Auto gas mileage

[MilDoc]

Correct me if I am wrong. My understanding of the hybrids (ie, Prius) is that they get the best mileage in stop and go traffic. On a highway they run strictly on gas, so mileage drops. If most of your driving is at 70 MPH, hybrids offer no real advantage.

True?

[JoeyGee]

My understanding is the opposite--the gas is burned when the most power (torque?) is needed. The batteries take over when the power/torque demand is less.

I could be wrong, though.

[leehljp]

I understand it to be that the electric is for the start and stop aspect in city driving where gas milage takes its greatest plunge (outside of a teen or lead footed driver). My daughter's mother in law has one (Prius) and she just says it gets great milage and is very quiet in town.

Over a certain mph, it becomes primarily a gas car. That is why the gas milage is limited once you get to highway speeds. If electric drive continued to be used in the 60 to 70 mph range on a constant speed, then the gas milage would theoretically go beyond the 48 mpg range, but it doesn't.

This doesn't describe it but a good site for looking at hybrid comparisons: http://www.greenhybrid.com/

[crokett]

That is why I don't have a hybrid. My drive to work is about 96% highway speeds. I can't convince a guy who lives out in my general area that he is not really saving much on gas, not even close to the price difference on his hybrid.

[Anna]

I have a Honda Civic Hybrid. My city mileage suffers (~38 mpg) but highways are great (> 50 mpg). The electric component kicks in when I'm going uphill or accelerating. Cruising and downhill, the battery charges. For mixed city/highway driving, I average about 42 mpg.

On the highways, I stay around 70 mph, and I often get about 50 to 55 mpg. The lower the speed, though, the better the mileage. But then I get really dirty looks from other drivers.

[Alex Franke]

Yeah, some cars even shut down some cylinders when cruising on the highway. my guess would be that the sweet spot is probably around 60 mph...

My neighbor drives one. It's really *really* weird to see him driving by practically silently. The first time I heard it (rather didn't hear it), I had one of those "does not compute" moments.

If you really want good gas mileage, though, do what I do -- I *only* drive down hill, and I never stop. I've noticed that you get the worst gas mileage when you're not moving at all.

BTW (back to serious now), I heard that it's better to just turn the car off if you're stopping for more than just a couple minutes. I was taught to leave it idling (zero mpg, of course), but that was either a myth or the gas engines have gotten more efficient...

[Russianwolf]

Th Prius is rated at 48 City and 45 Hiway. I honestly don't trust the computers they have in them that say they are getting 60+mpg cosistently.

Funny thing though, the VW Golf TDI i s rated at 38 city and 46 Hiway.

And the 1990 Honda CRX HF was rated at 49 City, and 52 Hiway. Sad when we've taken steps back from nearly 20 years ago.

[Anna]

BTW (back to serious now), I heard that it's better to just turn the car off if you're stopping for more than just a couple minutes. I was taught to leave it idling (zero mpg, of course), but that was either a myth or the gas engines have gotten more efficient...

My hybrid automatically turns off the engine when I stop at a corner or light. It's an energy-saving feature. Once I take my foot off the brakes, the car automatically comes back to life. Pretty neat and it always amazes my first-time passengers ("Oh, no! The car died!"). I think all cars should have that feature, actually.

And it really is pretty quiet, although not as silent as the Prius when it's running on pure electric. My car still kind of sneaks up on you, though. I think California is trying to get legislation started to make these cars "noisier" because the blind have a hard time gauging when one of these cars comes barreling towards them. Although I really don't know how many blind people have been run over by hybrids.

[LinuxRandal]

And the 1990 Honda CRX HF was rated at 49 City, and 52 Hiway. Sad when we've taken steps back from nearly 20 years ago.

This is something that I don't totally agree with. (not an argument, just a point), I have friends who own dealerships, and I have been telling them for YEARS, that all these big trucks/suv's are worthless to me. My Ranger does me fine (2.3 liter 5 speed), for my in town and limited hauling. If I had to go full size (once the Ranger/mini truck lines are gone) I would want a 6 cylinder, 1/4 ton, as I don't use a truck hard enough for more. I would MUCH rather have the Festiva line (35 MPG in town and I drove it like a go cart), Aspire, Metro, Aveo, mini car that is cheap on gas and easy to park in town. For quite a while these weren't available, even imports were going over to larger cars.

They would say "it is what everyone wants"
I would ask, "if there are no options, how the (location) do you know that?"

[JoeyGee]

This whole demand for more efficient cars, better gas mileage, consumer wants/needs, SUV demand, etc. has been a major peeve of mine for some time, way before gas prices exploded.

I'm with Randal on this one. I'm far from a tree hugger, but it drives me nuts when I see big SUV's with only one person in it, or a big pickup that has never seen a load of anything. I am NOT saying people shouldn't drive what they want or trying to lecture anyone, I just want Americans to be more sensible in what they choose to drive.

I have said it before, but I HIGHLY recommend a documentary called "Who Killed the Electric Car" (available on Netflix, among other places). I was surprised, it is fairly bi-partisan and places the blame on many fronts. It's very well done.

