SmellyTofu

Pssst.. it's actually ST215...

http://www.toyota.com/camry/accessories_large.html?=18wheel Look familiar?

Nice pic Dennis!

Visit the plant if you are curious. There are plant tours that happen at the Altona plant. You will be surprised what actually happens to freshly built vehicles before it even goes on the truck.

You're talking about the Honda Civic and the 1st generation Prius (THS-I) which requires the petrol motor to be running with the A/C on. The current Prius (THS-II) does run A/C from the electric motor (last more than 30mins), is as roomy as a Camry for passenger space and has a long boot area. It's much larger than a Corolla as people perceive it to be. Not to mention it does accelerate very fast at lower speeds. Test drive one before making too much firm comments on it. You'll be certainly surprised as to how it moves itself in the everyday world. 4WD hybrids have been out for a while in Japan. Kluger, Estima, Alphard and Harrier have the E-Four system... just what people need on snow covered and icy roads of Japan.

I have a Navman iCN520 and it really poor for a GPS but I got what I paid for. It takes too long to register satellites. Took about 10mins standing in the same spot to put a dot on the map and it's a common occurance where I might be driving a good 15km before it all registers. No clouds, no tall buildings with glass to fool the GPS signals etc... With the iCN510, wear polarised sunglasses and you can't see the screen. I ran one for a while as a loaner from work. A problem fixed in the 520. The screens are also too small to see from the dash and best mounted on the side window but the suction mounts will ruin tint if you have tinted windows. Well, any suction devices on tint will wreck it so don't do it. Conclusion for the 520, I passed it onto the better half that doesn't use the car all that often. Nothing beats integrated because it also gathers in steering inputs, speed sensors so if your going in a long tunnel, they'll know pretty accurately where you are under the ground. None of the portable ones have this feature (obviously) and something not many people know about. Pretty important if you are underground and there's a turn off. Disadvantage is of course price.