Re: longevity in 20 years

From: George William Herbert (gherbert_at_retro.com)
Date: 01/26/05 

Date: 26 Jan 2005 09:53:28 GMT

Christopher M. Jones <christopher.m.jones@gmail.com> wrote:
>D Schneider wrote:
>> Christopher M. Jones <christopher.m.jones@gmail.com> wrote:
>> [...]
>>> Also, many gas-electric hybrid vehicles do not have significantly
>>> greater fuel efficiency (in the compact class anyway)
>>> over gas IC powered cars.
>>
>> 60 mpg isn't significantly better than 30 mpg?
>
>You're not comparing fairly or accurately. 30 mpg is the
>mileage a medium weight sedan might get, indeed, many sedans
>get better mileage (e.g. mid 30s). Also, 60 mpg is most
>definitely not the actual, achieved, average mileage for
>gas-electric hybrids on the market. I have read several
>reviews and many comments from owners (there is this thing
>called the "internet" which contains such, it has even
>been rendered substantially searchable by the "google"
>oracle, you may want to consult it), they report mileage
>which is, in most cases, significantly lower than 60 mpg.
>Even in the best cases, the hybrid's are only perhaps
>10-20% more fuel efficient than equivalently sized gas-
>powered compacts.

This statement is arguably true, based on the available
evidence, for very lightweight and subcompact cars.

It is not even vaguely true for larger heavier cars,
where there has been a consistent large increase in
mileage up to doubling the EPA MPG and practically
demonstrated field mileages.

The sad part is that society thinks that tiny hybrids
are a better improvement for the environment overall
than getting hybrid technology into all the monster
SUVs as fast as possible. It doesn't really matter
if we take subcompacts from 45 to 60 MPG; taking
the Hummer and Expedition and such to 25 MPG is much
more important for overall consumption.

I am glad that, unlike just about everyone else including
the environmentalists, Ford did clue into that and their
first hybrid vehicle is a SUV, which gets about 50% better
mileage than its non-hybrid same body model.

-george william herbert
gherbert@retro.com

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