The Seattle Times' Danny Westneat has written a column questioning whether plug-in cars need a reality check. His column cites the results of 14 plug-in Priuses operated by the city of Seattle driven a span of 17,636 miles as only achieving 51 MPG.
The pilot project is one of the few in the nation to subject plug-in hybrid cars to regular motor-pool duty, as opposed to being driven by hypermilers or alt-energy enthusiasts. "We're not putting these cars on a test track," said Scott Thomsen, a spokesman for Seattle City Light, which has three of the plug-ins. "We've got them on hills and wet streets, in the cold and the hot, on short trips and long — all the conditions that real people deal with every day."
What Mr. Westneat doesn't include in his column is that the plug-ins are apparently not being used properly by the city of Seattle. According to PriusChat member and green-car blogger PeakOilGarage, the Seattle test is essentially invalid because the fleet drivers are not being plugged in at night to recharge the batteries.
We have been discussing this topic on some other EV forums. Those city of Seattle vehicles have the Hymotion plug-in system.
The problem is that they are not being plugged in at night to recharge the batteries. The fleet drivers are driving around all day with a regular Prius that has extra weight (the empty Hymotion battery) in the trunk.
If they are not going to plug-in on a regular basis, there is no point in monitoring their results.
Here are the real Hymotion Plug-In battery results.
728 miles at 99.9+ MPG
Hey Seattle! Why waste the residents' tax money on purchasing Hymotion systems when you aren't even going to properly use them?
Would the city of Seattle like to respond?
What do you think? Will normal PHEV owners not bother plugging in their car at night?
