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Hybrid Cars Don't Live Up to Mileage Claims
Omega1045 writes "Wired News is running a great little article about how hybrid cars (specifically Honda and Toyota models) do not come anywhere close to living up to their fuel efficiency claims. The article highlights that the EPA tests are more to blame than the car manufactures. Consumer reports has shown that the mileage for these cars can be as low as 60% of the claims. The article also links to a blog authored by hybrid enthusiast Pete Blackshaw detailing his failures getting any real answers on why his Honda Civic Hybrid isn't getting better fuel mileage. It looks like these cars are more hype than help in the battle against pollution and foreign fuel reliance."
Personally, I'm interested in hybrids but not for fuel efficiency reasons. I'd like to see auto makers combine the output from different energy sources into all-wheel acceleration of a normal car. I remember seeing something on the news a few years ago about Ford experimenting with that on an Explorer, trying to jazz up the acceleration of a bigger vehicle. I don't know what became of that testing, if anything. But it would be extremely cool to see that technology in a small, sporty car.
It has to do with the way the milage per gallon is calculated. It's not the same as really driving.
Let's go Hurricanes!!! 2006 Stanley Cup Champions!!!
Gets 45-55 MPG. If you drive them like a race car of course the MPG is going to be a lot less
I didn't see this answered in the article, but are other gasoline-only autos also overrated?
I mean, if the same EPA testing standardis used on all cars, and the hybrids are overrated...
That said, I have an '88 Volvo that I watch the mileage of pretty closely, and I get b/w 25 and 30 mpg. And it's a big heavy bastard...
hmmmmm....
An interesting alternative fuel is biodiesel:
- We can make it in the US
- Runs in existing diesel engines
- Almost all emissions reduced vs. dinodiesel
(for NOx there are some interesting additives
being produced).
- Much less toxic/dangerous than dinodiesel/gasoline
- Exhaust smells like french fries!
I can speak to the accuracy of hybrid fuel economy numbers, but I did do a bit of research and ended up buying a small gas-only car instead. I found the fuel economy of the hybrids wasn't so much better that it warranted the significant price increase.
I wrote more about the issue on my weblog: Why I didn't buy a hybrid car.
I never got below 50MPG, ever, and that was living in the thin air of Flagstaff, AZ, at over a mile in elevation. I got closer to 60MPG in the lower and warmer Phoenix, AZ.
Have quite a bit less power than their gas-only counterparts (like the hybrid Civic). I've seen people trying to drive these things like they're race cars, and that certainly isn't going to help.
MPG estimates are easy to reach when drive like a responsible person, and according to the cars manual. This is often a bit slower than you are comfortable with, hence the problem. It just happens to be that the rift between gas waste with the two driving styles is quite larger with the hybrid engine.
Drive nicely, you're mileage will be a lot better.
That CSS file that blocks ads
I get 32MPG out of my 1.8T Jetta (5-speed stick) on the highway. But I've read all over the place that the zippy little turbo belches all kinds of nasties when fully engaged.
What I'd be more interested in is the air and environment impact of charging batteries vs. providing high torgue. Not to mention what one does with batteries that can no longer hold a charge. Land fills?
Let's not look at just the MPG's on this. Let's look at the over-all impact of the vehicle throughout it's lifespan. Even if it doesn't immediately effect your bottom-line... it could effect your quality of life in 25 years.
cheers,
Levendis47
--==[ AOL YIM ICQ : Levendis47 : levendis47@yahoo.com ]==--
I'm glad. Maybe this will discourage more companies from jumping on the hybrid bandwagon, and spend their research money on hydrogen-powered cars instead.
Hybrids are only delaying the inevitable, and (according to this article) not by as much as we thought.
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One of the claims that I have heard is that hybrids can take advantage of some of the energy lost by breaking. Instead of using only mechanical resistance (friction -> heat), they also use some magnetic resistance (EMF -> voltage) which can be used to recharge the batteries. That is where the "extra" energy is coming from. It is being more efficient, by not wasting as much energy (think recycling).
So are these techniques actually a part of the hybrid cars out there now?
Let's go Hurricanes!!! 2006 Stanley Cup Champions!!!
That bring a smile to my face first thing in the morning. I can't wait for my "HYBRID1" plates to arrive for my 63 Pontiac with a 400 and dual Edelbrock carbs :)
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
I am laughing, cause my TDI (Diesel) actually gets 40-50mpg, is thousands less then a hybrid and diesel is now way cheaper then gasoline.
The Honda Civic Hybrid is an example of a hybrid is set up with the following:
Energy is lost in the conversion from gas to electricity, it's also lost in the storage in the batteries and the usage from the batteries to the wheels. You konw and I know that while normally this would all be lost in the braking, now it is stored and used to assist with acceleration.
The odd part is that while driving where you aren't using the brakes a lot, the transmission, weight improvements and aerodynamics will be the only improvements in your efficiency. The electrical assist means that your engine can be improbably weak, but I don't know if that necessarily translates to a more efficient engine.
Here's something which nicely describes why I'm skeptical about the true performance of hybrids:
1992 Civic line:_ Civic.shtml
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/1992_Honda
2004 Civic line (including hybrids)_ Civic.shtml
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2004_Honda
I'm not sure why, but it looks like my 1992 1.5L Civic Hatchback is(was) more fuel efficient (city and highway) than the modern 2004 Civic Hybrid. I don't think U.S. government numbers are right, but they're close enough to try to make some kind of a point :-)
As an aside, I was looking into the hybrid transmissions and from what I could tell... I was wrong, the Honda Insight was manual-only, but the newer hybrids sometimes sell with the choice of an automatic or continuously variable transmission... oddly, the fancy transmission hurts highway fuel efficiency, but it helps in the city.
Note that comparing an aluminum hybrid to a galvanized steel compact, e.g. the Insight to a "regular" car, would not be an apples-to-apples comparison since if you were to remove all the weight from the electrical system (adding hydraulic brakes) and increase the engine size to match the lost horsepower, the new gas car would be more efficient than other gas cars on the road today, and might even be better on the highway than the hybrid. (Although it really should fail to beat the hybrid in the city)
A 2004 Honda Civic Hybrid to a 2004 Honda Civic would be a more reasonable comparison than my 1992 to a 2004... the 2004's have bigger engines and are less fuel efficient. I'd also expect the 2004 hybrid to have more horsepower than my 1992 car... so I'll admit, it's not a fair comparison...
But there may be less expensive, more fuel efficient non-hybrid vehicles on the market.
(In reality, I get about 37MPG on the highway, ~30 in the city... the car _is_ 13 years old)
It looks like these cars are more hype than help in the battle against pollution and foreign fuel reliance.
If these results are accurate, then this is true, and it's quite sad. What I don't understand is why we aren't promoting Diesel engines more often.
For example, a VW Jetta TDI gets 50+ MPG on the highway. Unlike the Prius or the Civic Hybrid, diesel engines are cheap, highly reliable, have low maintenance costs, and can easily run on BioDiesel without a performance loss. Even with BioDiesel and Petroleum blends, you're still talking very little pollution in comparison to a similar unleaded gasoline engine. A full tank on a TDI will get you almost 800 miles before you need a refill.
So why as a society (I'm referring to the US here, the EU is very much ahead of us with biodiesel) don't we promote this more often? Let's reduce our foreign oil dependence, and not have a need to drill ANWR. Use Diesel & Biodiesel!
He mentions that he lives in Cincinnati. Significant parts of the city are not particularly flat.
I'd like to know more about his commute route.
People who disagree with you are not automatically evil, greedy, or stupid.
Perhaps the Civic isn't as great as the EPA rated. I don't know, I'm not interested in one. However, Randy Rathbun's blog had a mileage log that contradicts this story at least as far as the Prius (the only hybrid I'm interested in at this point) is concerned. I trust his empirical evidence more than a poorly researched article that paints all hybrids with the Civic-brush.
mbbac
I owned a 2001 Honda Insight a few years ago. It did not live up to it's claims of 65+ miles a gallon, but my lifetime average was a respectable 54. Mind you, I did drive on country roads, and rarely got many highway miles, so I never complained much.
First of, a Honda Civic is not a true hybrid. It doesn't contain all of the necessary systems like the Prius and the Insight to fall under classification as a true hybrid vehicle.
As for the more interesting question of why they don't get the listed MPG ratings, there are a few reasons:
1) First off you have to drive it "perfectly" to get those ratings, just as normal cars don't achieve their listed potential, neither do hybrids because most people don't know the most fuel efficient driving practices (not flooring it ever, for example).
