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Originally Posted by jamesqf
The problem here is that the driving style used for a mpg record isn't acceptable in normal driving. It's equivalent to saying that because there's a solar-powered car race across the Australian Outback, then solar-powered cars work for daily driving.
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This still doesn't negate the fact that those driving hybrids for maximum mileage drive in a manner that minimizes use of the hybrid portion of the drive train. Therefore a non-hybrid version of the hybrid car which used the same engine as the hybrid would get better mileage than the hybrid due to the weight and transmission drag factors mentioned above in my previous post. The hybrid would accelerate faster than the non-hybrid and get better mileage in urban driving.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jamesqf
Wrong, unless your rural driving is entirely in Kansas :-)
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And Oklahoma, northern Texas, the central valley of California, almost all of Florida, and the coastal plains of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and any other region with flat to slightly rolling terrain.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jamesqf
The Prius may work differently, but in my experience (7+ years, about 100K miles) of Insight driving, the hybrid doesn't help all that much with city mpg ('cause it sucks whatever you do), it just makes it possible to drive without being a traffic hazard. Where it helps - and we should all know this - is by allowing a smaller engine that operates more efficiently at cruising speeds. But a car with that engine, but without the hybrid boost, would be practically undriveable on anything but straight & level roads.
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A hybrid helps immensely in city driving since regenerative braking allows you to store and reuse a portion of the energy lost to heat in non-hybrids. If you look at the EPA mileage sticker, the city mileage on a hybrid is much higher than the city mileage of a non-hybrid and is often higher than the highway mileage of the hybrid, something never seen in non-hybrids.
The Insight has a 67hp engine and weighs 1800 lbs. The 67 Volkswagon Beetle had a 54hp engine and weighed 1900 lbs. I drove a 67 Beetle for many years and it was perfectly drivable and was fun to drive despite having less power and more weight than an Insight running only on its gas engine. It had no problem keeping up with traffic and definitely wasn't a traffic hazard.