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Hybrid Cars to Get New Mileage Ratings
Skidge writes "Wired is running a piece showing the drastically reduced mileage ratings for hybrids after the upcoming changes in gas mileage calculations by the EPA. While the cars themselves aren't changing, plugging these new numbers in to the equation makes a hybrid much less cost effective: "The two top-selling hybrid vehicles, the Prius and Honda's Civic Hybrid, will lose 12 and 11 miles per gallon respectively from their city driving estimates." The new values come from more realistic testing; the old, over-inflated ratings were higher in part because the cars idled a lot, allowing the hybrids to completely turn off their engines. The new ratings should be more in line with what hybrid drivers are actually seeing."
I thought the key to getting good mileage with a hybrid was understanding how to drive it properly and, when that was done, folks were getting close to the listed mileage.
Hax-fu?
It's important to note that these new ratings also change the mileage estimates for pure gasoline engines as well.
root@allevil:~#
For 'real world' numbers: http://www.greenhybrid.com/compare/mileage/
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
There's a hybrid database that I've been scanning over the past year or so to see exactly which hybrid is "worth" the extra cost (ignoring the environmental impacts of course, since I'm a greedy capitalist pig ;-))
Hybrid Mileage Database
So far the EPA numbers in TFA seem to line up well for the Prius at least, but I haven't looked at any of the other numbers.
Who is John Galt?
We have a 2003 VW Jetta TDI, and we consistently get 40-45 MPG. If I drive very conscientiously I get over 50 MPG. As I understand it, the main reason that diesels aren't picking up in the US is that the EPA restricts their sale: car companies can only sell up to a certain percentage of their fleet as diesels. Demand for them cannot legally be satisfied, so they are not marketed at all.
Add to this the facts that diesel fuel requires less energy to produce, and can be made (mostly) renewably from just about anything that grows, and diesels blow hybrids out of the water in terms of fuel efficiency.
Maybe this change in rating schemes will take some of the marketability out of hybrids and raise awareness for diesel... though more likely it will just encourage people to say fuck it and buy an RV to drive their kids to soccer practice.
The EPA doesn't actually test the cars under real situations.
The car manufacturers test their OWN cars, but not in real-world. They put them on a Dynamometer, drive it in varying conditions, and collect the carbon it produced. From that, they calculate how much fuel the car burned and then derive the MPG from that.
Of COURSE a hybrid would SHOW a huge MPG rating by that government standard. A total electric would show ~ (infinity) as it produces NO carbon itself.
Oh, and for anyone who thinks I'm just blowing smoke out of my ass (pun intended)
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/how_tested.shtml
= Grow a brain...
This is a rather important point many people don't understand. Driving the speed limit and driving defensively save gas.
Some anecdotal evidence of mine... I drive a '93 Dodge van with over 220K miles on it. It has an onboard computer that tells me both instantaneous and average MPG, so I decided to experiment.
Driving "normally" I got 11.3 MPG average over two weeks. Then I started using cruise control, whenever possible, set at the speed limit. Coasting whenever possible (I'm never in a hurry to get up to a red light anyway), not accelerating as hard and trying to avoid accelerating up hills. My next two-week average was 14.7 MPG.
Since my average commute is a little over 5 miles, I'm nearly 2 gallons of gas per week less than before... or about $7/week at current prices. That's worth it IMHO.
=Smidge=
Utter horsehit. I drove a Prius from MA to TX, it was almost all freeway driving at 55-70 mph. Not only that, there were two of us in the car, and the back was entirely filled with cargo, seats folded flat. (We were moving.)
We averaged 47mpg.
Take your Detroit astroturf FUD elsewhere.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak