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Hybrid Drivers Provide Real-World Mileage Data
The hot-selling Toyota Prius averages 48 miles per gallon among over 150 cars from across the country, with most drivers achieving between 45 and 51. The V-6 Honda Accord Hybrid delivers 30 miles per gallon while Ford's Escape Hybrid SUV averages 28. All hybrid owners are encouraged to post their data for these and other cars on the Internet's largest hybrid mileage database.
Reliable fuel economy figures are increasingly important as consumers explore their options in an emerging hybrid car market. Hybrids, like the new Lexus RX 400h, pair combustion engines with electric motors that recharge while driving to improve gas efficiency. "Until lately," said GreenHybrid creator Jason Siegel, "consumers have associated hybrid vehicles with a small niche of fuel-conscious environmentalists, but today's hybrids offer the best combination of high performance, great mileage and luxury features of any cars on the market."
Basically, I floored it when taking off and took the car to the max.
You know what I found, I got 25 MPG in BOTH cases. In fact, I got slightly better milage when I was agreessive. Granted, this was not completely scientific, but it made me wonder about doing more accurate testing. I expected to see a 5-10 MPG difference. To follow up, I drove the last tank at a normal "in-between pace".
I was talking to someone at work about it and they thought that maybe today's engines are tuned so well and change with different environments that it doesn't make a difference. It only makes a difference if you are stopped a lot like in traffic jams.
Anyone in Central Indiana want to join me for some more scientific testing?
If you have to pay $5000 over the sticker price because of demand, are you really saving money? The demand is ridiculous.
Before anyone gets confused, I just want to point out that the Accord hybrid is not supposed to be super-efficient like the Prius. It's the top-of-the-line Accord, and the hybrid power is mostly used to increase performance while retaining similar fuel economy to the slower models. It's quite zippy; IIRC it has better 0-60 times than a V6 Mustang.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Turbo-Diesel owners have been seeing numbers in this range, or better, for years.
Seems what the market needs is a diesel/electric hybrid to get numbers that will impress any diesel owners.
Otherwise most TDI Volkswagens have been able to outshine these numbers for years. Plus you can't run a Prius on used cooking oil.
And ./'ed within 5 seconds...
They should switch to a premium unleaded/apache method :)
PRINT "Signature line broken."
GOTO 1
Coincidence? I think not!
EPA estimates have never been really useful indicators of real-world results, nor were they intended to be.
What they do provide is a car-to-car comparison that is consistent regardless of driving style, load, weather or other conditions. When you compare EPA mileage statistics, you're comparing apples to apples.
Hybrids throw a monkeywrench into the mix, so we'll probably see an adjustment to the EPA methodology at some point.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
While I'm all in favor of gas economy, I have to wonder how much more unbiased fans of these cars are than (potential) opponents of them. As it is in the government's best interest for us to keep buying gas, they have an incentive to understate fuel economy in very efficient cars. This is not to say that they actually do it; merely that they have a reason to. However, fans/drivers of the cars might be rounding their numbers or interpolating them from memory, for example. This is not a scientific study, and it is important to remember that.
I get about 8-10 mpg improvement by using the cruise control at any speed. I have a 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid and get about 38-41 mpg on average.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.
I have a 1978 British Mini (the old ones) and the gas mileage is anywhere between 50 and 60 mpg. Here we are almost 30 years later and we are getting- lower gas mileage?
:)
Granted the Mini does not weigh anything and lacks AC- still. The 1 liter engine kicking out 55HP (in my slightly modified engine) is more than adequate to move such a light vehicle. Add to that a suprisingly roomy interior (it will seat 4 people comfortably despite being only 10 feet long) and a car that will corner like a go kart and you have to ask yourself what the auto industry is thinking. Not to mention being able to park _anywhere_
We have materials today that Alec Issigonis (the guy who created the Mini back in the 50's) could only dream of- lighter, stronger and easier to shape- and yet cars today are far heavier. We get worse gas mileage- sure the cars are more powerful but then again they have to be. I realize some of this weight is the result of safety improvements and the like but it just feels like there has to be a middle ground.
-sirket
Really sorry, guys. Slashdot sent me so many referrals the whole server went down! I won't be able to get ahold of my host for 2 hours, so please sit tight. Very sorry.