2) Hybrids must be driven to fully take advantage of their hybrid quality. This is different from normally driving a car. You have to ensure you are using the regenerative breaks instead of coasting to a stop, switch into B drive when on hills, lay off of the accelerator when it isn't truly needed (i.e. gain speed gradually on highways, instead of flooring it and dumping a gallon of gas down the drain).
When your average person drives a car, he/she cares more about "looking cool", not letting someone cut them off, or some other idiotic driving practice than driving it economically. How much thought do you give to driving for maximum fuel economy? With Hybrids, due to their differences these changes can make more of an impact.
I've just gotta throw in my two cents here: I'm perfectly happy with my 1996 Saturn SL2. With 101K miles on it, it gets 32 MPG during my city commute (15 miles each way) and will hit 40 MPG when I drive long distances.
The 'old' technology works just fine for me.
This isn't informative, it's a half-truth. So what if you can't create more energy? A huge amount of the energy that burning gas (exploding gas fumes, really) liberates is wasted in heat out the engine, heat out the gas pipe, and heat due to friction on the brake pads. Offhandedly dismissing the impact that reclaiming some of that wasted energy can have is ignorant. It's like looking at a river and thinking "Well, we can't make this water create any additional power". Build a dam and create a manmade lake, and you can generate billions of kilowatt hours per year.
One nuance that the Wired article didn't cover is that mileage depends greatly on driving style. If I make short, aggressive hops across town my Prius' mileage drops to the mid 30s in summer or low 30s in winter. If I drive more sedately (at the speed limit, with gentle acceleration instead of punching the throttle at the lights) I get mileage in the mid to high 40s. Not bad for a comfortable four-door family car.
I can drive all day at 80 mph and get 41 MPG. I do it several times a year to visit family and/or just road-trip around the state.
The lesson to take is that good mileage requires both good tech and good habits.
Honda has a new Diesel powered car that isn't a hybrid, and is getting 76 MPG (U.S. gallons) in real-world testing by the FIA. It's also breaking speed records for its class in the FIA testing (with the exact same cars used for the fuel efficiency test). I'm curious as to why diesel powered cars aren't more popular in the US, they can be much more efficient, and with recent advances in catalytic converters, and technology, these new diesel engines run very clean and very quietly.
There's no batteries to worry about, and you get a fullsize (well... not subcompact like most hybrids anyway, hehe) car with a full trunk to use.
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
Diesel cars with similar fuel effiecncy, but definitely not the cleaniness, have been around for ages.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
You're wrong in many ways.
You CAN create more energy from less fuel, of course you usually talk about USABLE energy... so, improving efficiency leads to more usable energy.
A lot of cinetic energy (which is a form of ordered, high quality energy) is wasted in the brakes, here's where you can improve efficency.
The act of moving doesn't theoretically need energy (except for the pure cinetic energy you reach during the travel) so, there's a lot of space for improvements.
The principle behind hybrid cars does make sense, it tries to recover some energy that otherwise would be wasted (engine at idle, brakes, etc...)
A lot of the automotive engineers I've worked with over the years admit that the EPA tests suck and complain about them, but at the same time they know that all their current products are built to take full advantage of the EPA tests wherever possible. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Like all cars, hybrids need more power when you're overcoming inertia (and that's when they go to the gasoline teat). If you're in a hilly suburban area where you're accelerating to speed, only to immediately stop again, yeah, you're going to get crapulent mileage. Notice that the ratings are for "highway" (fairly constant cruising, once you're at speed), and "city" (low-speed stop and go traffic, where you can stay on battery half the time).
If your hypothetical bloated SUV had one of those nice little LCD consumption displays like my '04 Prius, I bet you'd find that it needed several decimal places to display anything other than 0 when dragging its lard ass up a hill. I suspect that all such mileage ratings are for "ideal conditions," and even those nice little plain-gasoline economy cars get 5-10 mpg less than the 30-40 on the sticker.
As a data point, my Prius averages 45 mpg (well, 45.4 on the current tank, around mile 400). I tend to float between 50-70 on I-495 around DC, depending on traffic conditions, and have five minutes or so of 25 mpg deadweight in the suburban areas at the endpoints of my commute.
Moving from traffic light to traffic light is no good for gas millage in any car. Even for a pure electric you "fuel" economy is going to go way down. It is when you get moving that the economy comes in.
I consistantly get 400+ miles out of my Prius. If I go out on country roads (or take the highway at the speed limit, maybe even a tick under) I can get a heck of a lot more.
Ya, it doesn't get exactly the quoted 55mpg average... but it is still a damned cool car that I wouldn't trade for anything (except maybe a 2005 model). :P
It's one thing to point out that the EPA fuel efficiency test is a chronic source of mis-information, but all cars go through this test and few average their advertised efficiency under practical conditions, whether they are hybrid or not. So, it would be nice if Mr. Timothy would spare us the FUD.
My father has a Prius, my girlfriend's brother-in-law has a Prius, and I have a close friend with the Honda "pod-car" hybrid, and all of them report EXCELLENT mileage: far better than they could get with any comparable conventional automobile.
But it isn't that simple. What the Wired article alludes to without really exploring it is that efficiency is related to driving habits. You can drive a hybrid like any other car, of course, but if you want the best efficiency out of a hybrid, you have to learn to drive it efficiently. That's one of the reasons the Prius has the computer display in the center of the console: so you can relate how you drive with how the engine is utilized. Mastering regenerative braking is one of these details. Learning the most efficient routes around town is another.
Another important aspect of hybrids that the Wired article ignores is emissions. Vehicles like the Prius are ultra-low emissions vehicles (ULEV), which to my mind, we need more of.
I can't speak for the Honda, as I have the Toyota Prius, but I get consistently 48-9 city MPG, (the '02 P is rated at 47 city).
If you don't know how to drive a hybrid, then you will get poor MPG. Period. Here's how to get high MPG in a hybrid:
It is absolutely understandable why people try to drive the way they are taught: smooth acceleration, hit the brakes often, etc., but that is the antithesis of getting good gas mileage in a hybrid.
Finally, the main goal of the hybrid is reduced emissions; increased MPG is a byproduct.
Yeah, right.
When you drive a hybrid, you will get better mileage if you change your habits to make more effective use of the hybrid's abilities. This doesn't mean you have to poke along... I accelerate hard so that I am using my batteries and minimizing the time I spend burning a lot of fuel in the gasoline engine. Plus, it's fun. You'll also get better mileage if you pay attention to things like tire pressure. Dealers like to inflate my Insight tires to 32 psi all around, even though 38 psi is what Honda recommends. An Insight with 32 psi tires looks like it's running on flats. I inflate to 44 psi. The mileage change is dramatic.
As for the original article, it has some good points in it about the EPA tests. It also has some real head-scratchers, like this: "Schmidt says hybrid cars use computers to more precisely control the flow of gasoline and have more efficient catalytic converters..." and this "hybrid cars' ability to limit emissions contributes to the disparity in EPA versus real-world numbers." There are many, many cars that have the same or better EPA emissions rating (10/10) as the Civic Hybrid and the Toyota Prius. All cars today use computers to regulate gasoline flow.
When you get your hybrid, turn on its instantaneous readout of mpg and use it to give you feedback on your driving. It will train you. Happy driving...
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
I drive a honda civic, and spent the last week driving my sisters civic hybrid (been considering getting one).
:) but it still performed perfectly well
At first I thought it felt remarkably close to the standard civic in performance, then I went back to the standard civic
But according to the car (its readout not my calculations) I got about 39-40 MPG durring the week, where as I calculate any where from 28-35 MPG on my civic.
Not a big increase, but It seemed like they could have done more to make little improvements, like according to the car the electric motor never assists unless your really heavily accelerating or going up an incline. also it turns the gas motro of at a stop light, but if you move again it wont turn it off unless you exceed 5 MPH, so if your in real bumper-to-bumper traffic the motro stays on, now I realize the design of the engine(s) probably makes it so the car can't move without the electric but it seems to me it would be morte asthetically pleasing to keep the gas off until you actually start moving faster than say 5MPH. (there would have been stretches of 20-30 minutes in traffic without the engine even running if that were the case for me.
all in all I would definatly consider a hybrid when I purchase my next car, but my milage expectations have been brought to earth.
With the AC off, I get 44-46 mpg. That's lower than the calculated mpg the onboard computer gives me,m and lower than the official EPA mpg. However, I still think it's pretty good. I have some theories about why people don't get good mileage:
1. The electric motor acts like a turbo would. You can't just hammer down and plow past people in the passing lane. If you try that, you'll just shove the CVT into 5000 RMP mode and waste a ton of gas. You have to let it "spool up".
2. Most peope ride the brakes. If you chill out, you can engine brake and let the electric motor suck the power off the transmission rather than having the brakes turn it into heat.