[Pappy]

I am on the other side of the scale. On a good day, my Ram gets almost 17 mpg! Expensive to drive and far from being 'green' but most of my driving is in heavy traffic at 70+ MPH. I am willing to pay more to operate a vehicle that has me wrapped in almost 3 tons of steel. Plus, if I need to carry or pull a heavy load, the power is there.

[bfrikken]

I commute a total of 110-120 miles per day during the week. Most is 70+ mph as you can imagine. I drive a vehicle that gets 19-21 mpg. I've done a lot of investigating of new cars lately because of the way gas has been sky rocketing.

I first looked at hybrids because of MPG claims. Then I broadened it out to general vehicles that just claim good MPG. I don't particularly pay attention to any company or govt test claims of MPG. I use those as a gauge, but I hit the web and read up on a lot of forums. The Prius numbers just seem to scream look at me because of how close it gets to 50 mpg. WHen you read the forums, you see real world people discussin high 50's to 60's. A coworker here claims he gets 52-54mpg. I believe they probably do, but I know I will not touch that because all my mileage is on the expressway. When I find forum dwellars that sound similar in driving habits to mine, and they get around 42-48 as a range. Which is not too far from teh honda civic hybrid 38-40 mpg, and a regular honda civic around 36 and a few others (Yaris, Chevy cobalt, FIT, aveo) that can exceed 30.

I look at the Prius, not because of the hybrid, but because of the 26mpg difference I could incur. The resale of those cars currently are high because of the demand for them still.

I think of it this way, if some billionaire came out and just made the statement that they have production plans for a vehicle that will exceed 60 MPG, and it will be unveiled in 12 months, all of a sudden you would see "breakthrough" efforts by current companines to reach new levels. ** I don't even think the statement needs to be true, just have enough potential for truth.

[kirkroy]

I also commute 110-120 miles per day and am getting about 40mpg on a not too thrifty motorcycle (not to mention 0-60 in 3 seconds). I have a chevy suburban sitting at home for the times that I need to haul something but it is definitely not used often (10k miles in 3 years).

What I don't get is why hybrids are allowed in HOV lanes if they are so much more efficient in stop and go traffic (aka, non HOV lanes).

I also wonder why diesel cars, which can get excellent mileage, are not being sold much here in the US. I saw a comparison between a 5 series BMW diesel and a much smaller hybrid (I think it was the prius) and the diesel had better fuel economy.

[bfrikken]

I also commute 110-120 miles per day and am getting about 40mpg on a not too thrifty motorcycle (not to mention 0-60 in 3 seconds). I have a chevy suburban sitting at home for the times that I need to haul something but it is definitely not used often (10k miles in 3 years).

What I don't get is why hybrids are allowed in HOV lanes if they are so much more efficient in stop and go traffic (aka, non HOV lanes).

I also wonder why diesel cars, which can get excellent mileage, are not being sold much here in the US. I saw a comparison between a 5 series BMW diesel and a much smaller hybrid (I think it was the prius) and the diesel had better fuel economy.

I don't think they claimed better fuel economy but that it was just slightly better savings overall: http://blog.wired.com/cars/2007/11/diesels-provide.html

This is already outdated, and I can't see how it would still hold true. Diesel was 4.19 on the way down to work, and 3.65 for regular. And as far as I can see, your still around the high 30's low 40's MPG. The BMW was around 33MPG.

[jziegler]

Correct me if I am wrong. My understanding of the hybrids (ie, Prius) is that they get the best mileage in stop and go traffic. On a highway they run strictly on gas, so mileage drops. If most of your driving is at 70 MPH, hybrids offer no real advantage.

True?

I recently rented a Prius when I was in vacation in Germany. It was actually about the same price for the rental as a mid sized automatic would be, and used less expensive gas over there. Anyway, with much of the driving being autobahn going around 140km/h (80MPH), I still got around 42MPG with it (based on its display, converted from l/100km into MPG). The best mileage was going downhill, of course. I think that even on the autobahn, the gas engine turned off going downhill sometimes. So, in hilly terrain, a hybrid works well too.

Now, where I live in the flatlands of NJ with lots of highway driving, buying a hybrid would be a waste of my money. I like the fact that there are more smaller cars becoming available again, some of them very well designed. I really like both the Fit and the Versa (hatchback only, I think the sedan is bad), although I got something a bit bigger (wilt only slightly lower gas mileage) which is good because now that I have two greyhounds, we need the extra space. And with these higher quality compact cars, safety is very good. I won't say that it's better than a truck, but I think that it's better than the safety of many of the lower quality mid size and large car designs. Even the Smart car is very safe, due to innovative design.

As for the diesels, I really liked the idea of them, and in the late 90's, VW was getting 49MPG highway on their US diesels. Various changes have lowered that, and the diesel prices have jumped faster than makes sense. I doubt that the current ones are really all that cost effective.

At this point, I'm really wishing that I had a public transportation option to get to work at least some of the time...

Jim