Quote:
Originally Posted by ray
And actually, in a fair comparison, hybrids save even less. A civic hybrid is a significantly less powerful car than is a convential gas-powered civic. What happens if you engineer the convential car to the power and speed levels the hybrid achieves? Gas mileage goes up, eroding or perhaps even eliminating the hybrid 'advantage'.
There is a historical precedent for this. The great oil embargo of 1973 produced a number of diesel-powered vehicles available for sale in the late 70's and early 80s. They produced better mileage, but had 50-60% the power of their gasoline-fired bretheren. Had the gas-powered version been engineered in a context where it needed only match the performance achieved by the diesel, the mileage would have essentially equalized.
The overall point here is that until this era of $4/gallon gas few of us were willing to settle for the diminished performance envelope produced by hybrids. That's why an R18 is what it its--we don't really want to settle for less than its 140hp output, even in a relatively small car like a civic. But design priorities are bound to change and mpg may finally hit the front burner priority-wise. We will see just how good today's gas-engine technology is in regard to efficiency, and perhaps that regenerative braking is a hybrid's only real advantage.
Another point to be noted here--a 'relatively small' car like a LX is pushing 3000lbs. these days. Weight savings technolgies are a big part of the current hybrid compact-car approach. This adds cost to a vehicle, cost that would be directly borne by the consumer in a car lacking any government production subsidy. Design a gas civic to the same performance level as the hybrid and apply the same sort of weight-reduction techniques, and hybrids start looking like a gimick, in my estimation.
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I agree with your points. As soon as you migrate away from stop and go, around town, heavy traffic driving, the advantage of a hybrid narrows substantially. If you geared my Si down some more and gave it the same aerodynamics, wheels, tires, etc. I would bet the highway spread would be less than 10 MPG.