Jason Siegel
GreenHybrid.com
The amount of energy used by an average automobile over its lifetime (manufacture, operation, maintenance and disposal) that comes from the gasoline used to drive it is only a fraction (around 1/5 to 1/3) of the total.
A hybrid does reduce the total energy consumption of a car over its lifetime compared to a conventional car, but not by all that much. It still takes all the same materials and manufacturing processes to build, and poses the same disposal problem once it wears out.
The answer is a combination of fewer, longer-lasting, more-efficient cars, and less driving.
The cost savings is almost non-existant. I can get(I HAD one) a standard civic that gets me 30-40mpg, and without the extra initial cost. $5000 = 2000 gallons of gas at $2.50/gal. 35mpg * 2000 = 70000. So if you drive 18,000 miles per year, you start to break even around year 4 of owning the car.
Conservation? The amount of energy and oil in the plastics and other materials used in the production of a car, and where does the OLD car go? Its SO wastefull to buy a new car. Not to mention it still uses gas to operate and oil to lube. Conservation my ass.
I can't believe anyone wants a hybrid....
I get 42mpg in my daily drive, but not batteries to keep charged!
Below 55, your gas mileage gets better the faster you go. After 55 it starts to drop off. There's a neat graph here.
...is the visual display which tells you the target mileage given your current acceleration.
I drove a 04 Prius for a few months and found that the display which tells you the fuel economy you're getting is very helpful. After about a day you realize that speeding up hills eats at your economy and braking appropriately helps too.
If all cars had this feature, fuel economy would be increased. Regardless of the fact the Prius has a hybrid engine, low rolling resistance tires, etc, this simple display is a big psychological factor.
Most people never realize their driving habits affect fuel economy because it only hits them every two weeks at the pump. By that time they never link it to how they brake or accelerate. By closing the feedback loop, you start to change your driving habits.
Only expensive cars seem to have this feature, yet it's ridiculously simple to implement off a modern ECU. I wish they'd make it standard equipment and not a luxury feature.
The problem with hybrids isn't their short-term fuel efficiency (which we didn't need 150 folks to document, out of tens of thousands sold). The problems are:
1. Premium cost over traditional fuel combustion engine (ranging from $3,000 - $5,000 over the same non-hybrid car).
2. Long-term reliability and replacement costs of hybrid system (especially the batteries). 5 or 10 years from now, are these cars going to be proven as reliable as their traditional combustion-engine brethern? Or are they going to be visiting the shop more often to fix issues in their hybrid systems, replace their batteries (which do have a pre-determined lifetime), or whatever??
The answers will come in time, but not from the data of 150 measly vehicles.
PS - The dork who compared a 40-year old car to a modern vehicle just doesn't get it. Modern vehicles meet modern safety standards, including such luxuries as airbags, enhanced structures that help prevent serious bodily injuries, and a little more leg room. Yes, if I built a go-cart, I could probably also get 50-60 MPG. But I wouldn't be stupid enough to drive it on I-95.
--
D'oh
Putting the flaming comment about people lying to make themselves feel better aside, the ROI for a Prius is decent. A Prius starts at about $20K so if someone "downgrades" from a larger, lower mpg car like say, a Nissan Maxima SE, s/he could feasibly save a lot of money.
:-P.
We are getting 50mpg instead of 20mpg, and we no longer have to buy premium gas...we are saving $1200 a year, not counting the lower loan payments for the car we traded in.
I would go on, but I am starting to feel way, way too good about myself
P.S. - I paid under MSRP for my Prius and got it in a week.
or are those numbers pretty piss-poor for hybrids? I remember when the Insight was pimped as having 70mpg and the Prius 60. Nobody comes close to those figures now. 30 mpg for a V6 Accord? The normal Accord gets only 7 mpg less (ajusted from vendor inflation. Hybrid:37 Normal:30). The variance in the Escape is less than that.
How can these cars be touted as environmentally friendly when you could easily increase your gas mileage by driving a 4-cylinder instead. That way, you get the gas savings and you aren't throwing away a huge battery full of toxic waste when you're done.
Calling the Ford, Lexus, and Honda Accord "environmentally friendly" hybrids is disingenuous. They aren't helping the gas problem whatsoever.
My Porsche 3L Porsche 968 (at 11 years and 91,000 miles old) gets 32+ MPG on the freeway, and mid-20s in city traffic. My BMW motorcycle gets over 70MPG. (Granted, those of you who don't live in SoCal probably can't motorcycle commute 49 weeks out of the year the way we can ;) I expected a lot more out of the Accord. (I don't expect anything from Ford, except maybe mechanical problems. ;)
geek. lawyer.
