Quote:
Originally Posted by alexander
It really depends, generally if you are changing a car out to low profile tyres, you would use a larger diameter and slightly wider rim. It generally hardens the ride, and low-pros and super low profile tyres are a lot more expensive and dont do all that well in snow.
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Good information, thanks for the info. A harder ride 'tends' to indicate less friction between the tire and the road, so I suspect the added width doesn't overwhelm that aspect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by alexander
Personally, prius is really border line, at the time, there really was not a hell of a lot of incentive to go with it, there really wasnt a big reason, and the other problem is, every few years you have to change out batteries, which costs 5-7grand, and thats on top of your regular maintenance, etc.
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If by every few years you mean 3-4 years, that is not the case. If by every few years you mean 11-15, you may have a point. As for the costs, if you are in California the cost to replace the battery anytime in the first 10 years would be 0. In all other states I believe there is a 7-8 year warranty. So even if the batteries did need to be replaced prior to that, it would be at a cost of 0. Also, if you do need to replace the battery outside of warranty, the cost is about $4500.
Quote:
Originally Posted by alexander
I was looking into upgrading a prius, but it would cost me around 17K to get it to a car i would like to actually have. turn it into a plug in hybrid with a biodegradable battery pack, a change of the main battery to a biodegradable battery and a carbon fiber roof with a molded in solar module built in. Those would get the car to drive me to work and back on battery power alone and get my average gas mileage to probably around 150 miles/gal, which would actually be appealing... but that would bring the price of the car up to 40k, not the money i could really spend on a car, even today... but certainly something i might be looking into in the future...
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I don't see why you would add a solar module at this time. The amount of power it would generate would be negligable. You could easily do away with that expense and loose almost no efficiency.
Ditto with the carbon fibre, isn't that pretty pricey? Especially for a custom job? For cost and weight I would go with plastic panels.
