Arguments for superiority of hybrids

If you are putting down 2K, on the camry, you will be financing 28K on the ICE and 33K on the Hybrid... Current camry ICE and hybrid is 0% which means the loan will cost you nothing, right now...so the financing option is wash, unless you could have done something with the extra 5k, like a IRA or some safe investment..

yes if you run a vehicle into the ground... the longer you own a hybrid the more the payback...assuming you don't have any large repairs (the more complex the greater the chances imo)... My oldest vehicle is a 2008 saturn vue which I bought in 2010... I'm not usually one to run a vehicle into the ground. Id rather get rid of it while it has some life and some value to someone...IE get rid of it before any potential problems...

Robert, Yeah I have played with the "free sailing" boats neat, but I'd rather be more hand's on...so to speak..I build most of mine form scratch... You're a better/stronger man than I to take a prius on a 15K road trip with your wife.

I'd probably make it about 4 hours before I drove off a cliff... If my wife was driving, I'd open the door and roll out after 2 hours... But I love her to death...

 

That makes you a better man than me. I can only tolerate being in a car my wife is driving if I am asleep -- am I still wake up annoyed.

 

I don't think that's true at all. There's a specified EPA drive cycle that the manufacturers are required to follow. Most cars are capable of exceeding the factory highway fuel economy during certain situations, in fact my '05 Mustang achieved 30 MPG on more than one highway tank.

My wife's 2011 Sienna will not consistently get the 22 MPG highway that it's rated for. It's close though, every bit as close as an AWD minivan from any other manufacturer.

 

He meant that owners exceed EPA, not that Toyota discounts the EPA results for the window sticker.

The EPA test models vehicle speed, acceleration, and braking very accurately, but think for a moment of some of the variables that EPA explicitly ignores, e.g:

• wind
• quality of roads
• rain
• snow
• extra passengers
• traffic
• THE DRIVER

It is no wonder that the EPA test is no where near most drivers in its raw data format. The only reason the window sticker seems somewhat reasonable to say 50% of drivers is that the EPA applies a fudge factor expressly calculated to do just that -- make the number about right for the middle 67% of drivers.

So the EPA result these days, at least on the window sticker, is a political number meant to reassure at least the majority of Americans that their car is "ok," and that their driving behavior is normal.

So all that said, why would Toyota owners routinely report better than EPA ? I can think of a few...
1. Overall, Toyota owners are a stodgy and boring lot. They probably tend to drive slower and less aggressively than the average American.
2. Toyota vehicles tend to be more aerodynamic than e.g. Detroit products, so wind affects them less.

 

Another advantage of a Prius. It is less complex (mechanically) which means fewer repairs.

 

As much as I don't like to think of myself as "stodgy and boring" (I prefer "traditional and predictable"), you might be right. If psychologists have developed a "stodgy and boring" personality test, we could test your first hypothesis directly. Actually I did develop a "hazardous thought pattern" test for drivers, and the scores for the impatient and impulsive or macho driving styles might work as a surrogate measure set.
Your second hypothesis is even more easily testable as somewhere in these forums I found the coefficient of drag for the Prius (.25 for Gen 3) and many other vehicles. We probably should take a sales-weighted average of the Cd s across all models for each manufacturer, but that should be eminently doable.
A third hypothesis is that Toyota vehicles are designed to discourage fast, aggressive , inefficient driving and facilitate calm, gradual efficient driving. The HSI indicator display in the Prius is one example of encouraging efficient driving styles. Designing more gradual throttle response might be one such factor. Harder to test this hypothesis as you need to observe driving efficiency of the same drivers as they cross between Toyota models and other makes.
Does this response sound "stodgy and boring" enough??

 

Hi Robert,

Sorry for "stodgy and boring." I figured our collective self esteem could only go up from there
Now that I think about it, perhaps my family's (wife and myself) recent purchase of a Honda Fit rather than another Toyota hybrid (3 and counting over 10 years) is a mid-life crisis ? Truly pathetic.

Nothing wrong with your ideas, but there is I think a more accessible route to proving this hypothesis: Compare cars of similar weight class and crash test results to insurance cost in the same locale. The difference is the driver.

 

A few thoughts come to mind, both acting on the opposite ends of the spectrum.

