I recently rented a 2010 Nissan Altima Hybrid and drove it for about 250 mostly highway miles. When I topped it off for the return to Hertz, I found that it had averaged 28 miles per gallon, i.e., hardly better than the 7-passenger 1993 Dodge Grand Caravan that I owned. The Altima seated four in comfort and five if they didn’t mind getting friendly. The trunk could hold one standard suitcase plus a carry-on bag or two ; much of what would have been the trunk was apparently being used to hold batteries. I learned what 17 years of progress from the automotive industry looks like: going from 25 to 28 mpg while reducing the interior volume of the vehicle by half.
[Typical indicated highway driving speed was 70 mph, with the air conditioner on roughly 60 percent of the time. The trip included about 30 minutes of traffic jams due to an overturned vehicle (how would Southern Californians manage on the icy potholed roads of Massachusetts if they are flipping their vehicles over in broad daylight on perfectly dry and smooth Interstates?) and weekend traffic on a state highway going through what had been a small town and is now part of the endless strip mall sprawl.]
The Altima claims to get 33 mpg. It may have been 2 gallons short of full when you began.
Still not that impressive, considering it is 2011 and we were promised flying cars by now.
Never really understood why hybrids would work: charging the batteries from the IC engine is surely a wasteful conversion of energy, so almost all the power to move the car ultimately comes from gasoline. Any gains from recycled braking energy must be lost to the extra energy required to lug around the weight of the batteries. I’ve always thought it to be a marketing device, cleverly angled to catch the rich greenie. Like most recycling, it’s going through the motions to satisfy the Gaia godhead, a religious ritual.
Is that the actual MPG of your Caravan or the advertised MPG? I drive a hybrid Honda Insight and average 46 MPG, even though they advertise 55 MPG. We also have a V6 Rav4 that has an advertised MPG of 26 but actually gets more like 22. So comparing a hybrid to a car that isn’t exactly a gas guzzler (by American standards) I spend about $976/yr on gas for the Hybrid vs $2,040 for the Rav4. I’ll probably have the car for about five years so I will end up saving over $5k due to hybrid technology. That makes a pretty compelling case for hybrids, in my eyes.
Not to mention we’re still subsidizing these mediocre, otherwise undesirable cars.
This op-ed calls “the Obama administration’s commitment of $5 billion in loans and grants for electric cars … the biggest taxpayer rip-off since corn-based ethanol… benefit{ting] no one but a few well-to-do car buyers and politically connected companies. “
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/29/AR2010102905959.html
The hybrid fans always point out to me that at least emissions will be lower than the emissions of the conventional equivalent.
Note that the hybrid version of the Altima is 300 lbs. heavier than the regular one.
The true feat of engineering in the Toyota Prius was making the rest of the car so light to make up for weight of the hybrid drivetrain while still meeting modern safety standards. It’s about 500 pounds lighter than the hybrid Altima and is still considered a mid-size sedan.
I’ve always suspected that a Prius with a conventional drivetrain and manual transmission would be capable of practical fuel economy at least equivalent to a stock hybrid Prius.
Peter: Was 25 mpg the actual mileage of my old minivan? Yes. On an almost-all-highway trip I was able to get 25 mpg in either my 1993 Dodge Grand Caravan or my 1998 Toyota Sienna 7-passenger van. In city driving the vehicles did far worse, maybe 17 mpg.
Too bad you couldn’t rent Chevrolet’s best-kept, fuel-efficient secret: a Z06 Corvette, the only production “supercar” that doesn’t qualify for the gas guzzler tax. My 2002 Z06 — factory stats: 405 HP, 400 lb-ft torque, 0-60 in 3.9 seconds, top speed 186 MPH — routinely gets 30 MPG in highway driving and 23-24 MPG around town (I don’t have a heavy foot). Sure, it won’t seat 4-5, but it will carry the same amount of luggage, if not more, than the Altima Hybrid. Plus, it’s probably a lot more fun to drive. It’s amazing how little progress we’ve made in nine years. 😉
Phil,
Hybrids make slightly more sense than ethanol. Capturing the breaking energy is great, and you really don’t need a lot of battery odds are good you will use nearly all the captured energy next time you accelerate. So I could see a hybrid vehicle that could very cheaply and lightly give a very modest improvement in efficiency.
