Do Hybrids Really Make Sense?

[cowmeat]

Even against the more practical Civic, the Insight would have to cover over 1 million miles to break even.

You're just straight up trolling now.

My Insight was 3K, my second was 4.5K, my son got his for 2,200 bucks. Somewhere along the line you started talking pure gibberish. You might want to brush up on your G1 Insight knowledge, or maybe just buy one and see why all the Insight owners are calling BS

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by niky

Yeah... I can't recall any modern diesel that doesn't have direct injection.

There are some in India, and still comply to their Euro-4 equivalent. Peugeot also had an Euro-3 naturally-aspirated IDI but it was already phased out. Nissan still makes the TD27, Toyota the 5L-E, and Mitsubishi offers IDI versions of the 4D56 for markets with less-stringent emission standards, mostly in Africa and Latin America (Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru and Bolivia).

I think it would be possible to run a veggie burner with direct injection... you simply have to have extra injectors for lubrication and for particulate filter regeneration.

I guess you might remember the Elko Multifuel 3-cyl semi-adiabatic turbodiesel which was presented in early-80s. It was even tested in Brazil with many vegetable oils, has also been tested in Malaysia with palm oil, and a license was issued to the Soviet Union. It got close to serial production in Brazil in late-80s, and Volkswagen was even considering to replace the boxer with the Elko in the Kombi, but the local licensee started getting financial problems by then and bankrupted in '99...

[RedDevil]

Originally Posted by oldtamiyaphile

What's a Gen 1 worth over there anyway? As cars get more complex, more and more people will buy new over used, taking a gamble on a used car isn't what it used to be. After $25K worth of bills on a used VW (~30,000miles, FSH etc), I doubt I'll ever buy used again. As more people get stung for repairs on ever more complex cars, I foresee a lot of cars consigned to scrap yards at much lower miles than ever before (my VW was worth more as scrap at 30k!). It only takes a very minor issue to take $1000 to repair on a new car, so the $1000 cars will soon be a thing of the past.

I'm sorry to hear about your bad luck with your VW. but what has that to do with complexity?
Was it a very complex car?
Was it a hybrid?

I once have owned a VW too - a '86 Diesel Rabbit.
It was as basic as it could be.
It had more breakdowns in 50,000 miles than my 5 Hondas had in 400,000 miles (cars and bikes combined).
The score in non-breakdown failing parts was similar.
Particularly, anything plastic in the VW started to crumble. I was always fixing, glueing, replacing or just deleting stuff on the VW.
On the Hondas - mainly light bulbs and rust treatment (when 10+ years in).
All cars and bikes were/are second hand btw.

Your reliability problem is not typical for used or complex cars.
It is typical for VWs. (NB. Not all VWs are bad, but some definitely are)

If you want a reliabe car go to a reliable car shop.
It is as easy as that.

First find out which manufacturers make reliable cars.
You'll find there are 2 that stand out: Toyota and Honda.

Then buy the model they offer that gets best FE.
It will be a complex car, but also reliable.
And you'll love the smoothness of their hybrid drive train.

[oldtamiyaphile]

Originally Posted by IamIan

I think that 90% is an large exaggeration... the BSFC for the vehicles in your signature would make that nearly impossible ... plus you can't be in the peak ICE BSFC point for any of the time you are in EOC coasting .. which I suspect is more than 10% of the time ... the two (Peak BSFC and EOC) are mutually exclusive... and you can't be in peak BSFC point at several vehicle speeds you have to travel at while doing your P&G (the RPM won't line up).

And I suppose the hybrids operate at BSFC while EOCing? All I know is my engine is either at 80-100% load of it's off. It might not technically be BSFC but high load is efficient even if the RPM is off.

Not in equally skilled hands ... In Equally skilled hands the Gen1 will do better than the Suzuki/Metro (even with Aeromods)

My Fiat 500 returns 50mpg without any EOC or hybird or anything. Just a small turbo engine and a manual gearbox - A/C on, still giving it a bit of a thrashing as appropriate, and even sharing the driving 30% with a non-hypermiler. It's CD is 0.36. I dare say that if this engine were simply slotted into an aerodynamic light weight Insight body, it would return numbers in the 70's.

Unless you have an example of a (non-PHEV) AeroModed Metro getting better than 164MPG on one tank of gas over a long distance like the 2,254 Miles as was done with the Gen1 Insight.?? And that was with AFAIK only a FAS mod for P&G ... Spend an equal amount of time and money (as you did modding the metro Aero) instead into improve the Gen1 Insight and it could get even better than that 164MPG 2,254 Mile run.

I'll happily admit I haven't heard of this feat, but looking at the garage, most of you guys are in the mid 60's. In fact I expect my Fiat to be in that range soon (if you look at my log you'll notice there's been a huge improvement as the engine runs in - a known idiosyncrasy of the Twinair engine).

[oldtamiyaphile]

Originally Posted by cowmeat

You're just straight up trolling now.

My Insight was 3K, my second was 4.5K, my son got his for 2,200 bucks. Somewhere along the line you started talking pure gibberish. You might want to brush up on your G1 Insight knowledge, or maybe just buy one and see why all the Insight owners are calling BS

Lets do the maths, it's really not that hard.

Honda Insight $48,990 (3.2l/100km combined)
Honda Civic GLi 1.7l four door sedan $23,950 (7.1l/100km combined)

Let's go with $1.50 a litre ($6.60/gallon) to give the Insight a sporting chance. I'll also ignore the higher cost of finance and insurance on a car costing twice as much.

Works out to 428,000km to break even with a Civic. Who here has a car that's broken even with a Civic?