3. Kinda like #1, blasting up to 80 mph is a bad idea because you waste a lot of gas *and* battery juice. You can ride at 80 mph, and relatively efficiently, too, but you have to let the car get there.
All that said, I'd like the car to have a whole lot more battery power for off-the-line accelerations, which takes up the most fuel, and to store more regenerative power.
Danke tres mucho, tovarishch.
Overall, I've gotten an average of just over 50 miles per gallon over the last 16,000 miles. In the summertime, I get about 53-55 mpg, and in the winter it's just under 50.
I definitely changed how I drove to maximize my fuel efficiency. If you don't leave the car in gear as you're braking to stop at a light or stop sign, the engine won't charge and you're mileage goes way down. If you accelerate like a bat outta hell after stopping, you lose mileage big time - instead you have to just accept that you're gonna accelerate slower than other cars.
Others have asked the question, and I'd be curious to know the answer: do non-hybrid cars live up to the EPA mileage reports? One would imagine that the EPA would have some consistency in their testing, so it'd be okay to compare numbers.
Interestingly, on my Civic hybrid, the dashboard display of the average mileage for this trip seems to exaggerate the mileage consistently by about 4-5 miles per gallon. I reset one of the trip odometers each time I fill up the tank, and use the odometer reading (number of miles travelled) along with the number of gallons I put in to make my own calculation of mileage. It's always at least 3 or 4 miles per gallon lower than what the display reports. My Honda dealer is clueless about the hybrid, and couldn't even understand the question when I asked them about this difference.
Note that comparing an aluminum hybrid to a galvanized steel compact, e.g. the Insight to a "regular" car, would not be an apples-to-apples comparison since if you were to remove all the weight from the electrical system (adding hydraulic brakes) and increase the engine size to match the lost horsepower, the new gas car would be more efficient than other gas cars on the road today, and might even be better on the highway than the hybrid. (Although it really should fail to beat the hybrid in the city)
Yeah, I think the weight of the hybrid electrical system offsets the weight savings from the aluminum body.
But there are several things which really upset me about hybrids:
- I don't care what they say, sooner or later an accident will happen where the batteries are ruptured and smear electrolyte all over passengers.
- No matter what you do, you're never gonna get all the cars or their batteries back for proper recycling. People do strange things to cars. They end up in lakes or rivers, or abandoned in the woods.
- Aluminum is a difficult metal to work. Welding to the body to perform a collision repair is going to be expensive because it requires equipment that most body shops don't have - TIG welder, stock of aluminum sheet metal, person capable of TIG welding without warping thin sheet metal. Therefore, the cars will be scrapped more often after collisions. Also, aluminum rots extremely quickly in road and sea salt conditions - look at city buses, there's a reason all of the panels are interchangable with only 1/2 hour and a rivet gun.
- Complexity - either real or perceived - of the drivetrain is increased. More and more people and shops will want to avoid working on them, which will drive up labor costs for service. Therefore, because they're expensive to fix, they'll get scrapped sooner.
- Late-Life vehicles - Will driving this car be at all practical if the assist battery is disconnected? When the car is 6-8 years old and being driven around by its last owner and the battery dies, will it still be usable as a conventional car, or will it be scrapped rather than spending the many thousands of dollars a new battery will cost?
(In reality, I get about 37MPG on the highway, ~30 in the city... the car _is_ 13 years old)1970 Dodge Dart 4-door sedan, mostly stock, seats 5 full-size (6 foot +) adults in comfort, modern radial tires, Slant-6 brings the thing up to highway speed quicker than most new econoboxes. And it's made of thick, solid steel. 34 years old, gets 25MPG highway, about 22MPG city.
Moore's Law does not apply to the automobile!
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Bought my 2004 Honda Civic Hybrid in October. I've got a little over 7,000 miles mostly city driving. My daily commute round trip is about 16 miles a day. I've also made several trips to Orlando which is about 200 miles round trip. First month I averaged around 38 MPG.
Modified my driving style and second month average MPG was around 41.
Modified my driving style and third month average MPG was around 43.
After a couple of months of practice (also started driving mostly with the AC off, and I live in Florida) my MPG is now averaging between 45 and 48 MPG.
My wifes car started having problems, so she drove my car for a week, average fuel milage fell to 37 MPG.
The reason I love my car so much is because it is a real "drivers" car. What I mean by thats is the car will do everything that it claims to do, if you are a skilled enough driver.
The camaro I traded in for the Civic Hybrid claimed to do 150 MPH, but almost everywhere I go has a Max Speed limit of 45 so I was never able to see if I could drive the car at that speed. Now I have a car that gives me a driving skill test that I can actually do.
They used to have higher fuel efficiency cars. without lots of hybrid tech. The CRX HF (granted, very small) had over 50mpg.
My 1992 civic vx hatchback has 80k miles on it (got it for a song, low mileage) gets..get this.. 50 mpg. that's a 12 year old car. Most of my driving is highway, but we don't ahve an efficient public transportation system (I live in the west && !California, which means that public trans is a lot more scarce).
But the demand was for huge SUVs. People want to feel safe. People want to have the status symbol.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
Now for some truth. (disclaimer I drive a hybrid) On the freeway, the hybrid system doesn't do much. It's all plowing wind and the engine never shuts down.
However in city traffic jam traffic, it shines big time. That awful creep and stop at metered on ramps and passing the wreck is usualy done with the engine off most of the time. This is where regular cars are very ineffecient. Unfortunately most of our time on the road isn't in these conditions in the USA. Now as part of the reality check, I have missed the EPA estimates by about 10 MPG. It's still double the milage I got on my last car. At current gas prices, the payback period has droped from never to something in the car's lifetime. If gas goes up more, the payback time will shorten much more. I don't regret my used Prius purchase.
I replaced a 2.3 Liter 4 cyl Ford Mustang with a 1.5 Liter Toyota Prius. Mpg went from 24-28 to 43-48 for my commute. Getting 400 miles on a tank is normal. I haven't risked running out of gas to try for 500 miles, but I've had enough gas left at the next fill to have done it.
The big savings I found for mine is as a standby generator. During an outage, I ran a TV, refrigerator, lots of lights, and chest freezer off the car. The engine did not run all the time. It would start, cycle for a few minutes and shut back down. Overnight my best guess is I used 2 gallons of gas. Most portable generators would require a refill every 3-6 hours to do the same job. At that consumption rate, I would not worry about refilling it for several days of constant running as an emergency generator. That could never be done with a conventional car.
The truth shall set you free!
Well, Ive had my 2000 Honda Insight which I bought used for about a year now, and love it. Normally, Id buy something like this new, but I found one for $10,000 in a Honda dealer in Nanuet, NY. So, with taxes and the honda extended warranty, let's call it $11,000. A good deal for someone who used to pay $40 a week in gas for a 4 runner SUV, which isnt big, but it sucks gas.
Now, for my commute which is paltry, I average 52MPG in town and the errands around the area of North NJ. If I drive it like it should be drive, I can get as high as 57MPG, but thats a lot of highway, not going faster than 55MPH ever, and very slow accelleration. Im sure if you get on a track with no water/snow/wind/other drivers you could get about 58-60MPG as well.
Honda states its 61/68 for the Insight, and thats without a passenger, headwind, groceries, extra weight, rain, air pressure being low in the tires, etc. Surprisingly, a coworker (who had to buy the exact car as me, color and everything, lol), travels about 25 miles to work and he gets 54-58 regularly now for a year. He's got a different driving style and he loves the car too.
Someone else at work got a 2004 Prius and he gets 45mph. Toyota did claim higher and that might be false advertising, but no one other than an all-electric can compare to the mileage of the Honda Insight. Shame Honda lost $8K per car they made since it was just so overly technical in the beginning. Only about 4K sold per year, I dont know if they'll make them for 04, 05, but I love it.
All this, with power windows, AC, 5 speed, and a comfortable, reliable ride from Honda. $17 fills my 10 gal tank and its 550 miles before I need another fillup - usually ONE MONTH.
The downsides? Low acceleration, bumpy ride, and not the most comfortable seats (I dont mind them, others have complained) and if you feel like saving yourself $25 a week in gas, a used one might be in order.
I'm an Audi driver myself, and I love the VW/Audi lineup. They sell a TDI (Turbo Direct Injection, for those not up to speed) equipped A4 in Eurupe, but not in the US.
There are 2 reasons why diesel isn't popular. 1 is because of it's stodgy, noisy, smelly, and shaky public image. That's not true anymore, but the image lingers. The other reason is because of CARB. California Air Research Board. You CANNOT buy a new passenger diesel car in 2004 in states which follow CARB regulations (instead of EPA regs) Those states are CA, NY, VT, MA, and ME. A very large percentage indeed.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
You're arguing with him about how much he spent? Don't you think he knows better than you?
