Quote:
Originally Posted by Arragonis
Sorry but I don't think this is valid. The extra energy content of Diesel is why less of it is used compared to petrol in the first place. By doing this you are counting it twice?
|
I think it is, because what we ought to be counting is energy used per 100 km. IOW (given the appropriate refinery technology) the crude oil that made 1 gallon of diesel could have made 1.12 gallons of petrol.
Quote:
|
The Prius is ahead in urban, the econetic ahead in extra urban and the combined more or less equal.
|
But what we're seeing here is in part an artifact of the Toyota hybrid design, which emphasizes urban mpg at the expense of highway. Do the same for the Honda IMA (which IMHO was designed for better highway mpg), and you get a different answer.
And we're still back where we came in: put a full hybrid system in the Ford (keeping all else the same), and it'll get better mpg than without. Likewise, put the more-efficient diesel engine in the Prius hybrid, and you'll get better mpg than with petrol. Seems pretty darn obvious to me :-)
PS: And as for the extra weight of the hybrid system, note that at ~1850 lbs, the Insight hybrid was about the lightest car sold in the US this century.