That isn’t really what we have. 25 years ago honda made a prius with a manual gearbox I believe it was called the crx. EPA rated at 50mpg at little to no price premium over the regular civic. I believe that in the end it couldn’t keep up with the demand for more (read: heavier) safety systems with such a small engine.
The big problem is that the marketing of the bigger badder vehicle has always resounded better with Americans than with a smaller nimbler vehicle. The biggest reason that you don’t routinely see non-hybrid sedans at 50mpg IMHO is that nobody wants that much road noise, and sound deadening materials are heavy.
Hybrids are exactly what Stephen said in my opinion, marketing devices for those who subscribe to the religion of environmentalism. The religion of environmentalism as practiced by the University of California Berkeley and the New York Times has nothing to do with improving the environment so that we can co exist with the natural environment in a sustainable manner.
My $.02 anyway.
I am driving a Volt: http://voltaday.com
It is a different idea for a hybrid, since you plug it in. But I drove 250 miles last weekend and averaged 60mpg. Most weeks I don’t burn any gasoline at all (so my mpg is infinite? or undefined, I guess).
I’m looking to replace the wife’s ’97 Crown Vic after 200,000 miles. Last fill up was 23 mpg with some road miles, typically 21 mpg. With $5 per gallon in sight, thinking of something lighter and more fuel-efficient. I have found it very hard to reduce total cost of ownership vs. just updating the Ford Panther platform (CV, Marquis,Town Car) to 2007ish and 50,000 miles.
Ford has discontinued this platform despite it being the default police car and limo.
Open to suggestions, prefer 4 doors…
As I understand it, hybrids won’t buy you much on highway driving. They work much better in stop and go driving, where lots of the energy otherwise used to heat the brakes is recycled.
EPA ratings (City/Hwy — Automatic) http://www.fueleconomy.gov/Feg/findacar.htm
Camry 22/32
Hybrid 33/34
Civic 25/36
Hybrid 40/45
Altima 23/32
Hybrid 35/33
I routinely get over 50MPG (56MPG being my best for a full tank) on my 2004 Civic Hybrid – mostly highway driving. Odd that the newer hybrid cars are going down in fuel efficiency compared to 8 year old car…
We had a 1997 Grand Caravan with the 3.8 V6 and it got exactly the same real world mileage–25mpg @ 70mph on the interstate and 17 around town.
Now my mother bought a 2010 VW Jetta wagon with the 2.0 diesel and 6-speed manual and only the very first tank was below 40mpg (39, so maybe it wasn’t completely filled up by the dealer). She gets 49mpg on the interstate and averages about 44mpg in mixed driving (of course, she does drive it pretty gently). And that’s in a solid, useful wagon that feels like a rolling bank vault compared to hybrids like the Prius/Civic hybrid and it can haul more than any of the popular larger hybrids like the Camry, Altima, or Fusion.
Being a VW, will it make it to 200K miles without some hideous repair bills? Who knows, but she does like to keep cars for a long time.
Seeing the mileage of hybrid car like the Prius and the mileage of my 1991′ Peugeot 205 (a very popular French car), that had a 4 cylinders 55HP gasoline engine (1.1L) and that I could easily drive at 140 km/h (87 mph – faster than most speed limit in North America), I don’t see were the progress is. And the biggest piece of electronics in it was the after market CD player I put it. The car was mostly the size of the Toyota Yaris hatchback, as a comparison. And very reliable – I sold it 13 years later with 200,000 km and the only thing that had broken down unexpectingly was the alternator, in 2003.
I miss it…
@Cliff: Diesel engines take a few thousand miles to break in and hit their stride with regards to fuel consumption.
I have a 2005 Jetta TDI wagon with a 5-speed and get mid 40s in mixed driving if I take it easy or low 40s if I’m having fun.
Diesels seem to be more economical than hybrids. The VW BlueMotion Golfs and Polos are exempt from the London congestion charge, normally only hybrids and electricals qualify. So why have all that expensive hybrid tech? The only hybrid I like is the Jaguar concept car with the twin gas turbines to top up the batteries!
I have had a Honda Civic Hybrid since mid 2002. It averages 38 to 45 mpg. It is better in summer than in winter. In winter, the engine does not shut itself off at red lights and I have snow tires.
The technology is different than that of a Prius. It is basically a standard gas engine car but the flywheel is replaced with an electric motor/generator. Power for the electric motor is supplied by 120 “D” cell sized NiCd batteries stacked vertically behind the rear seat taking only about 2 inches of space. The car is otherwise a normal Honda Civic with whatever space that provides.