Cheap, basic transportation. I'll buy my own seat covers, floor mats, stereo, etc.
I hate the inflated prices car makers charge, getting people to buy on credit what they can't really afford to own. I guess I'm the only one, though.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Hybrid cars seem like the answer to rising gas prices, increased pollution and growing dependence on foreign oil
Although I am the proud owner of a new Toyota Prius, I can unoquivically say that hybrid cars are not the answer; they are a stop-gap measure that may extend the period of time that oil is a primary fuel on the planet Earth. However, they are too little too late; I have the income to allow me to "do the right thing" but really, I should either move closer to where I work or take public transportation to really do the right thing. I'm not going to do that, and my neighbors are going to bitch about how much it costs to drive their SUVs but they don't look like they're selling them anytime soon.
So who cares what the mileage figures are? The hybrids are far better than the other cars on the road, but they won't amount to any appreciable percentage of the cars on the road until gasoline is priced high enough to force it, or the government mandates it. Neither is going to happen, so unless there's some miraculous breakthrough that provides a cheap source of hydrogen pretty damned soon, it's all moot.
Yeah, I'm kinda pessimistic about energy usage in the U.S. We're kinda like the guy who jumped off the really tall building saying, "Nothing will happen!" who could be heard saying as he fell past each floor "So far, so good!"
Still, I bought a Prius to support the company that made the R&D investment to give us a stop-gap solution, even if we're not moving to a viable alternate energy source with the urgency we should. Meaning, I don't know if my partial gesture will matter, but it's better than driving the car it replaced at half the mileage.
- Leo
You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.
No flame intended, it's just simple truth.
Here's a quote from a Car and Driver article that summarizes what I was getting at: http://www.caranddriver.com/article.asp?section_id =15&article_id=8427&page_number=1/
Self awareness - try it!
15 years of innovation and a completely new engine design, and we end up with a somewhat safer version of the Geo Metro (40% heavier... and with half the cargo space.)
1990 Geo Metro XFI Specs & Mileage
Weight: 1694 lbs
Cargo Volume: 31.4 cu. ft.
Front leg room (Max): 42.5 in.
Rear leg room (Min): 32.6 in.
Crash Test: Driver ***, Passenger ****
City: 53 MPG
Highway: 58 MPG
Combined: 55 MPG
2005 Toyota Prius Specs & Mileage
Weight: 2890 lbs
Cargo Volume: 16.1 cu. ft.
Front leg Room (Max): 41.9 in.
Rear leg Room (Min): 38.6 in.
Crash Test: Driver *****, Passenger ****
City: 60 MPG
Highway: 51 MPG
Combined: 55 MPG
Mass carnage was predicted when the double nickle speed limit was dropped. In fact the accident rate WENT DOWN.
There were several reasons for this. N.B., all of these were predicted by the proponents for the change, but dismissed by the safety "experts."
First, anyone with a clue knows that the biggest threat on the highway is traffic traveling at different speeds, not the absolute speed. People tend to stay in their own lanes - and can even comfortably stay in the right hand lane - if everyone is travelling at about the same speed. But if there's a 20 mph range (which was common in the interurban areas of the square states) there will be a lot of lane changes even when traffic is relatively light. At those speeds just tapping a car may be enough to cause the driver to lose control.
Second, a realistic speed limit actually lowered the speed of the fastest drivers. A driver going 20 mph over the posted speed limit doesn't have much motivation to avoid going 30 mph over the posted speed limit. But the same driver at the same original speed, if it's the speed limit, will often stay at that speed.
Finally, these roads were designed for traffic going at ~70 mph. At those speeds the road has just enough variability to keep the driver's attention. At the slower speeds the roads are mindnumbingly boring and the driver's attention tends to wander. You wouldn't think it would make that much of a difference, but I've driven between Denver and Seattle at both 55 and 75 and there is absolutely no comparison. (I-80 thru Wyoming and the Columbia River Gorge still suck because they were long, straight flat segments.)
That's why the death rate went down when the speed limits were raised. The annual death rate is climbing again, but that reflects more passenger-miles.
