Hybrids challenged by regular cars on fuel economy: Washingtonpost.com

I think more or less people hate seeing lies told about something they are particularly interested in. For example I like music so if you showed me an article proclaiming how Justin Bieber is reinventing music or some such I'd have issue with it.

 

Thanks for the link. I am always suspicious of reports on that site though. I think 50mpg in a 2010+ Prius is pretty normal for the average Joe but we both know there are plenty of people who cannot achieve that. I think the majority of reporting I've seen on Cruzetalk.com are not based on the Eco model and instead they are with the normal models: Browse On-the-Road Fuel Economy Data

Your point is valid as always.

 

Just want to point out the sample size is 2.

 

Ford and Toyota entered into a cross licensing deal, no money exchanged hands.

 

No money changed hands. The PSD is not a Toyota or Ford invention and Ford does not pay Toyota anything for licensing on its hybrid.

NISSAN and MAZDA have licensed HSD and do pay Toyota.

The cross patent deal was just plain smart for both parties and kept lawyers out of the early days of hybrids.... well at least until Antonov and Paice stepped in.

 

Proof ?

 

The thing that is really sad about conventional, non-hybrid vehicles is that there is .....

such a large gap between the city and highway fuel economy

Pretty much anyone knows if you slog down the highway around 60 mph through a tank of gas, you will get about the best economy. If you burn the whole tank in city / urban/ suburban driving, you will get the car's worst fuel economy. Worse yet in cold weather and short trips.

But what is really sad about the low city / high highway number is it naturally makes the advertisers mention highway economy only.

This is a stretch, but how many people tell themselves 'I drive highway most of the time, I'll get close to that highway number' ... when in fact, they do not.

I bet you a high percentage of car buyers don't care what the average fuel economy advertised is, they care that it supposedly can get the higher highway number, they believe it, so they buy it. Then they get to the pump and wonder what happened....

..and the rest don't even calculate their fuel economy. Don't care about it.

 

I think you've got a very good point in bold. A lot of people say they "don't drive in the city" and automatically expect the higher highway mileage. In fact, they won't achieve it because they aren't actually out on the highway actually moving at a constant speed most of the time.

I don't calculate my fuel economy completely every time I fill up. I do a rough calculation that's close enough for me to know if it's way off or not.

 

Pretty much this. I think people generally do not calculate their fuel economy, which allows them to assume that they are getting highwayish numbers even if they are frequently stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. This is complicated by the fact that estimating MPG is not as simple as it may appear. The average person would assume, for example, that a commute at 20 MPG for 5 miles and 40 MPG for 10 miles would be pretty darn close to 40 MPG because that's 2/3 of the trip. In actuality, the MPG is just 30 MPG. Getting lower MPG for a stretch brings down the overall MPG a lot more than most people would expect.

 

proof? there is no proof of that

 

not really - Elantra drivers are using AT which effects the actual mileage.

Cruze ECO is manual transmission and wonders of the world - its mileage is comparable to the Corolla 1.8l manual consumption on the same fuelgov.org site.

So in the end, despite the EPA numbers difference, this special Eco Cruze gets the same real world mileage as old school Toyota Corolla from 2006, that should get a lot less according to EPA.

 

austingreen - "I would not expect the average joe to get 50 in a prius..."

I'm an average Joe driver and can get 53 MPG in a 3rd gen Prius. That is with solo driving, almost no accessories use and 50F+ weather. But, 50 MPG is waaaaaay easy to get in a Prius even in city. I am not a hypermiler.

I had to apoligize to the buyers of my 2009 Prius when the gauge showed about 43 MPG average at the time I sold the car. I had not been driving the car far at all (only 5 minutes or so at a time) since it was up for sale. with my usual 5 mile trips to work, it would average 47 MPG and it averaged 50 MPG over its first 9,000 miles of driving. I had all the gas receipts and spreadsheet to prove that.

 

I have no proof, but it has been stated by ford in press releases and numerous magazine and newspaper articles. If you know something is wrong you may want to correct this page

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Escape]Ford Escape - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

 

Of course there is.

EDITORIAL: Attention Wall Street Journal - Ford does not use Toyota's hybrid system! — Autoblog

There are many more where that comes from.

 

EDITORIAL: Attention Wall Street Journal - Ford does not use Toyota's hybrid system! — Autoblog

Or do you need proof that Nissan DOES use Toyota's system??

 

Here's a thought (actually I think it is a very good one) ....

Require all new cars, especially conventionals to have separate, highly accurate gauges clearly showing instantaneous and average running fuel consumption in miles per gallon or L / 100km

I'm sure this could be incorporated without too much expense. This should have been done years ago.

 

exactly my point.

In the prius and these econoboxes, going slower but with few stops gets the best mileage.

It all depends on what the routes are like. Like I said in the lexus the highway figure was a big underestimate. The city was major over estimate. If I was doing 70 percent highway, I was just under highway mileage. My prius doesn't come close, and I accelerate much less, because well I can't accelerate like the old car. When I try I can't get close to epa. If I'm on a long trip I beat it, unless going to houston. Going 80 definitely doesn't get close to that high mpg.

Anouther reason why the numbers don't matter enough to the average consumer. My local tv station gave hyper miler tips when the gas price jumped;=) Maybe it will change. Most people have some idea of what they spend on gas. It will only be when the pain gets high that they jump to a hybrid, especially with people advertising 40mpg.

I invite you down to Austin to try to get it on my routes ;-) Do any of your friends have a non hybrid econobox? It would be neat if you changed off for a few days and let them learn how much better mileage the prius gets and the luxury of the engine stopping with HVAC still working. Definitely YMMV and some people can do it easily with their commute, and others can not make the mileage at all.

Hybrids much better in stop and go, the prius has a major problem at least for me on short trips. The hybrid premium has shrunk a great deal, and the need for excessive techniques has improved with the GenIII.

 

What is with all the big print? The prius consistently shows better mileage than I actually get. Would you fine Toyota?

A mileage calculator where you input the gallons would be quite inexpensive. I think that is a good idea. Instantaneous should still be optional, but I would think cars like the focus and cruze should add them. If you are promoting the cars to use less gas, IMHO a instantaneous gauge would be a selling point.

 

Well it can be done as virtually all cars over here have instantaneous mpg readouts in addition to average mpg's etc. Guess it's where your priorities lie.

 

The HHR has an average mpg display, and I suspect nearly all GM vehicles do. The Lincoln Town Car we had, a late 80's or early 90's model, had both instant and average.