Not as long as I'm around. I started counting them as a proportion of other cars on the road 3 years ago. It has gone from 1:117 in May 2008 to around 1:32 in my area (outside of BOS). Hell it must be around 1 in 20 in Cambridge.....and its still over 1 in 100 in Lowell. So no, there are worse OCD cases out there than you counting Prii.....
One trip on the Long Island Expressway I counted at least 20. NYC uses the Prius for many departments such as NYPD (traffic enforcement-Parking) Dept of Sanitation, Dept of Public works, FDNY to name a few. With the clean air pass you can ride in the HOV lane solo.
A new way of talking back - the Chevy Cruze. Why thumbs down a Prius when a Cruze, fully loaded, is more expensive, pollutes more, is more expensive to operate, plus has less interior/cargo space? Sure it has better handling at high speed...do you need to drive at 140Mph?
The Eco Cruze can do 40mpg - great for a conventional car. Suggestion for GM: Put the two-mode hybrid on it. That would be a serious competitor with the Prius priced much better than the Volt.
Really? Cruze Eco Automatic = 26/37/30(City/Highway/Combined) Cruze Eco Manual = 28/42/33(City/Highway/Combined) Fuel Economy The so-called 40mpg cars have combined mileage in the low 30's. It is deceptive marketing because they are telling people to only calculate the highway part of driving, don't fall for it!
^ technically I'm correct - the Cruze Eco Manual does exceed 40mpg on the highway. It is a pretty decent non-hybrid sedan. Agreed - it not great numbers. If anyone thinks I'm a GM fanboy, digging up my old posts will dispel that. Just trying to say if the Eco Cruize had a two-mode or HSD powerplant, it should get pretty good numbers. To put it another way, a Chrysler sedan would be a guzzler even with a hybrid powerplant.
Technically, my Prius can do 1000 mpg (down a mountain). What it 'can do' isn't as useful a figure as what it normally does. 33 mpg is just not very close to 50.
We have a Fiesta in addition to our Prius and it currently averages 31.4 while our Prius averages 46.6. We have a lot of traffic in NE Atlanta and a lot of hills so it is very hard to do much better. We have a strip of interstate style hwy that I take for 2 miles on the way to and from work. The Prius can get 65mpg on it and the Fiesta got 53mpg on it, the killer is in town where you just watch the Fiesta's bottom drop out at every light and acceleration event. Still...11c a mile versus 7.8c a mile is not bad for a car that was 16.6k vs 24k. I do agree that the hwy crap needs to go, but getting >30mpg city is very nice in a conventional car.
On the going down a mountain, I did 1200 mpg going down Pikes Peak but was not worth it as the result was running the battery down....I'd expect the ICE to kick in at some point to avoid what happened to my Insight. On the main point, the Eco Cruze is a step in the right direction, esp for GM....when was the last time they got serious in sedan fuel efficiency? The Cruze is making an honest attempt in a non-hybrid car to be fuel-efficient with aerodynamics, rolling resistance, gearing, etc....it could be better, yes. With today's cars in general, the two things that keep the FE down is more armor than the 1980's to make them crash-worthy, and the general American public that insists on 0 to 60 times in under 10 seconds. I may sound like a GM apologist (given my history, that would be a shock.) The Cruze beats five years ago when GM attempted to sell the Suburban as the new Impala.
Check out the Cruze forums and read about the many drivers that can't even get 30 mpg with that GM pile. Mike
I said it was an improvement - did not say it was great or approaching the Prius. Somehow that's difficult to understand.
But there are folks getting over 45mpg on a tank in the Fiesta...not many but there are some: 2011 Ford Fiesta MPG Reports | Fuelly As a whole they are exceeding EPA estimates consistantly. :nod:
We were cruising thru Milwaukee last night and a guy in a frog green Fiesta sedan blew by us like we were sitting still I guess he had to prove his Ford was better than our rental Prii I like those hatchback versions, especially the bright colors :nod: Post some pic's of your Fiesta. Mike
Oddly enough, I couldn't care less about GM making a step in the right direction. I care about car buyers making a step in the right direction.