P.S., the Colorado Dept of Transportation will actually adjust the speed limit to match the drivers, not the other way around. They feel, reasonably, that thousands of drivers will make an informed decision about the best speed for a segment of road. Sometimes their hands are tied because of regulations, but I've seen them change the speed limit on other segments.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Well, at the risk of sounding like a Toyota ad, the Prius is built using 90% recyclable materials. For the soundproofing, they literally use shredded material from old cars. They use a tenth of the lead and a tenth of the PVC they were using in their cars in 1996. They even use plant-derived bioplastic for the floor mats.
http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/news/03/0901a.html
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
For an engineer's analysis:
"The Bottomless Well:
The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy"
by Peter W. Huber,Mark P. Mills.
Available at all the usual book outlets.
I didn't desert Windows; Windows deserted me: BSOD
I think you have a point about reliability for the Ford... but given Toyota's reliability reputation, and the Consumer Reports rating which put Prius #1 in customer satisfaction, I think the Prius is a pretty safe bet.
Toyota gives the batteries a 10 year warranty. The gas engine is the same as the engine in a Corolla, just adjusted to run on a different combustion cycle. There's no gearbox, so that leaves the transaxle and computer to worry about... Personally, I'll take that bet.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I drive an '88 Honda Civic LX, 261,000+ miles on the original engine and manual transmission (body's starting to look like hell, though), and I get 35-40mpg on average per tank every week (800-1000 miles a week, mostly highway around Chicago).
I get the same mileage as you out of a 17 year old car, with no electric assist.
I was looking at a Honda Civic Hybrid, but it doesn't look like there is any advantage to switching to a hybrid version of my 17 year old car.
As I own one, and live in California.
Cali DMV:
" Currently, smog inspections are required for all vehicles except diesel powered vehicles, electric, natural gas powered vehicles over 14,000 lbs, hybrids, motorcycles, trailers, or vehicles 1975 and older. "
I bought my vehicle out of state and took it in to Cali, so I don't know about any of the new purchase requirements... but it's been registered in CA for a few years with no problems.
Mike
Because "environmentally friendly" is not the same as "economical".
The Prius sacrifices some efficiency in order to get lower emissions. Specifically, emissions less than a tenth of what's allowed by California's standards.
It's also 90% recyclable, recycled materials are used in its construction.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
wow! you are very misled. the electric motors in hybrids are powered by the gasoline engine. hybrids never need "charged" like pure electric vehicles.
[insert lame joke here]
Fortunately, the Prius has had a CVT since it was released in 2001, so you don't have those peaks.
Don't confuse hybrid cars (combining traditional gasoline with battery power) and pure-battery or pure-hydrogen cars. Hybrids generally don't need to be plugged in, since they have regenerative features that recharge the battery while running. For pure-electrical cars, which plug into the grid for juice, you are moving the pollution up the line to the power plant, as you say. But pollution from electrical production tends to be less at the power plant end. You can pack a lot more pollution-reducing devices and processes into a large powerplant than you can with a car trying to produce it's own energy directly from, say, gas.
~ The Fudge Report @ http://mywebpages.comcast.net/fudgereport/
One of the things I learned when dealing with wind turbines is that double the wind-speed roughly equals eight times the power. Order n cubed. This doesn't work at very high or very low wind speeds because of turbulence and cavitation and similar effects, and goes completely wonky again near the speed of sound in the medium, but for highway-type speeds it's bang on. It may also be different for (mostly) non-rotating cars, but it is indeed worse than n squared once you get above about 50km/h.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Since aluminum manufacturing consumes a notoriously large amount of energy, let's assume cars are made of 100% aluminum.
The energy required to produce aluminum is about 15 KWh/Kg.
Assuming the average car weighs 2 tons, that's 1814 Kg of aluminum.
1814 Kg * 15 KWh/Kg comes out to 27,210 KWh. At 5 cents per KWh (industrial prices), that's $1500 worth of energy to smelt our aluminum. As far as materials costs go, that sounds about right.
Fine, now a gallon of gasoline contains 125,000 Btu of energy. That's about 37 KWh.
If your car's getting 40 mpg, and if you're driving it 10,000 miles per year, you're using 250 gallons of gasoline a year. 250 * 37 KWh is 9,250 KWh per year.
Drive your car for three years and you've used more energy than it took to build. If we wanted to compare the "theoretical maximum" amount of energy that can be extracted (at 50% efficiency) from gasoline, you're only looking at a year and a half. Any car built in the last ten years should last five to ten times that long.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
And it doesn't need a ton of lead for the batteries, that you would need to dispose of when the car is "retired".