It's a $2000 credit, bozo. They hand it to you on a platter.
Please, tell me where I can get a gallon of electricity?
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
There is a lot of opposition from all the trucking unions and lobbying from the transport companies over cleaner diesel, since it costs a little more then dirty diesel it would cut into there bottom line. Not sure if we will ever see it.
As for buying a TDI, I would recommend it, I would also recommend you purchase a VAG-COM if you already don't have one. Takes the guess work out of working on your VW.
I bought a used 2000 Insight (5 spd) and I've had it for about 7 months now.
In my experience, I've consistently gotten around 60 miles to the gallon . In the winter it dropped to ~59 (Missouri weather), but on my current tank of gas I have gotten 64.8 MPG over the last 240+ miles. I drive about 5 miles to work one way in city roads, with an max speed of around 40 mph and several stop lights. On weekends I drive it on the highways and my mpg figure usually rises even on a 5-10 mile trip on the highway, which I figure means that I've gotten significantly better mileage. My worst mileage was when i drove to Indiana last thanksgiving and I did 80 mph most of the way. I got 55 MPG then.
In my opinion, the hybrids need to be driven a certain way. You can't really drive them the way you drive a regular car (accelerate too fast / brake fast). Dont get me wrong, I still accelerate normally, but being able to anticipate stops better and using the regenerative braking and getting the engine into auto-stop faster when the batteries are charged works like a charm for me. Insight Central has some driving tips that helped me a lot.
I'd chalk this guys problems up to him not adjusting his driving style to fit the car. Thats my 2cents.
... Hate the Game.
So what can we take from this? EPA's mileage estimates are extremely flawed and based on 1970's technology. Duh.
But the real problem is that the article is completely ignores the driving habits of the person singled out in the article!!!
Are his tires properly inflated? If not, subtract about 10% from your estimated mileage.
Is he making short trips? If so, subtract about 30% from your estimated mileage. (This is because a hybrid's primary function is not to get the best gas mileage it can -- instead it's goal is to reduce emissions to the maximum extent it can. In order to reduce emissions, the catalytic converter must be hot -- and to get it hot, the engine has to run. So if your trip is less than 10 minutes, you are shutting off the car right when it has warmed up to reach its peak efficiency.)
Is it cold out? For the same reasons explained above, weather has a huge effect on efficiency (never mind the fact that battery efficiency also decreases with lower temperatures.)
To put this all in prespective - I've had my Prius for a couple of years now and have kept ridiculously detailed track of my mileage figures -- and they are all over the map depending how I drive.
When I went with the tires that came with the car, on hot days, with no air conditioning, and drove in a method to maximize efficiency, I could get 60+ miles per gallon. Turn on the air conditioner and drop that to 40.
During the winter, the best I can usually do is 45.
And when I recently switched the tires (for better handling and tread life), my mileage droped by about 10%.
Drive over 70 MPH, drop it to 40. Drive over 80? Drop it to about 35? (I've never gotten less than 38 for a whole tank average - and that was only when I abused the car.)
All I am saying is that mileage is highly subjective. This is true for all cars -- but with the hybrids, they keep such careful track of the mileage that it is always on people's minds.
When I first got my car, I was dissapointed that I did not get 65-70 MPG as the car was advertised. I was only getting around 50 MPG (still good). However, whenever my wife drove the car, she would get 65-70 MPG. It all depends in how you drive the car. I modeled my driving patterns to hers, (basically keep your foot steady on the gas instead of pushing on it then letting off), and I am now getting over 60 MPG. The trick is to remember that the hybrid is not like other cars and adjust accordingly.
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
If you think about it, city driving involves less aerodynamic drag, so it should require less energy to accomplish. Motorcycles (driven sanely) regularly do better in town than on the highway, largely because their aerodynamics are crap. Hybrids are typically designed with lots of efficient features (as you point out) and hence do OK on the highway -- but where they really shine is in city conditions, where they use less fuel per mile [and a regular car would use more fuel per mile].
I have about 35k miles on my Honda Insight, and I am getting the mileage as advertised. It is rated, if memory serves, to get between 62 and 68 mpg. I am averaging about 63. Granted, because most of my miles are highway miles, you could argue that I should be getting 68, but I cannot exactly complain with 63.
;)
One thing this car has taught me, however, is that I don't think any car will get the mileage as advertised if you do not drive it "correctly." Because the Insight gives me constant feedback about what sort of MPGs I am getting at any given time, I have learned and adopted different driving patterns to maximize MPGs. For example, when coming up to a red light, I tend to coast and slow down gradually, rather than accelerating right up to it, and braking more quickly. Anyone in the passenger seat does not notice the behavior as weird, and at this point I just do it naturally and without thinking. However, when I am in a friend's car with them driving, I do notice that they tend to accelerate right up until the light, and then break fairly quickly. Little behaviors like that affect what sort of MPGs you get, and unless you drive a car that gives you that sort of feedback, many people do not tend to think about such things as having a real effect on their mileage.
I have a friend that just bought a new car, and it is advertised as allegedly getting around 30mpgs... However, as he accelerates quickly on highways, passes other cars frequently, and brakes late at lights - I know he is not getting the mileage he thinks he is... Had he had a display on his dash, like the Insight, that told him his mileage, he might believe me
my religion lies somewhere between buddhism and super monkey ball - pamphlet?
Biodiesal is a good fuel for replacing some of our oil usage. The other main benifit that you forgot to mention is that it is carbon neutral since any CO2 put into the air from exhaust is balenced by the CO2 taken out of the air by the plants grown to create the biodiesel.
At the moment it is only twice as expensive as diesel here in the US (although what will all the agricultural tarriffs jacking prices up and subsidies bringing them down, it is damn near impossible to calculate the true economic cost of biodiesal). There is the kink that all of our fertilizers are fossil fuel based, so the cost of producing biodiesal will go up as the cost of fossil fuel goes up. The only other alternative is to go to crop cycling and other natural sustainable methods of fertalization, which are also less cost efficient.
However the real killer is that if you sit down and do the back of the envelope calculations, you will find that growing enough biofuel to replace all the world's oil usage would require all the arable land on the entire planet. In other words we would have to bulldoze all the woods, rainforests, plains, and marshes, and replace them with biomass crops. Not only will will destroy most of the natural habitats on the planet, but at this point we also loose the carbon neutral benifit because we are taking other plants out of the carbon cycle to put ours in.
So Biodiesal, like solar, is a good supplement to our enegry needs, but not a sustainable complete replacement.
I love my '96 Passatt TDI. No matter how or where I drive, with or without AC, I get 35 mpg. It never wavers at all. And it's got surprising pickup for something officially rated at 90 hp. Of course, the backside of that pickup is that you need to shift before the end of the intersection. :-)
It's exempt from emissions testing too, which is a big plus.
My next car will probably be a Beetle TDI as soon as they have factory installed XM radios.
Theoretically the hybrid is able to A) make use of energy regained by regenerative braking and coasting, and B) run its gas engine at the most efficient rpm rather than having to continuously vary engine speed as we normally do.
Those are the up-side. The down side is that electric generators do not convert 100% of the torque energy you put into them, electric motors do not give you 100% of the electric energy you put in back as torque, and batteries do not give back 100% of the energy you put it storage.
So you have all the losses normally associated with a gas engine PLUS all these electric drive train losses as well.
Consequently it is no surprise that highway mileage is worse with the hybrid than a standard engine, because the standard is tuned for highway driving. There's no energy lost to braking, so the hybrid's advantages are all neutralised.
In the city there is plenty of stop and go driving, with speeding up and slowing down, and this is where the hybrid has the advantage with regenerative braking and constant engine speed.
In concept all you are doing is using a smaller engine to wind up a big spring. Sometimes this is an advantage, sometimes it isn't.
If you are driving all in the city, chose a hybrid. If you are driving mostly on the highway, stick with the standard style.
By the way, the small difference in even city mileage is more of a testament to the superb design of modern engines and cars than a strike against the hybrid car. Cars these days are absolutely amazing.
Honda Insight
2003 Honda Civic Hybrid
On combustion engines that use the standard rings to seal pistons, you're not going to see your optimum mileage for several thousand miles. Depends on tolerances and manufacturer of course, but I've had several cars that their mileage/power output increased steadily up till about 8000 miles.
Also, as everyone's already pointed out, how you drive plays a big role, as well as tire pressure, and where you're driving.
