(Top Gear): The Stig's flying hybrids

[Tideland Prius]

Stigs might fly

Give Stig a Toyota Prius and a Honda Insight and what does he do? Try to get them airborne, of course. Click through our gallery for the full story...


The Stig?s flying hybrids - BBC Top Gear



Top Gear doing what they do best . It's kinda entertaining/funny in a way.

I guess the Prius is Stig-Approved!

[JimboPalmer]

Near as I can tell, the only conclusion you can take away from this article is, never buy ex-road test loaners.

[a_gray_prius]

This might be the first time ever that someone has worn a racing suit in a Prius.

[hill]

Top Gear's Jeramy Clarkson ... what a tool



One era he's peddling plush toys ... the next era he's machine gunning a Prius. What next

.

[JimboPalmer]

Originally Posted by a_gray_prius

This might be the first time ever that someone has worn a racing suit in a Prius.

I hope not.
Got Hybrid? - Sport - Auto Reviews - Car and Driver

[bwilson4web]

I've been puzzling about Stig's multiple laps and I think it may be his confusion at the MPG at high speed. During the BMW vs Prius 'test,' Stig drove drove the Prius like a formula I. Maximum acceleration and maximum brake. He achieved 17 MPG and was expecting the same result this time ... but it didn't happen.

There is a mistaken impression in some automotive technical circles that the Prius transaxle is especially inefficient at high power settings. I'd seen some indirect references but the best source is SAE 2009-01-1321, "An Analytic Foundation for the Two-Mode Hybrid-Electric Powertrain with a Comparison to the Single-Mode Toyota Prius THS-II Powertrain," Jerome Meisel. I suspect the Stig thought the earlier 17 MPG was due to transaxle inefficiency and he was trying to figure out why he didn't get even worse results at maximum speed.

Now some of us have realized that ~1/3d of the power 'recirculates' and this is subject to an approximate 0.96*0.96 efficiency or ~8% loss of 1/3d power, ~3%, not counting the gears. Stig was expecting a higher energy loss with the transaxle heating and poorer mileage. I suspect he couldn't believe what was going on ... and ran extra laps.

Stig was expecting the Insight, running at maximum throttle, to achieve higher MPG. Yet he didn't count on cooled, exhaust gas recirculation and higher than expected ICE efficiency. The Prius protected the catalytic converter by diluting the intake air with cooled exhaust. He also might have missed the muffler, high-power, shunt valve. So the Prius kept running and the MPG wouldn't go down.

I can imagine the debriefing.

Bob Wilson

[tpfun]

Heh, hear hear

I did my best to jump both cars, too, and found that the Honda was infinitely better at landing than the Toyota, maintaining a much more natural flight path and plopping to the earth without fuss. The Toyota seemed to want to go nose-high in the air and landed with a lurch. The big message here is that if you enjoy your driving, and your mode around town is ‘zippy', the Honda is the car of choice. All the Prius has going for it is grip.

[tpfun]

Originally Posted by a_gray_prius

This might be the first time ever that someone has worn a racing suit in a Prius.

Over 100mph in a Prius, I would say it's a wise decision.

[alanderego]

Not only Stigs fly.... So does a Prius

[bwilson4web]

The high-speed banking yielded an indicated 113mph max for the Insight, at a low average of 16.7mpg, and the Prius a top speed of 121mph, while its average wouldn't dip below 18.2mpg, even with the throttle pedal jammed so far into the carpet it started to become slightly on fire.

This is what I got with full throttle in my NHW11:

Just as our NHW11 reached 100 mph, the fuel economy (green line) plateaued at ~22 MPG. It might be interesting to measure the MPG of the NHW20 at maximum throttle.

Bob Wilson