Porsche 918...20/24 EPA rating
 

Porsche 918 Spyder Officially Rated by the EPA - AutoSpies Auto News

So much for 78. I think the city rating is pretty impressive for a 3600lb car though. The gearing is a little "sporty", 2200ish rpm at 60mph is a little high, and the 0.36 drag coefficient isn't great.

We all pretty much knew the European rating was a complete load of bunk. Plug-ins there get to start the NEDC cycle with a full battery and finish it with an empty one, without accounting for the electricity used and where it's coming from... not even an MPGe (or an electric liters/hours equivalent) rating to let you know what to expect.

Impressive for the power... though it's not worlds better than most other sports cars, and the highway economy is pretty disappointing given all the tech.

Gets you thinking though, perhaps a bigger electric motor hanging off the gas engine would help the highway fuel economy by loading the gas engine more for shorter periods of time to recharge. I'm personally excited for the next generation 911 and "coxster" hybrids, which might retain a manual gearbox. The 911 could do well with a driven-wheels-only hybrid system since it's so rear heavy and less powerful than the 918.

Also the 4.5L V8 is kind of large, but the 3.4L H6s are a more reasonable size of engine that don't do too bad as far as fuel economy goes already, and with a start-stop system that aggressively charges the battery while the engine does run, with some engine tweaks we might be able to keep the glorious Porsche H6 sound :)

I'd heard the electric assist was pretty aggressive, so I'm kind of disappointed at the 24 highway rating.

Compare that to a Ferrari 458 that gets 12/18, and consider that this outperforms it just a little bit. I say good job.

or a Veyron's 8/15.
or an Aventador's 11/18.

or my Odyssey's 16/23. I should trade up for better mileage. :p

But compared to a Corvette that gets 19/29...

Granted, the Vette has much less power... but what the hell is that hybrid system doing in the city? Twiddling its thumbs?

Funny.

I caught some flak for making the statement that no car could get better lap times than the new Corvette and get better mileage on the way home. The 918 was waved in my face for getting "78mpg".

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...y-24184-2.html

I knew the 918 wouldn't get anywhere near 78mpg, but I figured it would be a little higher than the 20/24 it ended up with.

Even if there was a 4.5L flat-6, it would probably be more efficient than the V8 :thumbup:

Maybe it's possible that the EPA test is too short to go through a full charge-discharge cycle (which seems like what the hybrid system should do if it wants to get maximum mpg), so there is disproportionate battery charging during the test? I think some review said they ended up getting 22mpg, which is a little odd because usually magazines get way lower than the EPA rating by doing massive drifts/burnouts and lots of performance tests.

I think if LaFerrari gets a similar mpg number for highway (highly doubtful) then it might be that the Porsche was indeed charging up its batteries. The more I think about it, even with the crappy cruising gear 24mpg doesn't really look right.