Does Anybody Own A Hybrid Car?

I presently own a 1972 Ford Mustang. With it's huge V-8, 4-bbl carb, and 3 speed automatic transmission I can only manage 10 mpg in the city, and 14 mpg on the highway. If I really put my foot on the pedal, I can honestly get less than 2 mpg, and we are talking about premium gas only! Needless to say with gas prices the way they are now, I'm spending a good $100 dollars a week on gas now, which is intolerable.

I've been seriously considering buying a hybrid car. I know Honda makes two, and Toyota makes one. With these babies getting over 60 mpg, wow, what a difference that would make in my gas bill! I spoke with one woman at work who owns one, and she said she got a $5,000 rebate from the government for buying one, which should bring the price down to about $15,000.

Do any of you guys own a hybrid car? Any thoughts on reliability? Performance (I do over 80 mph regularly zipping around the freeways at night)? I tend to keep equipment forever, so cost of parts and ease of maintenance are important to me.

Are they really a viable transportation option, or am I better off just getting a Japanese or German 4 banger?

Bruise

BruiseLee,
Go to the Cafe and do a search for Hybrid or Darell's EV and you can get a bunch of info. I say; Buy diesel, only diesel, there is nothing that matters but diesel. Just kidding but the diesels are great. You will meet a fellow named Darell over in the Cafe and he can share lots of knowledge on the subject. He is Darell, the EV nut.

Feb 03 / Motor Trend has a 1 year test update on the Honda Civic Hybrid. No problems reported. Average test mpg was 38.4 (combined). Also 623 miles to a 13 gallon tank on a long highway trip was reported. 0-60 time is 11.3 secs. Cost was $20,000.

for those kind of sustained speeds, i say get yourself a deisel. the jetta TDI, and chip it. tha' what i'd do if i were in your shoes. actually, if you can wait and have the disposable income, BMW is brining the 330d over this fall, or if you want larger, the MB E300 CDI.

Nah--do the Hybrid. It may take a few seconds longer to get to 80 but once you're there you're good to go.


I'd try the Prius and the Civic Hybrid and go with which you like better. The Prius gets better gas milage but for *lots* of highway cruising the Civic, which is closer to a normal car, may suit you better.

I think I'll move this to the Cafe....

I'm interested in hybrids as well. It will hopefully be a couple of years before having to do so but will seriously look into it. I tend to like to pay off the cars and continue driving them for a period of time so a criteria I will investigate is how much the electric system, ie battery replacement etc., has to be maintained as you own the car for a period of years.

i own a petrol VW passat which I had converted to LPG.
its great, paid for itself over and over.
no noticeable performance differences.
however, the only annoying thing is having to pre-plan routes before hand as not all garages sell LPG.

I Also have diesel cars, which you can run on used vegetable oil, with an increase in performance on regular diesel. althought slightly shorter engine life.

As for using LPG, I have noticed this greatly reduces engine life as well... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

LPG conversion was very popular with local (Taiwan) taxi cabs some 5-10 years before but not anymore. Cab drivers who tried the conversion told me they didn't like as it seemed to reduce horsepower.

As far as diesel vs regular gas...
diesel is $2.099 (here in Rochester)
87 oct UL is $1.779
YMMV (pun intended)

Another thing to consider, it is a hybrid, therefore not a normal car. It's going to be lighter (easier to push around when a big rig passes you) and slower (will have to give additional thought when merging and pulling out in traffic). I don't have anything against hybrids, but I wouldn't take one over my TDI. I believe the TDI's are the best compromise as they are the same car as the gas fueled versions and they have way more acceleration capability. I drive a '97 Passat and the worst mileage I've got was 43.5 mpg and the best 50.1 mpg. Most enjoyable car I've ever owned.

Jerry

Another alternative to a hybrid is just a good economy car, I drive a Toyota Echo, its rated at around 40 mpg, I love it...it has plenty of power, gets good milage, and its a Toyota, so as long as you keep up on the regular maintenance like oil changes and tune ups it will run just about forever.

Aeryk

Darell is on vacation - but you should know that you can't slip a thread like this by me /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I don't know much about LPG, but I know enough about CNG (compressed natural gas) to be comfortable saying that the engines last FAR longer when run that way vs. gasoline. They burn so much cleaner that the engines end up running cooler and with less friction. CNG vehicles (in addition to Battery EVS of course) are the only ones allowed in the HOV lanes with a single passenger.

I think that if Bruise is looking for high performance and lower fuel costs - he'd be hard pressed to beat a TDI. The best option would be a TDI/battery hybrid, but sadly that doesn't exist. Better yet would be a TDI/plug-in battery hybrid. I'll put a quick EV performance plug in (intended, yes) here though... My EV1 (pure battery EV) will likely beat your 'Stang onto the freeway (0-60 in under 7 seconds) and I get the equivalent of 120mpg, yet burn no gasoline or fossil fuel of any kind. Oof! [steps down off his box].