I'm trying to sell my neon currently. Great car but I've moved on. It's a 2.0 litre gas engine (manual transmission), and I've gotten 45 mpg on roadtrips with it. It dynos at about 140 hp. It's not all about the power, it's about how efficiently you make the power and definitely how you use it. People should have to take a class when they buy a hybrid as it's my experience that most people don't know how to drive a NORMAL car properly.
is that one of the primary ways to improve the efficiency of petrol (ok, gasoline, or more technically, spark ignition engines) is to prevent your pumping losses (required since the air/fuel ratio must be constant, so at lower throttle settings you have to induce resistance in the intake to reduce the air going in). This is why you need to try and run the spark ignition engine at wide-open-throttle as much as possible (and stick the extra energy in something like a battery).
However, diesel engines don't have pumping losses (or, much less significant losses), so there isn't so much to gain making diesel hybrids (since with a diesel hybrid, you will lose most of the benefit to losses in your electro-mechanical transmission).
But, if there is a more efficient way to store the excess energy, it may become feasible.
Some guy in cincinatti not getting excellent fuel econmomy in first 1000 miles. This is when an engine hasn't even been broken in...This is news
I have a deisel which gets good millage (not as good as the epa test, but NOONE gets the epa millage, it allows you to kinda compare car to car). Hybrids especially the toyota which turns its gas engine off at stops in city driving will get better city than highway.
These hybrid owners are relegious about monitoring there gas millage, to the point of obsesion. Google for milage and you'll see.
Here is one site guys site that shows things aren't as bad as they would appear Prius . If you search you'll see details about millage.
My best mileage on a tank of fuel with my Golf TDI is 49.1 miles per gallon. That's for an entire tank. Nearly 700 miles.
I rarely get fewer than 43 miles per gallon. I can easily go 500 miles before thinking about filling up.
That and diesel is $0.25 less than gasoline right now, which makes me happy. On top of that, I have the option of using biodiesel, which is a domestic fuel. Admittedly, I've never used biodiesel, because you can only find it at farmer Co-ops out in the country.
I've been a skeptic of hybrids for a long time, and this only serves to reinforce my skepticism.
Diesel is a good near term solution for fuel efficiency. Volkswagen has been doing a great job of it, and I hope the availability of diesel engines will increase in the future in the US.
My Karma was at 49, then they switched to words. All that work for nothing!
His main problem is not the car, but the fact that he believed what he was sold from Honda Dealer would all be true.
Surely there were plenty of independent channels he could have turned to, including locals with the same type of car, for real-world independent info before he bought the car.
The recent junk-science story here lamented lack of critical thinking in everyday life: Believe TV advertisers at your own peril.
FWIW, EPA give plenty of caveats on their web site regarding lack of applicability of their mileage-rating model to individual performance, so calling them out for this also doesn't work.
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
However in city traffic jam traffic, it shines big time... Unfortunately most of our time on the road isn't in these conditions in the USA.
You and I either have a different definition of "unfortunate", or we differ about liking to drive in traffic jams.
Hybrids ARE great for city driving, when the maximum power output of the drive line is almost never required. The batteries can happily slog through traffic for quite some time without needing to run the IC engine. However, high speed highway driving, merging, and passing will often require 100% of available drive line power, this is where hybrids fall down.
Running both the engine and the electrics drains the batteries, requiring the engine to continue to run even after 100% power is not required, the engine has to run fairly hard to charge the batteries back up, and of course there is a loss of efficiency in the conversion from mechanical to electric energy. If you drive like grandma, your hybrid *might* reach the claimed highway efficiency, but at the cost of speed, merging and passing.
Just for comparison my 1992 Alfa Romeo 164s has a 220hp fuel-injected 3 litre V6, asside from the BOSCH Motronic 5.1-ML injection, it is a decidedly low-tech engine. Single overhead cams, 12 valves, 60 degree, the valve train and geometry of this engine date from the mid 60s. The 164s weighs 3650 lbs, roughy TWICE what a Honda Insight weighs. The Alfa also features leather interior, kickin' sound system, very good aerodynamics, and a top speed in excess of 155 mph. If I take this beast on long highway drives, I can manage 31 mpg. The reason? Most the time the engine is using only a small fraction of it's possible power output.
When a hybrid, or for that matter, any underpowered vehicle gets out on the highway the conditions often require the drive line to run at maximum output. No mater how lean burning or smart a fuel injection system is, it has to deliver more fuel to produce more power. But if a 3650 lb luxury/sport sedan can get 30+ Mpg why can't an 1800 lb econo car get 60+? The answer is it CAN. And without the added weight, cost and expense of hybrid systems. Hybrids are *a* solution, they are not however in my oppinion the *best* solution.
What we need are high effiency small-ish engines in the 1.2 to 1.8 litre range put into light weight, aerodynamic bodies. The results would be affordable, reasonably fun to drive and just as efficient as hybrids for most American drivers. Those living in cities may want to consider a full electric solution, or *gasp* public transportation (which is, unfortuneately not really up to snuff in most American cities). In addition, a displacement on demand system could improve the efficiency of small cars in city driving as well. Who says only a V8 would bennefit from this technology? A small 4 cyl car could conceivably be set up to idle on only one cylinder at stop lights.
Hybrids may actualy be better suited to high performance applications than high efficiency applications. Witness the Toyota Volta. The Volta is efficient because it rarely uses 100% of it's available power, and since about 50% of that power is provided by electrics, it's IC engine is similar in efficiency to that of a vehicle with 1/2 the total drive-line power of the Volta. The result is a vehicle that rarely taps it's full potential, and operates at maximum efficiency most of the time rather than maximum output.
A Call For A New Slashdot Moderation Level!
Christ, the claims for the mileage on my 2001 XTerra were off, too. What's the BFD? This kind of crap reeks of gas company crybaby marketing. Who did this study? Texaco?
That said, I'd still love to have a hybrid...and right now the 2005 Ford Escape Hybrid is looking like a winner, unless Nissan can get off it's collective ass and get me a 2006 XTerra Hybrid.
blog |
and live in Scotts Valley (Santa Cruz mountians just north of Santa Cruz). The driving is mixed (50% city, 50% highway). I, like many others (there are sites out there where people graph their milage) get about 46-47 mpg on average. The high epa rating was ~50 mpg, which puts me at 97%, and I don't drive like an old lady either.
My guess would be that either something is wrong with this guy's car, or (more likely), he drives way too fast. You aren't going to get anything near epa rating if you're driving 80mph, regardless of the car.
On driving too fast, it might be that he doesn't realize how fast he's going (I always had Fords, which are *loud* and when I got my Prius I was always speeding because the car is so quiet and smooth)
Why so much FUD about hybrids lately? I've noticed a knee-jerk recation from so many people when I tell them I own a hybrid ("oh, you have to plug it in" or "I heard they are really slow" -- all bull by the way). The Prius is just a very well engineered car and I've very happy with it.
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As soon as I saw that I had to dismiss the entire article. The guy lives in Cincinnati. For those of you who've lived in Cincinnati, you know how incredibly hilly it is (Not San Fran. hilly, but still...). I have a '98 Civic EX I drive daily in Cincinnati... you know what kinda gas mileage it gets? 18Mpg. EIGHTEEN! I take it on trips and I get high twenties, low thirties.
They use this guy as an example, but make no mention of the driving conditions he usually deals with. The manufacturers MPG estimates are based on flat roads... its hardly surprising that he doesn't get the estimated mileage when he's constantly climbing hills.
I agree that there should be some oversight of the estimates, but its impossible to provide an accurate measurement for every kind of condition. I think the article fails to realize that all miles are not equal.
The Ford Focus PZEV has practically zero emmissions and will be widely available later this year. The gas mileage shouldn't be too much different from your regular Foci - or the above mentioned hybrids apparently...
The Toyota Prius uses an ICE system. It involves two electric motors, can operate "silently" (purely off the electric motor) at low speed, and can only be used in conjunction with an automatic transmission.
The Honda hybrids use a system called "IMA", that functions more like an electric turbocharger. If a Honda hybrid is moving, the gasoline engine is running. Well, OK, there is an exception to this if you're coasting to a stop at speeds below about 10 MPH (3 MPH in the CVT), with the brake pedal depressed, the engine goes into "auto idle stop" mode. The Honda design can be used with a manual transmission (leading to the extraordinary mileage of certain models) and is less complicated than the Toyota system, but otherwise seems to be a wash as far as advantages when comparing the two.
I have to admit some bias here: I think the Honda Insight is in a class by itself. It was a brand-new model introduced in Japan in 1999, engineered from the ground up to be the MPG king of the mass-produced world. It sacrifices a lot to be that: no rear seat, "unusual" design (my brother-in-law says "ugly", but I think it gives the car "character"), all-aluminum construction (painful, painful body repair bills), high insurance costs (on par with high-end rear-wheel-drive sports cars), a fairly stiff econo-box-like ride due to really hard little wheels, a crappy stereo (until 2004, when they put a much nicer model in), and hardly any selection of "options": if you have an Insight of a particular year, other than air conditioning and transmission type, your choices are extremely limited.