That isn't nearly the issue that you think it is. Lead-acid batteries in industrial use (and, make no mistake, the batteries in hybrid cars count as industrial use) are recycled almost 100%. Realistically, probably about 98%.
Ditto with the lead-acid batteries in your UPS. Instead of throwing them away when the UPS dies, take the batteries to a local machinery shop, they'll likely take them off your hands and send them in for recycling.
So, what's the point of having a hybrid?
It makes people feel good.
That's about it, really. (Oh, and it lets some people drive in the HOV lane.)
If you think about them seriously... hybrids make most of their efficiency gains in stop-n-go city traffic with regenerative braking and electric-assist starts. The difference in initial cost ($3000-5000 extra for a hybrid version of the same vehicle) is such that you have to drive a lot of miles to make up that initial extra cost (somewhere around 150,000 to 300,000 depending on gas prices) and the fastest way to make up that is with highway miles, where the hybrid does less for you.
They don't come close to paying for themselves. But they make people feel good.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
Here's how to build a cheap, 50mpg+ car.
Hybrid benefits are overrated because of the weight of the vehicles. This decreases much of the benefit.
Take a 1992 honda civic chassis. Look for one of the efficient models (Vx, others). You want a 5spd. They are very easy to work on, and very common. Engine reliabilty is great.
These cars were commonly available with no power steering, and no AC. Power locks and windows? Ha!
Strip the car bare. Gut it. Install some lightweight racing seats. You just saved a lot of weight. And gained a lot of cargo room!
Have the engine reworked. Lots of manuals for this; it can be done in a weekend, with a weekend of preparation. You'll need to clean all the fuel filters, injectors, and install all new ignition components.
Install a wideband o2 sensor with a car monitor. Consider an EGT meter as well. This will let you track your mixture inside the car to see if you're running rich and/or overheating your exhaust valves.
Install a VAFC, a small computer that tweaks the fuel settings. Most of the time these are used for power, but you're going to use it to dial out as much gas as you can without running too lean.
Voila. Plus it's cheap to insure.
..don't panic
I have 700 grams of stainless steel in my left leg that says that the potential price of a motorcycle is much higher than any amount of fuel efficiency.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Excellent point. I have a Honda Jazz GLi (in Japan, it is called the "Fit") and on a recent trip to the NSW south coast from Canberra, I got 4.2 L/100km down there and a total trip usage of 4.6 L/100km. By accelerating and slowing down slowly, I was able to cut my previous trip usage by a full litre per 100 km.
The Jazz has a 1.3 L dual spark ignition motor coupled with a CVT (Continuously Variable Transmission). It costs about 1/2 to 2/3 of a Prius. It doesn't seem to be available in in the US. Here is more info http://www.honda.com.au/jazz/gli/index.htm
PS Google tells me that 4.2 L/100km = 56 mpg.
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
From http://john1701a.com/ (lots of Prius info!):
SMOG, which consists of NOx (Nitrogen Oxides) and HC (Hydrocarbons) plus a little bit of CO (Carbon Monoxide), is the type of vehicle emission that is harder to quantify, since MPG makes no difference. This pollution contributes to that nasty orange haze floating above most all of the major metro areas throughout the United States, which leads to breathing complications for young children and the elderly.
The "SULEV" emission rating was created to identify vehicles that were specially designed to reduce SMOG related emissions. The classic Prius achieves that criteria. The 2004 Prius actually exceeds it (having earned the "AT-PZEV" rating). Some traditional vehicles actually are SULEV too, believe it or not; but unfortunately they are only available in California and their MPG is very disappointing (even lower than their polluting counterpart). Lastly, not to put down the other hybrids, but... not every type offers SULEV cleanness; some are only ULEV, which is 72% dirtier with respect to SMOG related emissions. So don't just assume the highest efficiency equates to the lowest emissions.
The Prius is designed to run the engine at a point where it produces the least pollution, which is not always the best mileage. Sometimes, the engine will produce more power than is needed with the excess charging the batteries.
One of the great traffic safety myths is stopping distance. Who cares if your stopping distance is 200 feet or 300 feet?