Please know that if you drive a hybrid the way you apparently drive your Mustang, that you'll be lucky to see better than 35mpg. The good news is that's about the worst you can do. With some attention, you can do better than 60mpg.

I'll have to contradict Jerry in that hybrids are not light, insignificant vehicles by design. The Civic hybrid weighs about the same (maybe even a bit more??) than the ICE version. Weight isn't an issue, really. Funny that some detractors talk about how much heavier the vehicles are that carry batteries, while others complain that they're too light. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Hybrids absolutely are viable forms of transportation. The unfortunate part is how few we have, and how none of the production ones can run without gasoline (not counting the parking lot performance of the Prius). There are many examples of plug-in hybrids that private parties have created. Here in Davis we have a full-size Suburban that can travel 60 miles on battery, and when the gas engine does kick in, it still sees better than 30mpg on the freeway. In typical use, probably 90% of its miles could be driven on pure battery. All this in a full-size package with greater towing capacity than the standard version. Hybrids are viable - they just aren't being made right yet!

In the coming months, look for a larger Prius, a hybrid Camry (followed by the entire line of Toyotas).

I'll buy a hybrid for my secondary car the same day that they produce a plug-in version that has about 60 miles of ZEV range.

Like DieselDave points out - do a search on EV, EV1, diesel, TDI, hybrid, fuel cell.... These things have been discussed quite a bit recently, and there has been some great, reasoned input by many folks.

Wish I could stay on top of this thread, but the probability is that I won't be able to check back for a while.

Sorry, I'm vearing a bit off topic here. You mentin CNG or compressed natural gas. I find this interesting because I have the potential to recharge that at home from my gas line unlike LPG which would have to be trucked in or refilled from somewhere else.

Are there any products available to do this? I'm particularly interested for running generators at my home from a tank that could be kept topped off when I wasn't using it without a contract with a propane delivery company!

Does CNG liquify at ambient temps like LPG? Can I use the same tanks and equipment or does it run at a much higher pressure since it doesn't liquify?

Hi James -

When you purchase a CNG car, it comes with a home-refill unit called, you guessed it "Phil." Cute, huh? It is simply a pump so you can compress the NG that comes into your home (it is only delivered at something like 3-4psi, and needs to be better compressed for on-vehicle storage. No question that a generator could be run directly from the NG supply line. That's what I cook with and heat my water with at home. It is the best fossil fuel power source we currently have. NG is a gas at ambient temp and pressure. It works at very low pressures.

Here in CA, just about every home is plumbed with NG. I don't know how it is in other states.

Wait wait, I have to come /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/twak.gif though.

"Phil" takes about 8 hours to fill a CNG car to full capacity. Might as well get a BEV with 1990s technology that takes about 8 hours to charge. Even better would be a BEV with 2003 charging technology that can charge in, oh, say, 10 minutes or so.

Darell, yes I know if the gas is on I could just connect directly up to it /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif Unfortunately, in case of approaching hurricane that is the first thing they turn off, even before the electricity. So if I want to use it I have to store it and I somehow liked the idea of saving off as much gas as I might need rather than burying propane tanks.

But, if I'm going to be honest with you, what appeals to me most is that it would require even more equipment to have in the garage /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif I like equipment /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif

I've been researching this for a while and I think when I do it sometime next summer probably, I'll go with propane. But I'm still investigating options like this. In my case it doesn't matter if it takes a week to fill the tank as I wont be driving off with it, but probably have it buried in the yard.

Just my 2 cents...our fleet has a couple of CNG cars. I wouldn't own one. The problem for us has been that most of the charging stations have shut down because of continual leaking, apparently related to the very high pressure that they use.

I keep wondering, except for cost, why doesn't somebody make a diesel-electric hybrid??? That would be so cool, as diesels are so much more efficient than gasoline ones. Oh well. I'd consider an electric, but they just don't have the range to get to some of the places I go.

the ricardo/valeo concept in europe is just that, diesel/electric hybrid. it's only a concept, but apparently a good idea as far as auto makers are concerned since it will add only 1000$ on top of the price. i will try to dig up some info on this unless i get beat by saaby. i got the info in an article from the economist.com that was pasted into an email from my professor. you can't read ANYTHING on their website w/o subscription, sad, but they have good articles nonetheless.

I just wanted to add for driving at highway speeds any of the VW TDI's will get about 10 to 15 mpg better then the hybrids. On the other hand if you doing a lot of city driving, the hybrids are for you. From what I gather the TDI's get about 50mpg at 65mph, one guy got 71 mpg driving over 1100 on a single tank, admittedly he only went 55-60mpg and it was all highway, but that's impressive.

Oh and the Civic tops out at 91 and the Prius toped out at 89 once the batteries died, the TDI's top out at 120+. If you live near mountains I heard the Prius could only do about 55 floored on the way up once the batteries died.

I have a TDI wagon on the way, hopefully next week /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif I really went with it for the size and extra room and I can still tow a small trailer (rated 1000lbs), while the hybrids are not suppose to tow at all.