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

Ok, so the Elantra burns 50% more fuel average than Prius. If stuck in city, that 50% goes up. Plus it's only 14 ft3 vs. Prius 21 and weighs at least 200 lbs less. Price is easy though $17,800 w/ auto. that's a big delta off the Pri.

Big thing with Prius - size of car vs. its price. It's still kinda pricey for its size. I used to get mad at how much I paid for the 2009 (MSRP) vs. its size.

So, key thing with Prius is .... lower the cost .. lower the cost , echo, echo ....

I know that will be tough because PS hybrid drive train is very complex.

 

This Accord AT is a smooth shifter. What's weird is when you take foot off gas, the car maintains its speed. I'm sure it's to avoid shifting down. When you brake, of course, it slows. For an AT, it's a good one, but no shifting is better.

:focus:

 

True, but Prius HSD is complicated. It's been researched and written about in SAE, ieee, etc .. for over 10 years.

About the media, well, they have to get paid, and they are paid by the advertisers.

Ford and GM need to get on it and work hard on 2nd sourcing the Prius. What is it, Prius sells 72% of hybrids. Now there is a family coming. It might make within top 10 when the v hits.

 

Thing that is a pain about start / stop and IMA is every time you want to move, even 2 ft, the engine comes on.

I drove the Insight II. I stopped, to back up, whups, engine comes on.

I'll take a PS / HSD hybrid any day.

Engine on/off/on/off too much is a drag, but off at stop lights is better.

 

Yes, this one really amazes me. I still see neighbors and others idling to warm up in the morning, while they are still in the house. I wonder at what price, if any, they will stop that habit.

 

Some people think they are supposed to warm up the ICE for x minutes. I give it about 20 seconds when cold.

 

Many people at my work do it for several minutes. It's an old, useless habit. I give it zero time to warm up and just drive gently until it's at operating temp.

 

I had remote start on my old Maxima. The use of starting the car early to warm it up stopped when fuel was below $2/gal. Now, I get in the car, press START, and pull away. Been that way for a few years now.

 

I do have to say that there are some people who, like me, live and work within a mile of the freeway. So most of my miles are freeway because I tend to avoid going into the City. I stick to the borders. It works for areas like Sacramento and surrounding communities. That being said, I still drive in the city so without my stellar hybrid city mpg, my average number would drop quite a bit.

 

Prius replaced a Max for me, too. Loved that car

 

Yes but the majority of people commute at the same time. So even if you did live on the highway, with an address of Exit 101A I-Whatever, you would essentially have city driving on a big nice person divided road for both rush hours.

The 3 lane interstate regularly is stop and go with 0-35mph traffic around here between 7am and 9am and then again from 5pm to 6pm. Similarly, when in Toronto the 18 LANE WIDE HWY401 screeches to a halt during the same periods.

So there are:
a) people that drive mostly in the city
b) people that drive mostly on the highway but within a city and it is no different than a surface street 99% of the time
c) people that drive mostly highway and drive at constant speed for long times

a + b are the majority of people. However lots think "highway mpg" which is only viable with option c will apply to b. The car doesn't care what class of road you are on just how much work it has to do.

 

well actually it was BMW that started adding it to all of their cars first...

... and Toyota was one of the first car companies to offer production model, on 2001 Yaris Eco I believe.

Reason you dont see it in USA is because it doesnt help on EPA cycle.

On European cycle, it helps a lot on paper so many manufacturers are adding it, although in real life, it is not worth 500E it costs.

 

Toyota has the 1.33 liter petrol engine current found in the iQ, Yaris, Urban Cruiser and Auris. It has stop'n'go technology, but as said ^^ it doesn't really help much other than on the paper. In Europe you typically don't have to wait as long for the green light.

You will get the 1.33 in the Scion iQ.
Unfortunately it looks better on paper than in real life.

 

Although I'm lucky enough to commute the opposite of morning and evening traffic, I agree I am in the minority.

 

HSD is more complex to control and more complex to understand but once its done there is no significant further cost for this.

More complex to build? I doubt it. There certainly seem to be fewer parts.

I suspect that the actual cost to build a Prius is now a lot lower than most people think.

We will probably not know how low the selling cost could be for some some time. After all they are still so far ahead of the competition, there is little reason for them to drop the price

 

For what it's worth, EPA uses a driving mix of 43% "city" and 57% "highway" for the U.S. light-duty vehicle fleet in its "MOVES" model (used to determine emission inventories of mobile sources).

 

One of these is definitely more complex to build than the other....

 

That's for sure. Here's an IEEE transaction written by a couple PhD ME's from UMich on Power Split modeling and control. It was hosted on Umich site. Let me know if I'm breaking ieee's rules.

View attachment Liu%20TCST%20split%20paper.pdf

 

Yeah, but to be fair, must compare conv. vs. HSD systems, not just gearbox.

That is an HSD power-split gearbox, right? ICE connects to wide teeth in middle, MG1 to teeth at bottom (on table) and MG2 to smallest gear?

 

Alright, so I stopped by Fremont Chevrolet to see what was laying around their place - quite a few Camaros and Corvettes.

The number of Chevy Cruzes ? About 7 or 8. Ouch. This is a major dealer on Fremont Auto Row (which is dominated by Toyota, Honda, Lexus, BMW, Porsche, MB and Nissan. If Chevy doesn't watch their butt, they're going to get kicked off auto row.

They had a couple Volt demo cars. I like how the tailpipe is hidden - you have to look under car to see it. $42k price on the demo car (w/leather) but ouch.

So, they had a Cruze, about $22k w/leather. Seat was nice. What do they expect to get out of that 1.4L engine? Buy a Civic, Corolla, get a 1.8L, buy Cruze, get 1.4L. Customers are going to prefer the larger mill. btw, this Cruze SL2 (T) rated 28 MPG average, no big. Engine comes from Austria. Way to spread your parts out.

Fremont Lexus had no CT200h's. Said they sold 14 in 2 days, they're on order basis now.

Ford Fiesta not bad. Front can sit a tall guy like me pretty well. 33MPG average. Fiesta looks like nice competitor to Honda Fit.