[MetroMPG]

Via GreenHybrid ...



I don't quite know what to make of this. The claims are so outrageous I was compelled to contact the company for more information.

First, the story:

What if you could have a 2008 Corvette that could get 40 mpg around town and 32 on the highway? How about you could not only get those mileage figures and your Corvette would also have over 650 horsepower? GenesVettes.com has done just that with their new Twin Turbo kit for the 2008 Corvette.

The car's EPA rating is 16 mpg city / 20 highway.

(FYI, 40 mpg is 167% higher than 16 mpg - that's the figure I'm referring to in the thread title.)

The kit consists of twin turbos plumbed into the exhaust under the rear of the car in place of the OEM mufflers, with plumbing to get the PSI back forward to intercoolers up front and then into the engine.

The company says the turbos are CARB registered and 50 state legal.



To try to build some eco credibility, they've given the kit a silly name, in my opinion: "Green Interactive Hybrid System"

I wrote to the email address on their site (http://www.neohydrotechnology.com) and asked what exactly made it a hybrid in terms of the general understanding of what a hybrid is in automotive terms:

The response:

Hybrid does not necessarily mean a mix of gas and electric. We believe that more accurately it means a mix of two technologies. In out case patented rear mounted turbocharging linked to a conventional gas engine.

Okey dokey! Techically true. Also confuses the issue. Perhaps that's one of their goals, so I'll chalk it up to simple overzealous marketingspeak. (I didn't ask what exactly makes it "interactive".)

I also asked about the fuel economy figures: 1) if they were US gallons (because the company is in Canada), and (2) how they were determined:

The licensor has done extensive real world driving around town and highway testing. How much fuel between fills divided by miles driven. We are using U.S. gallons.

So, unfortunately here we have another example of an organization with dyno time (!!) which does not deem using said dyno appropriate for producing valid fuel economy comparisons. Shades of the Truck Trend K&N filter/intake debacle?

I was also told:

We drove a Silverado from Bellingham, WA to San Francisco towing a Corvette on a trailer through the mountains and averaged 19 mpg for the trip.