1) The more excess horsepower a vehicle has, the higher its propensity for getting worse than EPA mileage. In the interest of a fair comparison the EPA driving cycles had to be designed so that every vehicle tested could follow the same time/speed profile. That means a 400HP sports car is tested at the same rate of acceleration as a 60hp econobox. If you don't drive the 400HP sportscar like an econobox, which I'll go out on a limb and say most owners don't, you are probably going to get worse than expected mileage.

2) On the far other end of the spectrum is the underpowered / unresponsive vehicle. A vehicle that never seems to accelerate no matter how hard you try to push it is probably going to spend a substantial amount of time with its pedal mashed to the floor in a vain attempt to make it do something. This is a very inefficient operating condition for the engine, so this also would likely produce worse than EPA results.

There is a lot of psychology at play here, and I've experienced a pretty wide range of it.

One of my previous vehicles was a Subaru WRX (actually the short-lived rebadged Saab version). Man that thing was fun to drive. And the harder you drove it, the more fun it was. Over the several years I had it, I don't think I ever got better than 17mpg while the revised EPA combined is 20mpg. 3 mpg doesn't sound like much, but thats 15% on a 20mpg vehicle.

Another previous vehicle was a 1998 Land Rover Discovery. Awesome off-roading machine, but with a 1960s Buick designed pushrod V8 making 180hp in a 4500 lb brick with a sluggish outdated autobox that thing just would not get up and go no matter what you did to it. In socal traffic it was aggravating beyond belief. I used to get about 11 mpg even thought the revised EPA is 14 combined.

IMHO the Prius is a zen like blend of performance and efficiency. I've never had the experience of being frustrated that it would not get up and go when needed. Its also not much fun to push hard. Consequently I find myself a lot less stressed, and driving a lot more relaxed. When I just drive I average around 51 mpg in my 9 y/o gen 2 with its 46 mpg combined rating. On my current tank I'm having a little friendly competition with my co-worker and his new 2013 liftback, and I'm at 57.3 mpg at 296 miles. Incidentally, he's also at 57.3 mpg at 322 miles

Rob

 

Hey Rob, about that GM car ...

I thought WOT was an efficiency goal ?

 

That certainly seemed to be the theory I was operating under at the time

 

Ford used the Fusion numbers for the Cmax..... that's why they had to revise the Cmax numbers. (Common sense should have told th the C is less aerodynamic but apparently not.)

I think the EPA city test is hogwash.

It's okay for nonhybrids and pure electrics, but not hybrids. A manufacturer like Ford or Hyundai can start with a full battery & gradually drain it empty (while leaving the engine off a big chunk of time). This would result in lower gas consumption than what a true City driver would see. Many city drivers have near-empty batteries which makes the car consume more.

Also: The EPA test was developed based on 70s driving styles in LA city and SoCal highways. Things have changed and so too have drivers (more impatient).

 

What kind of broken hybrid allows a low battery condition for a majority of the time? A Prius is designed to maintain an average battery level around 65%. In order to compare city driving in hybrids against the EPA test, one would need to determine the *flow* of charge, not assume a static state.

 

And so has the test, multiple times. The current revision dates to Model Year 2008.

 

Boy, that was an easy riddle.

The Volt, of course!

 

Nah, they call the Volt an "Extended Range EV".

 

ON a side note...isn't this a terribly pretentious thread? Looking for ways to demonstrate the superiority of ones choice for those "less enlightened"?

 

Nope. Pretentiousness lies in tone, not in content. I defy you to have any conversation extolling the virtues of anything which doesn't fit your description of pretentious. For example, trying to demonstrate that your method of creating posts in forum is superior to those of the 'less enlightened'.

 

Not to sound rude or non-green but my primary objective for the Prius PIP purchase was to get great mileage, the lower emissions is a far third for me (behind the Tot Cost of Ownership.

 

Not rude at all.

However, I will *never* understand some people's desire to devalue clean air.

 

Actually, I prefer the term, "the great unwashed", but then again:

Oh Lord it's hard to be humble
when you're perfect in every way.
I can't wait to look in the mirror
cause I get better looking each day.
To know me is to love me
I must be a hell of a man.
Oh Lord it's hard to be humble
but I'm doing the best that I can.

(This song continues in this theme and is hilarious.)