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Hybrid Vehicles - Mileage

Yahoo Message Number: 13277
Hi Folks,

In the 90s I drove a Geo Metro in my commute to work - I leased a total of 14 in over 4 years including the very high mileage model advertized at 55 mpg. My driving was all highway 101 in Santa Barbara County and I got over 45 mpg. One I sold to the librarian where he achieved 61 mpg on a trip to Barstow.
So high mileage without hybrid technology was achieved in the past.
Now let's look at hybrids. On the positve side, braking is used to recharge the battery bank, otherwise the engine has to do it. The batteries are recharged by the engine after any acceleration where the batteries by themselves or with engine are used. The engine is being used when not accelerating plus keeping a float charge on the batteries. All in all, there is a net loss in energy as compared to just an engine. Turning off the engine when stopped does help especially in city stop and go traffic, but the engine has to be restarted by the battery so the net mpg increase is lessened.
In short, there is no energy advantage to the hybrid technology unless you want performance. And performance is costly.
Owners of hybrids are not getting the sticker mileage - e.g., sticker 45, actual 33.
Fred Kovol

Re: Hybrid Vehicles - Mileage

Reply #1 –
Yahoo Message Number: 13297
Interesting ... where I was going with that comment, has to do with producing an engine that gets high fuel mileage, say at least 20 miles to the gallon, for RV's. Sounds like you can get high mileage without going to a hybrid engine. Now the trick is can they produce an engine that gets good fuel and has enough horsepower and torque to push, say, a 40,000 pound RV.
Fred, do you know if the technology currently exists to do what I mentioned above? And, I'm curious as to what the limiting factors for such an engine would be if the technology doesn't exist. I am aware of the research that is currently going on with hydrogen fuel cell technology. As a matter of fact, Vancouver city buses have hydrogen fuel cells in them. They can do this because they have a central yard where the buses can be re-fueled with hydrogen at night. Awesome technology with huge potential but the drawback is developing a network of hydrogen re-fueling stations in the United States to service such vehicles. President Bush even made this one of his long term goals to see cars on the road within 20 years running on hydrogen fuel cells (I think it was 20 years). I really excited about this but I don't want to wait that long to see fuel efficient engines in RV's.

Rick,

Fulltiming in a '04, 36' Allure, 31018
 

Re: Hybrid Vehicles - Mileage

Reply #2 –
Yahoo Message Number: 13300
Lets also not forget the $4,000.00 to $5,000.00 Battery pack replacement cost, down the road. Toyota just released a part # for theirs after the car being out for a few years, guess they didn't want to scare people off early on at a cost off $4,800.00.
It is to early in the technology for it to add up right now.
Mac.