But I still love the car :) Now, back to responding to your post!
The engineer that talked about the Prius "running off batteries and not using gas" must have been off his rocker, if what you describe is correct. The energy has to come from somewhere, and in the case of these hybrids, that's from the gas tank. The gasoline motor must run to recharge those battery cells. And the chemical energy (gas tank) to kinetic energy (motor) to chemical energy (battery) transition wastes a good deal of that energy. Add to that kinetic energy to potential energy losses due to regenerative braking, actual brake pads being used in hard stops, and it's a recipe for poor efficiency.
The numbers back this up: in city driving, a hybrid frequently turns in extremely disappointing MPG numbers due to these inefficiencies. The Prius takes a hit in its highway MPG numbers, because it has to leech power off the gas engine to recharge the battery it depleted in city driving. The Honda cars take the hit from the gas motor occasionally idling (rather than going into auto-idle-stop), and acceleration from a stop draining nearly as much gas as a "normal" car.
That said, a hybrid will beat the pants off any similarly-driven traditional gasoline-powered vehicle for efficiency in those conditions. But when the EPA rates city mileage higher than highway mileage, it's not taking into account losses in the battery pack: the car ends the test with a battery pack lower than it started.
Sadly, you can't beat the laws of thermodynamics:
- You can't create or destroy energy
- You can't hope to ever do better than break even
- You can only break even at absolute zero
Sounds like my life sometimes...Matthew P. Barnson
I learn what I think when I read what I write
The worst component of diesel exhaust is sulphur. Not only does it cause respitory diseases, it also makes it harder for the catalytic converter to do its work. Pn top of that, sulphur is harmful for the engine.
Diesel fuel in Europe is of much higher quality, with a sulphur content of 50ppm, against a sulphur content of up to 3,400ppm in the States. In my view it is the unwillingness of the US oil companies to do something about their sulphur content that is stopping modern diesel technology from really breaking into the US market.
As many other hybrid owners have pointed out, driving a hybrid is different from driving a normal car. The way the various components of the drive train interact requires a change in driving habits. An earlier poster mentioned flooring it when the taking off from a light; I completely agree. I practice "goose, ghost, and feather-foot". Which means "get up to your desired cruising speed (plus a bit more) as quickly as possible, then back off for a moment and let the system shift into maximum cruise mode, and then make the smallest speed changes possible". It's true that driving at 85 does not help the mileage, but I do it anyway and I can live with the hit.
On the flats, playing maximum games, I can still average 54+ MPG. We now live in an area with more hills and I have noticed that the ups-and-downs really cause a hit on the mileage. Instead of the 48-52 overall that we used to get, we now get about 46-48 overall. I have no idea where these 31 MPG numbers are coming from, but our Prius was advertised as "52 city, 45 highway" and it has been doing exactly that for over 3 years.
Finally, we bought this car partly because we believe in the idea. Early Linux was not completely user-friendly, but you used it any way because you knew there had to be an alternative to the Dark Side. If you have the time/money to vote for new directions in the world, then you need to do it. Not everyone should drive a hybrid today, but the only way to move away from the world of the Ford Inexcusable is for some of us to be Early Adopters. We are and we're having a ball!
Peter & Maria
Naturally, the technology, not the drivers, that is responsible for the poor fuel economy.
Nonsense. When I drive my 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid (yes, I actually own one, potentially unlike many other people posting here) on the highway, I am careful on the gas (I take a speed hit going up hills, I utilize descents, et cetera). On the Pittsburgh, PA - Washington, DC drive, I consistently average 51 MPG for the length of I76, I70, and I270. On the George Washington Memorial Highway along the Potomac, I can keep it above 53 going in and out of the city. For local traffic, I accelerate slowly and brake slowly (when possible) and that helps keep it above 48 MPG.
On the otherhand, when I feel like having some fun, the gas miliage can drop down into the low 40s (42-46 MPG). For my Civic, that is terrible, but still better than 90% of the cars on the road. I consistently score 575+ miles out of my 12.7 gallon tank.
A terrible driver could take an NSX and lose every race. An excellent driver can take a Kia and kick some serious ass. Likewise with fuel economy, a bad driver can make the most efficient vehicle guzzle gas while a good driver could get some decent range out of an SUV. The point is, a car's technology is only as good as the driver.
I think a lot of people out there get a gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle and assume that they don't have to think. That's not the case. There's a very good reason why the Prius and the Civic Hybrid show you whether the motor is assisting or charging and show you your instantaneous fuel economy. These tools help the driver alter their habits to get the best performance. If people are dumb enough to spend the money on one of these vehicles and then not use the technology correctly (understand how to drive with maximum efficienty and change their habits), it's not the fault of the engineering, it's the fault of the consumer.
Join Tor today!
It sounds like the article wants to appease the conscience of SUV owners, whom as we all know drive considerately and maximize fuel economy.
Did anyone else hear the NPR story this last weekend about owners that want their Prius to have the electric-only option in their car. Apparently this is the case in Japan. You can push a button and go electric only, and recharge the batteries with a plug or switch to the hybrid engine by the push of button.
My city mileage is less than what is advertised, and I'm doing my very best with slow accelerations and maintaining constant speed where I can.
But overall, I'm pretty happy with getting my 50 MPG.
My Solar Powered Saturn runs rings around all the saturns in this post put together. I get 29.46 Earth years per charge and it comes with its own moons. Just don't smell what it releases. could be hazardous to your health.
Don't use air conditioning, ever. (2 to 4 mpg)
Drive at a steady speed, about 40 mph, in top gear.
Choose a route that doesn't involve hills.
Don't use oxygenated gasoline. (as if you have a choice!) (15% efficiency loss)
Don't drive through snow. (It takes energy to push the snow aside.)
Don't drive in very cold weather. (Cold makes rubber stiff, so tires absorb more power.)
If you can, adjust the spark timing for maximum efficiency. This setting may disagree with manufacturer's recommendations.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
and some options in the cars we have to make conservation easier.
My first high MPG car was one of those little Sprint things. It was possible to exceed 50 MPG in that car, provided the driver drives in a sane manner.
Currently I drive a 90 Toyota 4 door. I regularly get between 30 and 40 MPG, and that is mostly city driving.
The secrets every driver should know?
- Manual transmission
This one is a biggie because it allows the driver to conserve to a much greater degree than it possible with automatic trannies.
- Buy good high Octane fuel.
It will cost a bit more, but your car will perform much better in low RPM conditions if you have the better fuel.
- Quality tires
Make sure you are running the right tires at the right pressure for your climate.
So, how to save the gas?
Use your lower gears to reach speed, then use high gears to maintain that speed. Downhill? Consider freewheeling, if the slope is not too bad. Here in Portland, we have lots of hills, it is possible to roll the car around, or keep it in a high gear for in-town driving most of the time. All it takes is a slight slope to make coasting, or driving in high gear practical.
Pretend your brakes are wearing thin. Try to see how little you can stop on your way to work. Each start uses enough fuel for a few miles of at-speed driving.
Learn the limits of your car and use those to your advantage. Mine has fairly good low rpm performance. Using 4th gear @ 35mph works well and requires almost no gas to do. (This does sometimes mean an extra shift or two, depending on the traffic and other things...)
More about limits, my car runs best at about 63 Mph. Too bad my state sees 55 as the best speed. On the freeway, I seek this speed as often as I can to keep mileage up.
Why don't more cars have a consumption indicator so the drivers can see how much fuel they are spending at any given time? That simple change would save a ton of gas right there.
Don't start fast. Combine this with limiting your stops and you really save pretty big overall. You are doing well when you roll up to a group of cars all working hard to start fast, drop into second or third gear and lightly bring your car to speed, taking advantage of the speed you already have.
Personally, I would like my next car to have some gears aimed directly at conservation. The dodge colt did this with a rear-end gear --too bad the car itself was a pile...
For those that *have* to own an automatic, why not provide a couple of settings there as well that more closely reflect safe conservative driving?
Blogging because I can...
Look at the authors previous articles and you'll see he just wrote an article promoting fuel cells and hydrogen powered vehicles....
He looks/sounds more like a shock-jock than anything else. We're averaging about measured 45 MPG over 40,000 miles with a 2001 Toyota Prius(purchased in 2000).
IMO, the story headline should be more like this: "Car owners with poor driving habits get upset when shown actual MPG", or even "EPA rating is NOT REAL, it's a baseline for comparison dummy".
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I live in Massachusetts. What's drafting?