For there to be any used Insights there would have to have been people stupid enough to have bought one new. That didn't happen. I've only ever seen one. I'd buy one if I could, and happy in the knowledge some shmuck got taken for a ride on the original depreciation.

There are certainly some newer hybrids that can be justified, the 1st Gen just isn't one of them.

[oldtamiyaphile]

Originally Posted by RedDevil

I'm sorry to hear about your bad luck with your VW. but what has that to do with complexity?

The $8000 'discounted' labour charge suggests some complexity. Unfortunately, Honda don't make a comparable vehicle.

Your reliability problem is not typical for used or complex cars.
You'll find there are 2 that stand out: Toyota and Honda.

Then buy the model they offer that gets best FE.
It will be a complex car, but also reliable.
And you'll love the smoothness of their hybrid drive train.

If you look at things like Direct Injection, DPFs, EGRs, DMFs, Robotised Transmissions, even TC Autos etc etc, they all cause issues pretty much across the board of makes. Modern European diesels seem to be universally unreliable thanks to 'tech' - things like DPF regens melting cylinders (again across many makes). For Euro7 particulate filters are going to be added to petrol cars (they might last longer on a petrol engine but on a diesel it's a $3000 bill every 70,000miles - this will basically mean most cars get scraped when the second DPF fails) and yes, they'll have to be fitted to Toyotas and Hondas too.

I've driven a Prius C for what it's worth. It was pretty 'Meh' IMO.

Honda, Toyota and I'd probably include Suzuki and Hyundai, all reliable but offer nothing for me. I have a 20 year old Suzuki in the family from new that's never needed anything, but I believe we probably reached peak reliability in the early 2000's.

[RedDevil]

I agree on the Prius C, but my dad's Jazz Hybrid feels pretty lively, more so than my own 2nd gen Insight.
When I bought that I had been looking for small diesel cars, but some test drives later (and reading some customer reports) I gave up on those.

We'll see whether the particulate filters are really necessary on all gas cars.
Honda managed to get the original Civic clean enough to not need a cat in California.
They may do likewise now.
The Insight was voted cleanest car in 2011, based on its low emissions on anything but CO2.
Even if it needs a filter, the less particles it puts in the longer that will last.
I trust Honda will do really well.

[elhigh]

Originally Posted by oldtamiyaphile

Honda Insight $48,990 (3.2l/100km combined)
Honda Civic GLi 1.7l four door sedan $23,950 (7.1l/100km combined)

Dude, what?

That quoted price is completely out of line with what I'm seeing in the US, and if that's what they're charging for Insights in Oz, that may be a very large part of why you're arguing so hard against Insights and/or other hybrids. What is the source of that inflated price?

Around here the manufacturer's suggested retail price on a new 2014 Insight topped out around $24,000, while a loaded Civic Hybrid can close in on $30,000. Obviously the model content will not be directly comparable.

Perhaps it's better to consider the strippers. A bottomed-out 2014 Insight - assuming you can find a base model one, they're not building any new ones to spec anymore - starts at just under $19K, while a Civic Hybrid starts just south of $25K and a new 2015 Civic HF, the most comparable non-hybrid Civic, starts at $20,000 and gets 3mpg fewer than the Insight. The Insight starts with an advantage against the HF and the gap opens with every mile.

Full disclosure: the Civic Hybrid has a 3mpg advantage over the Insight. In spite of the higher price, I consider it to be that much of a nicer car than the Insight that the Insight would not get much consideration from me. However a GenI Insight on the used market would probably get a good long look, it's hard to pass up 60mpg and there won't be three of us carpooling together much longer.

[oldtamiyaphile]

Originally Posted by elhigh

Dude, what?

That was the 1st Gen Insight price in 2001ish vs the Civic of the same era (I looked it up in an old buyers guide). I think you guys might have got government subsidies to lower hybrid costs back then? It seems in a free market those first Gens were extraordinarily expensive. People hold them up as the holy grail of hybrids when in fact they were completely irrational and unsustainable.

The current Insight is a shade under $40k which is about line ball considering the exchange rate of $0.80.

We only get the Pruis family, Camry, Insight, CR-Z and Mitsubishi Outlander (only the out lander is a PHEV). We also get BMW's i3 and GM's Volt (whith are really EVs). But that's about it for hybrids.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by oldtamiyaphile

Even against the more practical Civic, the Insight would have to cover over 1 million miles to break even.

How on Earth do you figure that? The 2000 Insight was about $21K new (US). In 2000, Honda offered 11 models, at prices ranging from $10,750 to $20,230: 2000 Honda Civic Reviews, Specs and Prices The average over all models is $14712, so make that a price difference of $6288.

From the above link, you can see that the Civic averages about 35 mpg. I've averaged a real-world 71.2 mpg in mine, so to make the math easy, I'll say a Civic would have averaged exactly half that. My Insight has about 190K miles now, which required 2668.5 gallons of gas. At $3/gal, which I think is a reasonable average over the 15 years since 2000, that's $8005.62, and that's the extra amount it would have cost to drive the Civic the same distance. In other words, even if I had bought my Insight new, I would now be over $1700 ahead of the average Civic, having driven less than a fifth of that million miles.

Now the other issue here is practicality, and for me the Insight is much more practical: it's small, nimble, doesn't waste space on four seats & doors that I never need, has a hatchback instead of a trunk so I can carry bikes, dogs, airplane parts or bags of horse feed... In fact, the nearest equally practical for me car in 2000 would have been the Mazda Miata, MSRP $20-25K and just under 30 mpg.