Personally, I think putting so much emphasis on stopping distance is a mistake. We spend a lot of time teaching drivers that they need to be able to stop before they hit something, and that's not true. You need to be able to STEER to AVOID the accident. I've witnessed on more than one occasion a driver get into an accident that could have been avoided by NOT braking and turning (doing both increases the chances you lose control of the car) because all the driver knows how to do is slam on the brakes.
Now, more speed is obviously more dangerous than less speed, but only linearly so for anything that matters. Damage caused on impact with a stationary object increases linearly with speed (well, at least, damage to you). Time to avoid an accident decreases linearly - going twice as fast, you'll have half as much time to avoid an accident.
Anyway, if roads with turns and blind corners are safe to drive at 30 miles per hour, roads with 2 miles of visibility are safe to drive at 100. Anything that's not moving that you need to avoid you're going to see at least 12 seconds in advance, which is the only things you'll need to stop for. Anything else, if the speed limit is set correctly, will be travelling at roughly the same speed as you, so hitting it isn't a big deal. You can be 60 feet away from the car in front of you going 100 miles an hour and still stop in time.
The VAST, VAST, VAST majority of expressway accidents/injuries/deaths occur in conditions of incliment weather.
Lower base speed limits are not the answer for road safety. What we need is two speed limits: 85 or 90 when it's dry, and 45 when it's raining.
paintball
"There is a limit as to how fast you can safely travel which is mainly governed by how quickly you can stop. Sport Compact Car magazine recently reviewed a race-ready Mitsubishi Evolution 8 with upgraded everything including a beefed up braking system."
But I have to share the road with big trucks, sports cars, SUVs, School Busses, hybrids, etc. The road has a mix of brand new cars to cars that are 30 or 40 years old along with busses and trucks. Drivers vary from people who are about to die of old age who are missing spots in their vision to people who just got their permit, to 25 year old frat party animals to soccer moms, professional drivers (of all types), etc.
How fast I can stop is a factor including my reflexes, vehicle, tires, road conditions, weight in tow, etc. Put 10 cars behind each other, and one or two guys with too much testosterone weaving through, and although it might be safe for the guys with the muscle car, the fast reflexes, and the adrenaline, it's the guy who slams on the brakes and gets hit by the Mac truck behind him that's going to be paralyzed from the waist down.
There are so many factors to take into account, but it's not rocket science. Crashes happen because people make bad choices without understanding or caring about the consequences. They know those choices are wrong. Rarely are the choices that cause crashes and death are the ones made by the road engineers or car engineers. Equipment failure shouldn't always be the cause of death... These things are designed with room to spare on safety, but people gobble up those design constraints through bad choices.
I don't measure mileage because I use my bike to get just about everywhere. I usually run about 2.5 miles per 100 (nutritional - for you pedants) calories (@20 MPH). I do have a big gas-guzzling SUV, but I don't whine about spending $50 to fill it up because I only buy gas about once every two months.
Bicycling in the US is seeing a huge explosion in the number of riders, which is a great thing because as more people turn to cycling as an alternative to burning gas, we are solving not only the gas "crisis" but also helping with our obesity problem and consequently part of the public healthcare problem.
Wow, 40% heavier and still gets the same mileage! Any other person would say this was a major improvement.
AND, the Prius is a 5 passenger car with AT-PZEV emissions. One lawn mower session puts out more emissions than a Prius after driving 500 miles. Think about the summation of health costs saved with cleaner air, besides just oil.
And take a look at this picture of your 31.4 cu.ft space Metro. I don't see a huge cargo space behind the back seats, so it must come from folding down the seats.
If you get to do that, you get to do that with the Prius too, which means > 16.1 cu ft of space. Probably closer to 54, if you added 16.1 + rear legroom plus some hand waving.
Your specs say the Metro is a 151 x 62.7 x 53.5 = roughly ~506521.95 cu.in compared to the Prius's 175 x 67.9 x 58.1 = roughly ~690373 cu.in.
Although I see your point about 15 years of innovation and we not CLOSER to 100MPG!
Anyways, so dunno what you're talking about how the Metro is better. QED.
1. Electric engines and direct coupling are good and fine, but the problem nowadays is that, basically, batteries suck. They don't come anywhere _near_ the energy density of gasoline or diesel.
Which doesn't just limit your range in an all-electric car, but also makes the whole car heavier. It means you actually need more energy to move at the same speed and over the same distance.
Hybrids acknowledge that reality. The electricity in a hybrid ultimately comes from gasoline too, and is only used so often.
