Featured Next Gen Prius will be revealed in Japan on 11/16!

VW once sold a diesel PHEV that reached something like 80 to 90 mpg when not counting grid charge. For $100k you could have had one. Then there is a race car engine that is 50% thermally efficient. Much better than the 40% for the current Prius, but the Prius doesn't need extensive maintenance every 1000 miles.

So, yes, the automakers have better technology. That doesn't mean it is ready for use in a consumer vehicle made to a certain price point. How much would a 60mpg rating on the next Prius improve sales if it increased the price by $5000?

 

They've had a 100 mpg carburetor since the oil shock in the 1970s. Every knows that Big Oil bought the patents and shelved it.
Easily found via Google

Mike

 

100mpg has always been possible but do you think a sub 2000lb aerodynamic car would sell in volume?

My 1970 Subaru 360 could get a real 65mpg, The original Honda Insight in the 80’s if you kept speed down.

Unless everyone drives Apteras you would never see many 100mpg liquid fueled cars.

Unless you want your Escalade have hard rubber tires and an 8mph top speed

 

My son is super frustrated that my Prime gets a hideous 191Wh/mile (176MPGe - all on rooftop solar) and is trying to build himself a 2-passenger vehicle that gets around 12Wh/mile (2,800MPGe). He's getting around 25Wh/mile (1,500MPGe) on his e-bike, with cargo.

 

It should. It just has to be comfortable, fun to drive, and cheap.

If gas were $50 a gallon it would.

 

100mpg? HA! That's baby steps.
Just a few years back, VW came out w/ the diesel powered hybrid - the XL1 that gets 261mpg.


Of course it was a run of only some 250 cars, and just sold to europeans. Good luck getting your hands on one. Probably had the infamous VW dieselgate cheat software too - so on the USA EPA & w/out cheat software? Probably only gets 200mpg

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Is this sarcasm?

The car that accomplished that back then was built to see how efficient they could it. Like the VW XL1, but it was never sold, so met no safety or emission regulations. Engineers took one of the lightest cars they could find, stripped it down to make it lighter, and installed a low power engine with 2 speed transmission. It got the 100mpg on a track going between 35mph and 40mph.

The secret to it was no secret; lean burn. Getting that to pass emissions today requires emission controls designed for diesels. Which is what the original Insight had.

The high number touted in headlines was the NEDC figure that included EV miles from the grid.

 

These silhouette shots are reminiscent of the 2009 intro to 3rd gen. I hope this has a little more Pizzazz at the actual reveal.
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I like the additional detail!

Since it says “live in…”, pretty sure the difference is the stream goes live 10 mins before the actual event begins (“starting soon…”).

11:30 for me in Eastern Time.

 

Lol, great minds think alike.

 

Did you not do a search and find all the info online?

Mike

 

The 100-mpg carburetor is an urban legend.

What is not an urban legend is that I get 110 actual mpg round-trip across Los Angeles with my Prius Prime in stop-and-go freeway traffic.

 

And you only need lean burn when you can't shut off the engine during low load, as the Prius can and the Insight can't. (And Honda had some lean burn non-hybrids before the Insight, as well.)

And the NEDC method for PHEVs was essentially:

Run the NEDC test in charge depleting mode until it can't maintain 50 km/h on electricity any more or indicates that it's at minimum SoC, determine charge depleting range from that
Run a complete NEDC cycle in charge sustaining mode, and then extrapolate the charge sustaining test to 25 km
Add fuel used in 25 km of charge sustaining mode to any fuel used in the entire charge depleting mode
Divide by the charge depleting range plus 25 km

So, to determine the real fuel efficiency of the XL1, you need to know its claimed NEDC efficiency (0.9 l/100 km) and its charge depleting range (50 km, which is claimed solely as electric). Essentially, this would imply that it used 0.675 liters in 75 km... but it also used 0.675 liters in 25 km, which is 2.7 l/100 km, or 87 MP(US)G. Nowhere near as impressive. Another way to go is to look at the range claims - they claim a 10 liter fuel tank gives ">500 km" range with a full charge. So, 450 km (500 - 50 AER) on 10 liters would imply 2.22 l/100 km, or 106 MP(US)G.

Oh, and it's diesel, which has about ~13% more energy for a given volume. So, those figures would be more like 77 or 94 MP(US)G gasoline equivalent.

And this is all NEDC, a notoriously lax, legally cheatable (thinner oils than spec, tires inflated to max sidewall instead of recommended pressure, DRLs disabled, seams taped over during the coastdown test, coastdown tests being performed on tracks that are downhill both ways) test cycle.

 

Came across an article about that car in the past few years. Don't recall where. Might even have been posted here or Fuelly.

The CRX HF and Civic VX are two lean burners I know of; their adjusted for today's testing combined mpg is 43. The federal VX was prized by hypermilers. It cut weight compared to the other Civics; it used aluminum rotors and different wheels. It also had a wide range oxygen sensor for the lean burn system, which was a pricey part for a car of its class. Also only available with manual transmission.

The original Insight was a reborn CRX HF; a small two seater. It did better in fuel economy than the Prius of then, but it cost about the same. Mostly because it had an all aluminum body. It didn't get a CVT option to the manual until the refresh. In order for the lean burn to pass emissions, it had a NOx trap.

Diesel is more energy dense, but the engine cycle is also more efficient. Toyota's newest diesels reach 44% thermal efficiency. The needed emission controls for the US market will further increase the price, but gasoline engines of such efficiency aren't cheap. Mazda's SkyActiv X HCCI engines aren't currently planned for North America because of their cost.
Mazda's hesitating over Skyactiv-X for U.S. market - Autoblog

 

If Mazda would put the X into their upcoming PHEV instead of with a mild Hybrid they might be able to sell a premium vehicle.

X might be expensive now but so was fuel injection in the 1960’s build it and the cost will get as cheap as dirt in 5 years

 

Mazda has been building it since 2019. Savings from mass production only go so far. Diesels were always more expensive than gas, because the compression ratios required more material to get the same lifespan. The X has a compression ratio comparable to a diesel's.

The emissions are cleaner than a diesels, so there isn't that added cost, but it will always have a higher cost than a gasoline engine made to the same scale. Putting it into a PHEV or full hybrid has the same issue as using a diesel in that application; an added cost onto of an already substantial added cost. Since such don't need the torque output from the HCCI, an Atkinson would likely yield the same results for lower price.

Current fuel prices might change Mazda's mind on bringing it here. We are already getting mild hybrids.

 

Hey stranger! Any chance Toyota flew you in to Japan for the reveal?
(maybe that's top secret / plausible deniability)

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There was a secret reveal in Texas.
https://www.cleanmpg.com/community/index.php?threads/57042/
NDA in place, so no hard confirmation, but the rumors being posted sound to be real.