It is also a fail-safe technology. If the Hybrid stuff fails, the car still runs normally. Once in a while the charging computer decides that it needs to reset itself (about 5 times in 80,000 miles) and all that happens is that the check engine light comes on and the hybrid assist stops until the next time you restart the engine using the standard car battery and starter. When the hybrid system is working, the engine is started with the flywheel motor.
I have been quite happy with it. Especially the climate control system which is totally automatic. You just set the temperature and it does heat or air as needed and directs to where it should go.
Hub,
That doesn’t take into account, amongst other things, the fact that a car in the US in 2010, compared to a European car from 1990, will have 1) Much stricter emissions controls, and 2) Much more (and heavier) required safety equipment.
Taking 2 first, it’s pretty simple. US cars have very high crashworthiness standards, airbag requirements, etc. I drive a Honda Fit, and the US version is about 300 pounds heavier than its European counterpart. For a car with a rated maximium load of 850 pounds, that’s significant! So, the US version has a larger, and hence thirstier, engine.
And as for 1, this becomes a big deal as well. European cars, and even some US cars, from the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, could use lean-burn engines. Honda managed to have a Civic for a few years without a catalytic converter, and a lean burning engine, that passed US emissions rules. But the rules now in place are very, very strict on NOx emissions. Therefore, all cars sold in the US use a stoichiometric mixture when running idle and low-load, and switch to a rich mixture when running under heavy load. Basically that means that, due to environmental regulation, our cars are designed to throw some fuel away in order to have fewer emissions.
I’m making no judgement on the wisdom of having these rules, but saying “we haven’t made progress in 20 years” is not entirely accurate. It’s just that that progress has gone towards heavier, cleaner, safer cars, rather than more efficient cars of identical equippage.
Stephen: “Never really understood why hybrids would work: charging the batteries from the IC engine is surely a wasteful conversion of energy, so almost all the power to move the car ultimately comes from gasoline.”
See Wikipedia. In particular, internal combustion engines aren’t very efficient (18-20% efficiency is typical). By adding an electric motor to provide additional power when you’re accelerating, the internal combustion engine can be smaller, burning less gas when you’re driving at an average speed.
For a great around-town car, it’s hard to beat a Prius. From a total cost per mile standpoint, a regular econobox probably wins, but the Prius is just an overall nicer experience based on features, roominess, ride, and NVH.
For the mostly-highway driver, once you have a M-B or VW diesel, you’ll never want anything else.
Gasoline and diesel engines have had many decades of optimization and tuning and are a far cry from what they used to be. They are cleaner burning, more efficient, more powerful and more reliable due to this extensive work having been done. Going to electric (not hybrid, but full electric) would have great benefits including tremendous reduction in the use of foreign oil, the ability to reduce pollution (not just CO2 but the choking stench that can make traffic even worse than it is), and great reductions in the service requirements for the more reliable electric motors. But… the technology needs improvement and how can that happen against an entrenched internal combustion technology? Also, there needs to be an entire manufacturing infrastructure to build components for this new drive train platform. We have to start somewhere and hybrids seem like a good place to begin. Now there are plenty who argue that government subsidies are a Really Bad Thing but note that Chine, Korea, Japan and others don’t share that opinion and if the USA doesn’t even try to compete in this new technology then this will be yet another technology (along with its jobs and economic benefits) that go outside the USA.
Over time the electric platform will see the same technological improvements that any technology does. That includes batteries, motors, controllers and all other system components. While we have pretty much reached the end of the line in significant improvements in IC engine drive train technology, the future is wide open with all electric drivetrains. One day people will be shocked that we used to have to bring our cars in for periodic maintenance!
The hybrid stuff really works for stop-and-go city driving. It isn’t really very useful for highway driving.
Note that it isn’t that hard to get crappy mileage out of an efficient car. That is, one has to drive the car with an efficient technique. Driving at 70+mph isn’t efficient.
The hybrids let you have a small ICE engine with the electric motor filling-in for acceleration (what electric motors are really good for).
Stephen, some of the apparent efficiency of diesel engines is an artifact of using volume instead of mass units for fuel. Diesel fuel is denser and contains more hydrocarbon and therefore more energy per gallon (I think the difference is a little over 10%).
EZ: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline#Energy_content_.28High_and_low_heating_value.29 shows that diesel has about 11% more energy per gallon (and about the same per kg)