We have a winner in the Nelson Prius Challenge
The first Prius Challenge has come to a close here at Bowater Toyota in Nelson with a stunning last day drive from local eco warrior and eco home builder Nick Marer from The Little Pig Building Co.
When Nick took the challenge he also showed us a thing or two gleaned from his years of Prius driving experience. He has owned a Prius for the last 4 years and has obviously broken free of his habits and adjusted his way of driving. He made some very smart choices, took slightly different strategies in some parts of the course, but most importantly paid attention to what was going on around him and planned well ahead so that he could gradually accelerate or decelerate at his own pace.
The result was a stunning overall score of 2.5L/100km fuel economy, a saving of 93cents for the trip over the consumption of New Zealand's favourite car, the Toyota Corolla and electric vehicle use of 67% - a well deserved win!
The video of this drive is available here, and is well worth a watch to see just how it is done. He is calm, collected and cool and in the end, the happy recipient of the all new 2012 Prius C for a week to go where ever he desires.
Nick Marer shows us 2.5L/100km fuel efficiency in the Prius C
On the very last day of the Prius Challenge Nick Marer from The Little Pig Building Co came back to Bowater Toyota claiming he could do better on his previous attempt. His previous attempt was already very good, at 3.6L/100km, but not the best we had seen, and after his challenge he was sitting 7th on the leader board.
Being a Prius owner for the last 4 years, Nick had a few tricks up his sleeve, so he called salesman Chae Baird-Booth and booked another challenge knowing that he could do better. We are all for the competitive spirit, and if someone thinks that they can do better we will support them however we can, so we went along for the drive not expecting to film what unfolded!
How to build an electric car; if you are mad!
With the Prius Challenge ready to wrap up in Nelson this week and move to Motueka we thought that perhaps it was time to look at the recurrent question that gets bandied around within this discussion of alternative technologies - fully electric cars!
If you have got a spare USD$109,000 you could always invest in current market leaders Tesla Motors, but as you can see they have a very small production run and are sold out until production begins again in 2014. It looks like a Lotus Elise anyway....
So the boys from Top Gear did what any good kiwi bloke would - set about making their own electric car. After all, how hard could it be?
There is more, 2 more parts to this story that are as funny as the first one.
The Prius Challenge is coming to Motueka
We have got some very exciting things planned for the month of June over at Bowater Toyota in Motueka. Our new salesman, recent Dutch import Michiel Overweel, is keen to jump right into the thick of it and start with the Prius Challenge for Motueka.
The premise is much the same as the Prius Challenge we have held in Nelson - we set up a course and everyone can have a crack at it. The Motueka Prius Challenge will run for all of June, with the winner announced Monday July 2nd at 9am on our Facebook page.
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