What? Oh, it's the way everyone here drives. Nevermind.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
Half of the mileage is based on driving style. I have a '99 Civic LX (Stock, no special airfilters/turbo-chargers/19" rims/lame rear spoilers) and I average about 45MPG during the summer, about 35MPG during winter with the snow tires on. Best Mileage Ever was an even 50MPG. I kept track for 2 years, every gallon used. BUT, I drive about 95% highway, for trips of over 100 miles at a time. Average speed is usually about 60 mph. Yes, I'm the guy that gets passed all the time, but with gas close to $2 gallon for regular unleaded, I only wish I could have afforded that Insight in the showroom!
The box said "Requires Windows XP or better"... so I installed Ubuntu!
I've had both experiences. I had a '92 Saturn SL1 with a manual tranny that got 36-38 mpg, mixed highway/city. I also just got rid of a '97 Saturn SC2 with an automatic that only got 28-29 mpg, mixed driving.
My experiences with automatic transmissions have been pretty bad. That's why I just bought another manual, a 2004 Toyota Matrix. I've been getting 32 mpg with it, which is more than the highway rating even though I've been using it in town & hauling lots of stuff. And I drive like a bat out of hell.
Maybe automatics are especially bad for particular driving styles. Then again, while my '92 Saturn ran great, my '97 was a standard issue P.O.S.
Overall, though, my family has had great mileage from manual transmission SL1-series Saturns.
Check out this thread on a Prius users group to get some first hand, real world drivers experiences with the best car being manufactured right now!
Safety Cap is exactly right, you need to invest enough time and mental capacity to learn how to drive a hybrid (this is after all a very different system - it's not your father's Oldsmobile) but with just a little effort it is possible to beat the EPA figures.
Delivering militantly anti-commercial music to all two people who care!
I own a Civic Hybrid, and I've found that the way I drive severely affects the gas mileage, as others have already mentioned. A couple of things I'd like to add are:
* If you are driving uphill, never go above 55. The mileage up hills is much more related to speed than on flats.
* I drive to work every day 85 mph on the freeway, and through city traffic. Ok, so I get 42 MPG, which is not the advertise MPG, but so what - find any other car that gets 42 MPG under those conditions.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
With a modern fuel injection system (new Ninjas still use carbs), and/or a hybrid drive system, this bike could probably get at least 10mpg more. Plus, it's more fun to drive than your average car. For the southern half of the country where it's above freezing most of the year, more bikes are a perfect solution. That, and better public transit, something which is sorely missed in many US "cities."
-Drew
and buy a motorcycle. My Ducati M750 gets 50-60MPG and it's primary design feature isn't efficiency.
If you really want to get crazy, pick up a 250 Nitehawk, I've ready claims of over 100MPG out of those things.
second society
I have owned my 2004 Prius for about six months. During a typical week, where most of my driving consists of the commute to and from work, my gas mileage ranges from 46 to 49 mpg. I live in San Diego, California and the drive has a lot of up and down stretches which may tend to keep the numbers down. My best mileage is on the freeway during the rush hour commute. With speeds down around 15 mph, the car spends a significant part of the drive running on battery only. Unfortunately (or fortunately) my work schedule has me doing most of my commuting during non-rush hour times. During one week however, when I did have a 9 - 5 work schedule, I averaged 52 mpg as reported by the dashboard MPG readout. My wife and I have made one 840 mile round trip to Nevada since we have owned the car. We averaged 49 mpg on the trip with speeds in the 65 - 75 mph range. When I bought the car, I didn't expect to get the EPA mileage. Considering that I haven't changed many of my driving habits since I got the Prius, I am very happy with the mileage that I am getting.
Hybrids that use gasoline are __still using gasoline__. They don't even claim as good mileage as the Volkswagen diesels get. A small car running on biodiesel is a huge improvement over any of the gasoline hybrids currently available, in terms of dollars spent and environmental impact. Volkswagen claims their TDI engines can run any blend of biodiesel (b20-b100) without modification, and petroleum based diesel where biodiesel is not available. The Smart Car CDI engines should be able to run biodiesel, but I have not seen any mention of this. Smart Cars are not available in the US until 2006, but Canada and Mexico both import certain models. Smart cars are inexpensive and very fun to drive, and get probably the best mileage of any production car. Most diesels can run biodiesel without modification, it actually has better lubrication properties when compared to petroleum based diesels, without the need for added lubricants. see http://www.biodiesel.org/
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As a side benefit, small cars make the roads safer, and take up less space (which many people don't care about, but with tight street parking a small car is pretty sweet). And if you are really concerned about the environment, I suspect a small car has a lot less up-front environmental cost. I have a feeling a hybrid has significant costs above a typical gas car because of all the batteries (which are little bundles of toxicity, no doubt with many toxic byproducts during production).
Of course if you want real efficiency, a motorcycle beats them all.
Car & Driver got over 121MPG out of a Honda Insight.
Could someone please point out to me where in the Constitution, exactly, is the "Right To Not Be Offended"?
I have a 2002 Toyota Prius, and I consistently get above 50 mpg for both highway and city driving, which is a notch above the stated efficiency ratings. There are a number of factors that one needs to consider when reading a report like the one linked to:
1. The recommended PSI to which you inflate your tires has a lot of impact, perhaps 5-7 mpg, on the fuel efficiency, and Toyota recommends an inflation below what most efficiency-concerned Prius enthusiasts use.
2. One has to drive a hybrid differently than a normal car to get the best mileage. Almost counterintuitively, you have to accelerate quickly to get to your cruising speed, and then maintain that speed with very minor corrections. Or, in city driving with a lot of traffic, massage the accelerator so that you're mostly using the electric motor to start, and brake slowly so that the regenerative braking system can reclaim power, without needing the hydraulic brakes.
Someone who just sits in a hybrid without experience is going to get far worse mileage than a veteran driver.
Huh? Are you doing the same math as the EPA? Yes diesel has more energy per gallon, it is cheaper, if used properly its cleaner and heck its safer too!!! So I will continue gloating.
As for MPG being misleading? Uh if I pay 1 dollar for a gallon of diesel and go farther then a gallon of gasoline, well you do the math cause last time I did I saved money which I can spend on solar panels (but that is something altogether differnt).
They're bad not because they're popular.
They're bad because they're huge, dangerous, tippy, vision-blocking, gas guzzling road hazards.
They're the 00's minivan for stupid people who think bigger=better.
No offense to you personally, you may be one of those SUV drivers who has it for a real reason, not because it's kewl.
In the law there is no overlap between theft and copyright infringement whatsoever.
The batteries can be recycled also.
They last longer then NiCd batteries.
Have higher energy densities.
No memory effect.
Plus they aren't toxic like NiCD
The big negative is that they discharge quickly.
Veramocor
I live in the greater Phoenix area, and I get about 33MPG on the highway. My commute is about 80% HWY to work and about 50% HWY on the way home from work (I use an asymmetrical route thanks to traffic patterns). The net result is that I average about 27-28MPG overall (I use a fuel log program to calculate my mileage with every fill-up).
My car? A 2002 Mercedes C230K Sport Coupe. That's right--a luxury sporty car that's got almost 200 horsepower. The car weighs about 3300 pounds (about 500 pounds more than a Civic Hybrid and 400 more than a Prius). My mileage doesn't seem to change much when it gets hot out, either. I seem to get close to the same mileage, regardless of whether I'm using the air conditioner or running the car in "EC" (economy) mode (A/C compressor is off in EC mode).
Granted, when I first got the car, I drove like a madman with a leadfoot and got about 19MPG, but as I settled into the car and learned to drive it properly, I also learned how to maximize my fuel economy. Keep in mind that the HWY driving I do is on a freeway where the posted speed limit is 65 MPH, and the actual speed driven by traffic is usually 75 MPH, with speeds occasionally topping out over 80 MPH.
So if I can get 27-28 MPG overall in a fancy, high-ish-performance luxury car that's loaded to the gills with safety features, what's so great about getting 32 MPG in a hybrid? Granted, you're getting almost 38 MPG, and that's nice, but it's disappointing. I was planning to sell my Mercedes and get something more economical, but I'm not so certain that I'll actually save much money at this point. Yes, there is the fact that my car is supercharged, and as such, requires premium gas, while the hybrids almost certainly run standard 87 octane gas, but still, I'm disappointed in the numbers I'm seeing. I was surprised to discover that my wife's CR-V gets 20% worse mileage than my Mercedes (on my same commute), but now I'm not so surprised. Just disappointed.
Given that my commute is about 45 miles round-trip, I'd love to find something that sips gas at a more miserly rate than my Mercedes (and uses cheaper gas, to boot), but recent news (coupled with my own experience driving my wife's CR-V) makes me skeptical. I think at this point, I'd rather drive my fun car that's not as relatively uneconomical as I'd thought.
