NEWS: Hybrid Fuel-Efficiency Not So Wonderful

GEEK: Hybrid Fuel-Efficiency Not So Wonderful

Like many of us, Pete Blackshaw wondered what it would be like to get 50-70 miles per gallon like most hybrid cars promise. He was so excited about the fact that he was picking up his new mega-mileage hybrid that he videotaped the experience and even registered a “MO MILES” vanity plate.

The underlying problem is not the car itself, which was functioning properly according to Honda, but with the Environmental Protection Agencies’ almost two decade old in-lab fuel-efficiency test.

Not only do the EPA tests incorrectly reflect fuel-efficiency due to the fact that the cars never leave an in-house lab, most consumers do not know that the average car gets “between 75 to 87 percent of the [EPA] rated mileage.”

Though the EPA’s test is outdated and not adequate when considering today’s technology, can we place all the blame on their shoulders? Federal law forces car manufacturers to use EPA ratings when promoting a vehicle’s fuel performance.

I’d wager a guess that gas mileage is the most prominent of several major selling points a hybrid possesses – so what happens when people start to discover the new hybrid they’re looking at might not live up to their expectations?

Would you still buy one?

Smitty?

it's all about the diesel VWs, with a simple conversion to bio-diesel, you can make your own gas in your kitchen out of corn oil. the pollution is almost nothing, smells like popcorn and gets 75 mile to the gallon. Fuck hybrids. go diesel. I can't wait til the gti comes out here, I'm bout bout it.

Why is the article directed at hybrids? How is the failure of EPA testing to provide proper results to blame for the vehicle's performance? I assume the same discrepancies go for non-hybrid vehicles as well? The 16 MPG of SUVs is now 9 MPG?

Sounds like more oil company bone rattling

I had a diesel Rabbit in '91-92 and averaged 38-40 mpg with it on the street.

As for bio-diesel, the wisdom of perfoming high-energy chemistry in my kitchen escapes me? My house cost more than I will ever spend on vehicle fuel. Risking that investment to shave a few pennies at the pump seems...really dumb.

If you're going to cook fuel, do so in a disposable site with adequate ventillation, firefighting equipment, and a hard-wired connection to 911.

I wondered these things too.

You can also get the oil for the bio-diesel thingajimploppy at McDonalds and such.

Probably b/c a normal car gets 75 to 87 % of that rating while the best hybrid is at 58% of the rating. Given that the claimed Gas milage is much greater on the Hybrid it is a bigger hit to the bottom line.

On top of that most states will charge you more for your tags since then believe that they're going to be missing out on all the extra revenue from gas taxes.


[Edited on May 11, 2004 by gaiseric]

the bio-diesel idea is that you can be independent of gas companies. and it's gets amazing gas mileage. what's not to like. the bio-diesel fuel isn't combustive and it's legal to store it. i'm not knocking hybrids by any means, but they are most definitely a small step towards a renewable energy source vehicle.

I get 54 - 60mpg in the insight. if i cared (which i did once upon a time) i could get 70.

that's a fact. if it weren't I wouldn't be spending pennies in gas while the rest of you empty your wallets

bio-diesel is awesome, Darryl Hannah has one of those cars

How easy is it to do the bio-diesel conversion? Whats the deal?

I have heard that the only way to get the mileage as advertised in a hybrid is to avoid fast accelerations. I heard a guy talking about how he used the moment-to-moment mileage guage to transform his driving technique to maximize efficiency. It sounded like you basically have to take off from stops like a granny, never try to pass, and do everything very gradually. Thing is, you could probably use these techniques to maximize mileage in a non-hybrid as well. However, almost nobody drives that way, because we're all in a hurry. I know if I was stuck behind somebody driving like the abovementioned hybrid driver, I'd be pissed off.

Umm, you need to do a bit more research -- the chemistry involved is fairly low energy and low temperature. Risk of major fire is small.

*yawn*

I knew it was only a matter of time till you hit this thread.

Step 1: Get some biodiesel
Step 2: Put biodiesel in the fuel tank
Step 3: Drive

Biodiesel is a more or less one to one replacement for petrodiesel, and the two are completely intersoluble. This means you can run biodiesel at home and tank up on petrodiesel on the road when biodiesel is not available. This alone is a huge advantage over most alternative fuels that have been proposed. There are a couple of gotchas with older (early 80s or older) diesel cars, which use Buna rather than Viton rubber for seals -- biodiesel and Buna are not friends. The solution is to replace the seals. The other gotcha on older cars is that biodiesel is a quite good solvent, and it will scour all the gunk out of your fuel system and deposit it in the fuel filter. For the first several thousand miles on biodiesel with an older vehicle formerly run on petrodiesel, you will be replacing fuel filters every couple of hundred miles.

So you don't have to change the engine at all? I thought you needed a kit...

...You see, i'm in the market for a car. A 1,000 dollar car. And this bio diesel sounds awesome...

plonk,

If a fuel has sufficient energy to push a car up to highway speeds and you are making sufficient quantity to tank up a car, you have more than enough to burn every house on your street to the ground. If you are cooking fuel part time with momma and the babies, cats, neighbors, bills, and every other distraction in your home affecting your process, the risk you are taking handling any chemical energy process is immense.

I would fully expect home cookers of bio-diesel to rapidly exchange every penny they save in fuel costs for home-insurance payments. Of course, that assumes that you value your time at zero dollars per hour. If you are making a living wage and spending time producing fuel at home, you are losing money by throwing away your recreation.

Problems with home made bio-diesel:
Production safety
Consistent fuel quality
Waste product disposal
Production efficiency
Facilities maintenance
Time spent on production

Nobody on this forum has addressed any of these problems, so I am taking the advocacy of this fuel with a great deal of skepticism. When I see the level of informed caution about bio-diesel that I regularly see from home brewers of beer, I will start to take it as seriously as I do beer.

one word: motorcycles.

i get (in real world mileage, not company stats) around 45mpg on my ducati, which incidentally is fairly well modified for performance (makes around 95hp at peak) and could probably get better mileage if i wasn't satisfied with the 45mpg.

performance AND efficency?? holy crap!

diesel in general is much safer than gasoline because it has a higher ignition point. offhand, i don't know what the actual difference is, though. my guess is that biodiesel likely has an even higher one.. anyone know the facts on this?

i used to live in massachusetts and it wasn't a major problem. during a storm, i would take the bus and when it was cold i had a cold weather suit which was quite nice. i also have a rainsuit and stay totally dry in the wet.

in other words, it's not so bad. i've never owned a car in my life.