USnews Ranking of 2012 models...

Ok, cool. US news ranks it that way.

Do you have any guesses for the sales showdown between Volt and PiP starting in April?

I'm not too sure what they're proving against Prius & v that sold 15,000 units combined in US in month of November. And Volt is trying to reach 8,000 for year of 2011.

It's a crackup how they speak of the Prius in these articles. Truth is the Prius just about still outsells all other hybrids on the market combined. Still needs a little refining though. 4th gen should be ace.

I can hardly wait to see how PiP vs. Volt sales pan out.

 

DrInnovation – What the Hey? Shades of The Twilight Zone. The car review people at U.S. News & World Report must be living in a topsy turvy, backasswards alternate universe to have ranked the Volt first out of the 20 other Upscale Midsize Cars it was compared to, and the Prius v last out of 4 affordable wagons.

 

Well the Volt may be hard to beat when it comes to EV-Mode but great fuel economy ?
What a laugh !
The Volts "brother" Opel Ampera was testet by a german car magazine .
The took a trip over about 201 Km .
39 Km in battery mode and the remaining 161 km on gas .
The Trip computer which separates EV from gas showed 7.4 Liters/100 Km which isn´t very good but one can live with that. But the thing is,the trip computer was lying and hiding 1.9 liters of gas consumption !
15 Liters of gas were used on that trip .
15 : 161 =0,0931677
0,0931677*100 = 9,31.. so that means the real fuel economy achived on that trip was 9,31 liters/100 Km ! ( about 25 mpg ! )
They didn´t go really fast on that trip,about up to 140 km/h . ( about 87 mph )
They call that great fuel economy ?
Maybe american Volt owners shouldn´t trust the trip computer all that much !

 

Well, Top Gear found that a BMW is more efficient than a Prius.

List of US states where you can legally drive at 87mph:

 

I can asure you a german car magazine will do everything they can to put a Prius into bad light but never ever a "german" product !
Let´s face the facts here,the Volt/Ampera is very good for for short trips 60-70 miles but is absolutly no match to a Prius when it comes to long trips !
The fuel evconomy on long trips is a disaster unless you plug it in every few miles and take ages until you reach your destination .
We have no speed limit in germany on many parts of the highways,so 87 miles is a very normal speed here,fact is a Prius would only use about 6 to 6.5 liters at 87 mph which is nearly 3 liters less than a Volt or Ampera !

 

I asked a Volt owner on the big GM forum if the data he reported was displayed or measured at the pump. They screamed "troll" claiming there was no reason to even ask that question other than trying to promote Prius. Then I pointed out the reports from Edmunds showing the difference and almost got banned.

Not being ranked highly in an essential category SALES is making them very nervous with PiP so close to entering the market now.

Also, how the heck does a Volt, which is clearly a compact, rank so high in the midsize category?
.

 

Even though I am an admittedly biased Prius v owner, I can
see how US News arrived at ranking the Prius v as the fourth
best. But, that doesn't mean I agree with their conclusion!
My take is that they consider some of the higher rated wagons'
characteristics as being advantageous, when in fact those
advantages are illusionary and/or are not apples to apples.

The #1 rated 2012 Subaru Outback beats the #4 Prius v
by .8 basis points on their scale of 1 to 10. Another way
of saying this is that they are rating the Ouback as 8%
better than the Prius v. The rating scale appears to be
based on five different criteria, plus price and EPA mileage.
On two of the five criteria, reliability and safety*, Prius v, being
new, has no track record, i.e., thus gets incomplete grades
for the two categories. This means that the Prius v gets
neutral ratings at best for two categories where Toyota
historically scores exceptionally well on.

*The other cars all lack safety data as well.

The big pluses for the Subaru seem to be exterior design
and lower price. In the former case, the Outback scored
2.0 basis points, or 20%, better than the Prius v. The raters
especially liked the Outback's "flared fenders, a styling cue
most often associated with SUVs." I would argue that
looking like an SUV is no advantage at all, but as they say,
beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In any case, this
20% perceived advantage looks like it makes up a large
portion of the Subaru's overall 8% higher rating. As for price,
if you look at "average paid" price, the Subaru is about $2K
cheaper than the Prius v. However, that advantage in
capital cost will be completely overcome in just three years
due to the Prius v's much superior mileage. Based on 12k
miles per year and $3.50/gallon, Prius v has more than a
$700/year operating cost advantage over the Outback.
Since most people will own their car for more than three
years, Prius has a big advantage in total cost of ownership -
but the way US News is looking at cost probably gives the
Outback an illusionary advantage from a rankings point of
view.

