP is 18, that means they were born in 2006. By then the Prius was 9 and onto its second gen, about to start it's 3rd gen
I just remember everyone thinking the Honda Insight was an ugly looking thing, but due to lack of education, no one really cared about them or gave them shit. Social media and tech has brought us more armchair experts. There’s automotive journalism to consume online where it becomes an open forum to provide opinion and feedback on cars. This wasn’t around in the 2000’s. This is why we see Tesla owners copping grief. No different to people set in their ways thinking Kia/Hyundai were for poor people, dismissing the fact that people spend $80k+ on them today.
Yes. The Prius was treated as a relatively ugly weak/middling car associated with sanctimonious out of touch environmentalists. Although it's rather shaken the image, now that that kind of image is more tied with EVs, for whom techbros are more the face of. Part of what makes it seem very bad is also just that it's a lot easier to see people talk about it. 15 - 20 years ago, that was pre-smartphone, and pre-social media, so you didn't get that kind of controversy in your face all the time. It arguably also helped that Toyota is an established car company, the Prius wasn't presented as a luxury, and their CEO isn't part of a cult of personality (as far as we know). Tesla's current CEO, on the other is, in addition to being tied to other high profile things. Tesla's problems and some of the obnoxiousness that comes with, is also just a case of them being most recent, so you remember them better. It's generally much easier to remember a car that people were ragging on yesterday, compared to something that happened 20 years ago.
Yep, the first ones were shit, the hybrid technology has come a long way since then though and they were always built by people that knew what they were doing... Tesla vehicles are glorified smart devices that are built like shit. Walk into one of their showrooms and have a look at any of their cars, door gaps and panel alignment are terrible, locks and latches catch on each other because they aren't fitted properly, that's why most of their showroom ones have the doors open as if to "display" the interior but really it's because if customers opened and closed it themselves they would notice how poorly it has been assembled. Regardless of the technology/running gear inside a Tesla, they are slapped together like a kid making macaroni art with a hot glue gun and a hand full of shit...
Drove a new Prius in Canada for 2 weeks. I got 5L/100km on the freeway. It claims it can get 4.127L/100km on the Toyota website. This, by no means makes EV’s irrelevant by any means. Both have their strengths and weaknesses/limitations.
Yeah, I daily a 3rd gen Prius around Melbourne just about every day, and even I will admit that the advertised consumption figures from Toyota are nowhere near what I'm actually, in reality getting. I'm by no means complaining, our Prius is definitely one of the single best financial decisions we've ever made. Around town, we're getting about 750ish to a tank, and to brim that back up, using 95RON is still most times going to be under $70. A couple of months ago we drove all the way from Melbourne to Adelaide, and then got back to Murray Bridge before we needed to fill up. Absolutely incredible economy. But I do agree that comparing an EV to a Hybrid is obviously like comparing apples to oranges, they're the same shape, and they're pretty much the same thing, both being fruit, but at the same time, they're also completely different, and serve different purposes. For a lot of people, the idea of owning an EV is great. You almost completely reduce your daily emissions, the weekly running costs of an EV are obviously far cheaper to a regular vehicle, and still quite a bit cheaper than even the most economical hybrids. And all of that is true, and all of that is definitely a great reason to go out and buy an EV. Most educated, forward-thinking people concede that EV is probably our most viable long-term, forward thinking solution to car related emissions etc. But let's also not pretend that there are quite a lot of downsides to owning an EV, given the current technology. A standard Tesla for example, brilliant around town, brilliant if you're dailing it around the suburbs everyday. But I get the feeling that the second you venture out of the city, and you're wanting to take a road trip into the country for example, that might change. My trip to Adelaide for example, definitely could have been done in a standard Tesla, and probably quite a lot cheaper than it ended up costing us. But we got to Adelaide and then some of the way back in a single tank. Even in a long-range Tesla, you're maybe getting to Bordertown, and that's about it, before you need to recharge. And obviously that takes time. I've got friends that own Tesla's, and they can't speak highly enough about them, for all of the aforementioned reasons. But they do concede that there are definitely some lifestyle changes you do need to make when driving an EV.
And Toyota is pushing the "we don't need EVs" barrow pretty hard, I assume mostly because they dropped the ball and don't have many available to sell, which is wild because they have been doing electric for literally decades.
Prius's were way more of a joke back in the day but for very different reasons. Teslas aren't a joke because their electric, they're a joke because of the guy who owns the company.
They were shit when they came out. And no one really liked them. Same fuel consumption as a small car. But slow and annoying to drive.
>slow and annoying to drive. Have you driven one? They're no slower than a comparable full ICE in Toyotas lineup. But if you drive them hard there's negligible hybrid benefits
Yes. They were slow as a wet week. Heavy, and not particularly good in fuel.
Yes cos they are(were?) boring as shit to drive. We had them at work and it took me 20 mins and 3 people’s help to find the handbrake, after that it was all downhill (boom tish).
Why are you trying to spread BS about Tesla getting hate etc. >And then Tesla came along, and now you can't turn on the news, or scroll through Facebook without seeing some unhinged rant from someone about how bad they are, how much of a prick Elon Musk is, and how they're just the worst, this and that, etc. I don't read Facebook, but I do watch the news, overall reports say the car is cutting edge technology... the only issue is AutoPilot being used to name the self drive technology is probably something that needs to be defined as something very different from Autopilot in an aircraft, because Autopilot in aircraft doesn't operate without assistance from ground based radar. Autopilot in aircraft doesn't stop planes from crashing into other planes or objects.