Yes, I meant Micro Hybrids, they have 36 Volt secondary battery which shuts and restarts the engine, but these vehicles dont have motor to assist.

Something is better than nothing, Europe has crowded cities with frequent stops and these micro hybrids save lot of fuel.

To summarize Hybrids have 5 levels
Micro – Stop & Start
Partial – Motor Assist
Full – Motor powers at low speed
Plugin – Motor powers at high speed with charging
Range Extender – Motor alone powers with generator powering motor.

Ideal is the EV with battery alone or with battery and fuel cell combined.

Buick is going to launch 2 Micro hybrids in 2011.

In my opinion, it is a shame that some micro hybrids that do not have the regenerative braking are calling themselves ‘hybrid’, it is another marketing scam to confuse consumers what exactly is a hybrid – being a hybrid should have, at least, two power sources. A vehicle without regenerative braking can hardly provide any electric power assist.

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Furthermore, I think the figure of (*up to*) ’3 million’ micro hybrids in Europe comes from a research report from Lux Research.
1. I read a lot of media reports that, conveniently, left out ‘up to’;
2. I thought, there was an earlier research report from Yano Research Inst. that estimate the market of micro hybrids in 2010 is about 2.2m worldwide, mainly in Europe. That is a difference of more than 800,000 vehicles or 36%, such variance is significant.

I really hope to see report(s) of how many micro hybrids were actually sold, not hearing more reports of ‘estimating’ how many are going to be sold.

Well, naming “Prius V” as “Prius +” in the Europe would be counted as two models?
How about Prius V with nickel battery and Prius V with lithium battery in Japan? Would these be another two models?

http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110308/OEM04/110309852/1115

211,000 Camry Hybrids were sold.

So the 2 vehicles with V4 engine itself sold 2.4 million which is 80% of Toyota’s 3 million.

I believe the
Prius-I (1998 – 2003) sold 120,000
Prius-II (2004 – 2009) sold 1,200,000
Prius-III (2010 onwards) sold probably 880,000 in less than 2 years.

Thats why these fatty foods are cheaper than fruits & vegetables.

Now on top of Corn, Ethanol is also subsidized. So is Oil where we spend billions of $ is policing middle east.

So whats the result of these policies.
Our National Debt at 14.1 Trillion, sometime down the line if the interest payments goes up, then we all will face the song.

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110308-716262.html

I think it’s more like the cars in North America are bigger. They just cannot put that third row of seats and still meet the rear end crash safety requirements that are necessary because of the behemoths some of us here drive.