I.e., expect to see hybrids instead of all-electric cars for a long time.
2. The whole "waah, but oil is going to end" premise is bogus anyway.
Yes, fossil reserves will eventually end. But here's the fun part: we already know how to produce synthetic oil. We've known it for a long time. And not just theoretically: Germany's WW2 tank warfare was _based_ on synthetised fuel. It wasn't cheap, but it did keep the panzers rolling nevertheless.
That's really the only thing that keeps us using fossil fuels right now: it's cheaper than making synthetic fuel. If fossil reserves start running low, whoppee, we'll just start making synthetic fuel. And all those gasoline or diesel cars will keep running just the same.
In fact, doing that is probably a more economical and viable way to store energy than a ton of batteries in a car.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I believe you'll use less fuel if you walk, bicycle or take public transportation. Besides,this will mean fewer cars on the road for the rest of us.
I have to point out that AT WORST my mileage on a '98 Jetta TDI (read: diesel) has been 46 mpg.
/. noted that the VW TDI's were getting >= miles per gallon than the hybrids. So, this post is just me giving back.
The average is a steady 48 mpg.
I was an avid follower of hybrids until an article on
Before I part with'em: two pennies weigh ~4.996+/-0.014g, have a zinc core, and the face of Lincoln. You can keep 'em.
I agree, though I need to vent...
Firstly, public transportation was ruined by the automotive industry. Our goverment let them buy out the public transportation, and shut them down, thus forcing everyone to buy cars. Then, the goverment promoted the urban sprawl problem by developing highways going into employment locations, all while encouraging housing developments far distances away from the employment areas (mostly right after WWII). So, the American dream could then be obtained, but required a lot of driving/commuting. Now it has sadly become the American way of life.
Secondly, walking and bicycle riding would require exercise. How would us Americans choke ourselves on our hotdogs and twinkies if we were too busy walking to work? Besides, our shortened life expectancy should help reduce fuel consumption, except that cars now need to haul around bigger and bigger asses.
Thirdly, I am just upset because our local politicians refuse to encourage the bicycling tourism that is HUGE in my area. Instead they insist on spending the money on adding parking spaces where bike lanes once existed.
Fourthly, those of you that consider this to be troll are probably part of the problem. Have another ding dong as you sit in rush hour traffic in your SUV complaining about gas prices. I wonder what kind of "mileage" bicycles recieve if you look at just plain Energy as the fuel measure.
...see subject...
"what makes 55mph the best limit? Why not 40, or 25, or 10?"
I don't know the exact values for the best limit, but here's what I think people should consider:
1) Humans have limited lifespans.
2) Most keep a 24 hour cycle, with approx 16 hours awake. And spend maybe 1.5-2 hours of that on other self-maintenance (and other overheads) - grooming, cleaning, eating etc.
Now if you set a speed limit too low, you'd end up with humans spending lots of time travelling from A to B, and typically back from B to A.
If a commute is 1 hour from A to B and 1 hour back, that's two hours. And that's about 12% of your waking life gone. If by setting a stupid speed limit you increase the commute to 4 hours, that's 12.5% _more_ of your waking life gone.
That's like reducing the average life expectancy of everyone by about 10 years more.
Remember you are doing this for practically ALL the drivers - if just one driver slows down significantly, almost all drivers have to slow down.
That is a LOT of man-years gone
While driving fast kills the unlucky and the careless/ignorant/stupid, driving way too slow kills the unlucky, the careless/ignorant/stupid (by effectively creating a road obstruction/obstacle) AND also reduces the effective lifespan of almost everyone else on the same road.
I'm not saying we should all drive fast (set it too fast and some crash and everyone ends up moving really slowly). But I'm saying there really is such a thing as too slow. Most people have other things they want to do with their lives than spending it on the same road everyday.
Feel free to disagree - maybe most people would/do enjoy driving at a very slow pace to and fro work every working day.
True there are many times you could steer out of an accident. However there are many more times when you cannot.
A habit of hitting the breaks hard may sometimes result in an accident that is avoidable. However it will never result in an accident much worse than the one you were trying to avoid.
When you steer you have to prevent a rollover. You also have to have a clear place to go. Searing into oncoming traffic changes a 'simple' read end to a head on. Steering into a ditch may often mean hitting something hidden but immobile in the ditch. (Not to mention rollover). In heavy traffic there may not no safe way to get into the other lane.