Your Mileage May Vary - Bad News for Hybrids

Two things: Toyota has published on their site (see their footnotes) that they have argued for the tests to be revised to more accurately reflect mileage their cars actually attain, as well as those of other manufacturers.

The second issue is that all manufacturers will have to work harder to meet the CAFE standards, including the US manufacturers.

I am so pleased to be a Prius owner, having an opportunity to complain about the awful 35 - 40 mpg I get on 1-2 mile trips, and the pxss-poor highway mileage of 47 mpg. :lol: This compared to my other vehicles of 13-17 around town and 19-21 on the highway.

As another poster has said, "It is all percentages." and the actual drop may seem big when compared to how well we are doing. But the percentage of drop is important. I don't think the Prius will drop as much as many other cars as a percentage, even though our numerical drop may be as much.

I LOVE my Prius! :wub:

 

Your mileage may vary...

Well, it always has, and always will. When my brother drove his friends Prius, he was able to get it down to 8 mpg...by having 3 passengers, coming to a stop while climbing a steep grade, then starting. Of course the mileage will go down! Your mileage depends largely on how you drive the car. If you drive like a NASCAR driver does on the oval, you will get less mileage. Anyway, to date, the trip computer shows that I am getting 48 mpg. As I havent finished the first tank of gas yet, this is somewhat suspect, but still better than my old Accord.

 

He urged us to strongly vote for window sticker option #4 (the faded gas-pump background one), with Toyota's modification of having it list gallons of gas consumed per year instead of the current listing of cost per month. Once you have per year, as Dave put it (or per month IMO), one can then directly translate into many statistics including emissions, costs per mile, gas saved, etc etc directly comparable against any car without any math handwaving. The other Toyota suggestion is to put this consumption on a bar graph like how the yellow appliance tags are of "this unit is here between X and Y for all cars" as a very visual way to see its consumption.

Ya, I asked this question there. Basically, Dave strongly emphasized that MPG is not a linear scale as it seems everybody constantly makes them out to be like many "reporters", but instead a polynomially curved one. Basically (I'll be off by a few mpg), there is a difference of 12.x gallons of gas consumed between 40 and 50mpg per year versus 21 and 23mpg. So that's why MPG "savings" calculations don't "add up" when going from an already fuel-sipping car to a hybrid versus from a low MPG SUV.

So that huge MPG drop for Hybrids with the coming EPA "corrections" doesn't mean anything in terms of gasoline consumption, nor changes how the Prius operates. In fact, the new numbers say the Prius saves even more gallons of gas per year than it does now, and the new numbers put the Prius still above the CA HOV restriction of min 45mpg; assuming the CA HOV for hybrids condition isn't expired by 2008 and isn't adjusted for the new EPA calculations.

So it's easy to predict that there will be more heckling and baiting about the hybrids' "huge drop in MPG" by these math-challenged reporters when other cars will also adjust lower. Those in the lower MPG ranges actually get hurt more with any minor 1-2mpg downward adjustment.

 

If you hang out on other car web forums, you'll find that driver's of *every* vehicle complain about not getting the EPA estimates.

I just bought an Acura MDX to go with my Prius. It's EPA rated at 17mpg city. There are plenty of people on the MDX forum who can't seem to get more than 11mpg. Then there are others who have no trouble getting the EPA estimated 17mpg or higher.

Funny thing though - you never hear stories about other vehicles missing the EPA estimate by 35% or greater. Just the Prius. Are the writers stupid, or are they biased? Most likely they're both stupid and biased.

 

For some reason, most s2000 owners are getting near or above average than EPA.

With the top up, normal driving including freeway use beats EPA regularly.

 

i dont care what the rules changes are. as long as all cars follow the same standards i will put my Prius up against any other car and may the best Prius win!!

 

Good point.