I'll finish my point by looking at the #2 rated VW Jetta
Wagon. To use their own words, this car wins praise
for its high mileage when you have the optional diesel
engine. Other reviews have reported 35-42 mpg, which
is quite good, only 10-15% less than the Prius v.

The issue here is that this is not apples to apples.
Diesel fuel costs more than regular unleaded; here in
Missouri, it's about 10% more expensive. Thus, the
Jetta's TDI technology is closer to a 20-25% deficit
compared to the Prius v. I sense that they are giving
Jetta a "close to the Prius v" score on mileage, when
in fact, the effective mileage (=mileage plus cost of
fuel) is way lower than that of the Prius v.

 

I don't know if the 2012 models changed the displays much, but other than adding in the EV miles to the total miles for the mpg calculation I found the display in my 2011 fairly accurately matched gallons consumed with what I was measuring at the pump, once I backed out the EV miles I was seeing mpg number consistent with the EPA tests or a little better.

I know the 2012 is supposed to display the kwh efficiency now that my model doesn't, so there have been some changes and I can't comment on any changes beyond what I know.

 

best laugh i have had in a while.

 

Well i don`t know how the Volt´s trip computer displays the fuel consumption but this is the way it´s done on the Ampera .
On the left side of the display ist shows you the covered distance which was in this case 201 km .
Above of it it shows you how many Km have been achiched in EV-Mode and how many where covered by gas which in this case was 39 Km EV and 161 km gas !
On the right side of the display ist shows how many kilowatt has been used and how much gasoline on this trip .
In this case 15 liters of gasoline where used !
Underneith on the right side the average fuel consumption for the trip ist shown.
In this case 7.4 Liters which seems right at first sight but there ist a problem with that !
The 7.4 liters is beeing calculatetd on the whole 201 Km distance .
15:201 =0,074
0,074*100 = 7.4 liters/100 km
So far so good but as we all know only 161 km where coverd by gas so the correct calculation should be 15:161 =0,093 which means 9,3 liters/100 km is the correct consumption of gas on that trip !
I find that kind of display informatiom somewhat misleading !
So is that what Edmunds was talking about ?

 

Well i think you havn´t read read what i wrote !
Thew display showed 15 (!) liters of gas where used on that trip,so there is no way the whole trip was covered on just 7.4 liters !
Where did the missing 7.6 liters go ?
Distance 201 km,EV-Mode 39 Km,Gas Mode 161 km .
By the way,the trip computer in the Ampera clearly shows 7.4 liter on 100 Km and not 7.4 liters on 201 km or whole trip and as i said there where only 39 Km covered on EV so the trip computer is missleading !
As far a i know the Volt nor the Ampera uses gas when in EV-mode so theres only the remainig 161 km to calculate the fuel consumption which very clearly is 9.3 Liters while the Trip computer only ist showing 7.4 liters !
Not very surprising because it´s calculating the average fuel consumption on the whole trip without considering that 39 Km where coverded in EV-Mode !
As i said there were going at a speed about 87 mph so there was no further EV-driving after the battery got depleted !
Sorry but thats the way it is !
Even dealers in Germany admitt it shows wrong figures !
It all comes down to maths and maths dosn´t lie !

 

15 L over 201 km = 7.46 L every 100 km, if the screen reported 7.4 L/100 km it may be off by 0.06 L/100 km, or there could be a rounding error on the 15 L figure or some combination of both.

The point they were trying to explain above is there are different metrics. If you want to track how much gas you burned over a certain distance traveled, this metric (MPG) is fine. If you want to compare total efficiency (MPGe) you need to factor in the electrical consumption somehow. If you want to only track fuel consumption during CS mode, then subtract out the electric miles like you did.

There is nothing wrong with the display, it just might not be the data you were looking for.

 

Ok ill give up !
As i said 39 (!) Km of the 201 Km trip was covered on EV ( ! ), so no (!) fuel used on 39 km (!) of the trip therefore the trip computer shouldn´t take the 39 km of EV ride in consideration of the 201 km long trip calculating the average fuel consumption which sadly it does !
Don´t you get that ?
Fuel was only consumed on the remainig 161 (!) Km and 15 (!) liters of fuel were used on the trip !
So 15 liters devided through 161 Km of FUEL CONSUMPTION (!) makes 0,093 Liters per 1 Km (!)
Right or not ?
0,093 Km*100 makes 9,93 liters of Fuel cosumption on 100 Km !
So the trip computer ist not off by just 0,06 liters,no it´s off by 1.9 liters !
I don´t think this is by accident i think it has been programmed that way to make the car look more fuel effecient than it really is !
After all many people who plug in the car daily probably wont even notice it !

 

No, it's really quite simple.

GALLONS and KWH indicate consumption per distance.

How that achieved is just something enthusiasts like to argue.
.