Not to mention, if you do the math on the gas savings, it takes nearly 150,000 miles of driving to make up the cost differential between the hybrid and conventional models of car, assuming that they get 50 and 30mpg respectively and that gas costs $2 a gallon (yay, USA).
It's worth a mention, though, that as far as the article is concerned, there doesn't seem to be much statistical data concerning lower mileage, only a few anecdotes. Consumer Reports (according to the article, not the posted story) apparently found hybrids to measure pretty close to their government rating.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
I rented a Prius a few weeks ago for a trip. The total mileage for the trip was a little over 1300 miles (interstate highway) and I averaged a little over 45mpg for the entire trip. This is 88% of what the EPA says that I should. It would have gotten even better mileage if I had driven 55 the entire way instead of 75 (and the stormy weather didn't help). Given the age of the EPA tests, I would guess that they use 55 or 60 for the highway speed. I didn't do much city driving, but when I did, it was on strictly battery power for a large portion of it.
Driving style has a great impact on what you actually get for mileage. Since the hybrids have a screen showing instaneous and current trip mpg, the driver is more aware of how your behavior affects it. Stomp on the throttle to get on an uphill expressway onramp, and sure, it will show that it's only doing 9mpg. The real question is: what would the driver get with a 'normal car' under the same circumstances? Unless more of them start shipping with a little computer that displays the same instaneous and current trip mpg, its difficult to determine how much better the hybrids are performing compared to regular cars.
After driving a Prius for that weekend, I just wish I had $20K to spend on one. It got 50% better mileage than my regular car, had more room, and more trunkspace.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
We used to subscribe, but I finally realized that I couldn't stand them, and couldn't put much trust in their recommendations. Among the things that annoyed me:
1. They always seemed to prefer big cars (which seemed strange, as they also seemed to be pretty left-wing politically).
2. They never indicated that computer users had any real choice other Windows. I'd have thought that a consumer magazine would have at least mentioned the existence of free software.
3. Their food ratings were really just a matter of taste, and they always seemed to prefer high-fat items.
My mental image of a CR writer is someone who drives to the anti-nuclear-plant rally in a super-size SUV while snacking on a triple-scoop Ben-and-Jerry's ice-cream-cone.
If you want good mileage, just buy a 13+ year old CRX HF. They get 50 miles to the gallon and you can pay cash after you save up for a month (probably a couple weeks for some of you). They also last forever if you take care of them.
"A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself."
"Cold makes rubber stiff, so tires absorb more power."
Er, what? So the most fuel efficent tires would be soft and squishy?
Just from that statement alone you're making me disregard everything else you've said.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
(OK I may be redundant, but after 900+ commments, I'm bound to miss a few)
The focus of hybrids is not necessarily efficiency; it's EMISSIONS that, IMHO opinion, are the focus. Are there cars that get better mileage? Sure. A Geo can get better mileage than my car, but does it have the ride and comfort level? My 2003 Prius gets around 45-50 MPG in mixed driving (at a curb weight of about 2700 pounds mind you), with a recent tank pulling about 60MPG (570 miles and no matter what I did, I could only squeeze 9 gallons into the tank. Even tried a different pump).
The window sticker states 38-52 highway, and 44-60 city MPG. Driving conditions and habits are a MAJOR influence on driving habits. No technology can compensate for jackrabbit starting, long idling, speeding, or poor maintenance.
From the window sticker:
"Actual mileage will vary with options, driving conditions, driving habits, and vehicle's condition. Results reported to EPA indicate that the majority of vehicles with these estimates will achieve between 44 and 60 mpg in the city, and between 38 and 52 mpg on the highway."
Even hybrids idle the engine periodically, especially in winter. This is to keep the engine and catalytic converter warm, minimizing emissions. Yes, they will sacrifice a little gas to keep the components warm and operating at maximum emissions efficiency. The net emissions output is lower since all is kept warm vice allowing to cool an re-warming.
My Prius is rated at 45MPG highway, and I sure get that and then some. BUT...I shouldn't expect to get the same economy if I zip around at 75MPH as I do at 60 or 65MPH. I'm no EPA mileage expert, but I suspect that the test loop only has cars runnign at most 60MPH, windows closed, no A/C running, in other words, near optimal economy conditions. Anybody have better info?
Also, it needs to be known that short trips hurt the economy of ANY car, hybrid or not. Hybrids still take time to warm up, and during my car's 5-10 minute warm-up period the engine is always running, hurting efficiency.
In short: the EPA estimates are not gospel; hybrids do deliver efficiency, but focus on emissions at the first priority of the technology.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
And I can say that the mileage, while not at the sticker level, is very good. For the last two months, I've been averageing 53 MPG. That is measured both by the onboard computer and hand calculations based on gallons of gas input and miles traveled. With the arrival of 100 degree weather here in Tucson, mileage has dropped to 50 MPG.
while the chemical reaction in a battery could be highly temperature sensitive, it isnt
Here's a test for you:
1) Take some alkeline batteries for a flashlight.
2) Put them in the flashlight and observe the light level.
3) Remove batteries and place in freezer overnight
4) Remove batteries from freezer and replace in light
5) Turn on flashlight. Notice lower/no light is coming from flashlight.
Chemical reactions slow down in colder temperatures. It's just that lead-acid batteries for cars, especially in northern climates, are WAY overpowered, in order to deal with the cold (and to give them longer life). Cold cranking amps, it's what to check when you're buying a battery in the north.
Most warmers do warm the oil, but they keep the whole compartment a little warmer as well. Oil is the bigger problem first though.
I wouldn't want an electric when it hits -40 here. I'd use up the batteries just for the heater!
I don't read AC A human right
Let's look at this from a clean air standpoint, since that's the big reason for the push for different car fuel technologies.
Aside from biodiesel, which doesn't seem to be getting any attention from auto manufacturers, our options are HEV, electric, and fuel cell. When weighing the differences among these, the big thing you have to remember is that in all three cases, you're burning fossil fuels to generate the energy that drives your car. That's right - the electricity that runs your electric car has to be generated somewhere, and the electricity that is used to produce the hydrogen that is used in your car also has to be generated somewhere. (From this standpoint, a hydrogen fuel cell isn't an energy source in itself so much as a fancy kind of battery.)
So if we're going to be burning fossil fuels no matter what, it seems that the most important thing to do would be to pick the cleanest fossil fuel to burn. In the case of HEVs, we're burning gasoline. In the case of electric and fuel cell cars, we're getting the electricity from lots of sources, but far and away the biggest source is burning coal.
Last I checked, coal is a hell of a lot dirtier than gasoline, which, contrary to popular belief, is one of the cleaner fossil fuels we have, and probably will be for a long time.
With that in mind I ask if the fuel reformer / fuel cell combo is really cleaner, or is it just cleaner if you only need 10 feet of space surrounding your car to be cleaner and not all the air you breathe day to day.
When you first start your car's engine, most of the oil is sitting at the bottom of the crankcase below the level of most moving parts. What little oil that always remains up near the piston rings and such will be more viscous, but it makes little difference.
However, the ion mobility (and thus peak current) are very strong functions of temperature. Specifically, the electorlyte density and viscosity increase, which increases the internal resistance of the battery significantly. And while lead-acid batteries have a almost constant no-load voltage for any temperature, the increase in resistance severly limits the current available to the starter. The normal resistance of a discharging battery is ~0.001 ohm, normal starting current for a medium car can be ~50-60 amps, any significant increase greatly reduces the effective voltage and current.
A block heater in the car's engine bay will help heat the whole bay, but mostly serves to reduce the wear and tear on the piston rings and bearing races that would otherwise occur while the cold oil heats up and gets sloshed around the inside of the engine. Since the oil is already warmed, it can get into the moving parts more quickly. Large engines (think ships) use oil heaters even on hot days to protect the rings and bearings
.
You guys are all hitting the crack pipe.
I drove my 2002 Prius exactly 300 miles door-to-door from Canton Ohio to South Bend Indiana this past Monday with the cruise control set at 72 MPH and the A/C on the entire trip. My fuel economy, as reported to me right on the center console? 47.1 MPG.
I *ROUTINELY* get 49-52 MPG around town. ROUTINELY. These are NOT inflated sticker numbers. This is NOT granny driving. I briskly accellerate to 5 MPH over the posted limit and set the cruise control, even in town at speeds 30 MPH+. Doing this WILL deliver those window sticker numbers.
Nosir. The people posting "My XYZ car gets 44 MPG on the highway" are missing the point. Great. My car would do that with 3 passengers, 200 pounds of luggage and the heater running. What your XYZ car does NOT do:
-50+ MPG CITY.
-Shut the engine off at stops or very low forward speed
Hybrids are the perfect stop gap until practical hydrogen arrives.
My mileage doesn't vary.
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