Toyota November Tops US Electric Plug In Vehicle Sales For November

Absolutely! Options are a wonderful thing, I am grateful manufacturers are going different directions so that each person can get the vehicle that is the most efficient for their own needs, or desires.

I think part of the issue, with this thread wasn't so much the title, but the natural comparisons people started drawing between the cars on the list. This led some to draw more direct comparisons, offer opinions about why each car was on the list and then snowballed into many of the same discussions.

 

Thanks!

I had forgotten the Fisker. We have four data points on the market today:

• Volt
• Fisker
• Ford C-Max Energi
• Prius Plug-in

	Column 1
0	[th]model[th]size[th]EV range[th]MPG (gas-only)[tr][td]Volt[td]compact[td]38 mi[td]37 MPG[tr][td]Fisker[td]subcompact[td]33 mi[td]20 MPG[tr][td]Ford C-Max Energi[td]fullsize[td]21 mi[td]43 MPG[tr][td]Plug-in Prius[td]fullsize[td]11 mi[td]50 MPG

Source: www.fueleconomy.gov

Again, looking at the expanded list, the Ford C-Max Energi most closely matches our past driving and towing requirements. Of course this source is the same government lab charged with measuring vehicles using reproducible protocols.

Bob Wilson

 

Bob,

Why do you chose to use the combined MPG for the PiP and the city MPG for the Volt in your comparison post?

Fuel Economy of New Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles

Wouldn't highway MPG be more appropriate for a PHEV?

 

I think John's point was the mis-statement of the volt at 35mpg.. which is its city only.. Its combined is 37.. (which is what should be compared to the 43 and 50 for the others).

He might also have been suggesting saying fullsize for the other two cars is incorrect, both are midsize not fullsize. Using passenger volume might be even more precise.

 

So I am *thinking* that Volt is 10.6-cu ft (Total cargo space under Hatchback) and Gen1 Prius is 11.0 cu ft in trunk. Admittedly I don't think we know exactly how EPA is defining cargo space post-2010, my thought is that autos now have the option to quote cargo space with one or two seats down, at their discretion. Check out Leaf specs in USA, they quote humongous cargo space I believe. Now check same car in Canada and EU, you may see sudden loss of cargo space. This is true for Gen3 Prius as well.

My orig quote

 

And at some point, highway mileage becomes predominant with larger EV range from the battery. This is especially true if you have a Hold or HV mode like the newer Volts so you can control where you spend your EV miles.

 

By profit - do you mean after paying back a substantial % of GM's value held as stock by the Fed's?
. Getting back THAT huge chunk of change would be a nice start to talking about profit.

 

Okay, i concede on they state the EV range (I knew that), but my point was really that few people can convert that to actual usage levels and how much they will need to use another vehicle and that is the "range" for which they will need to use another car per year. They should have something that says.. Statistically this will cover 80% of the average drivers needs.

I was really reacting to is the misleading info for the 2013 EPA stickers where they state the expected EV range, but then present the costs/savings presuming the car is used for the average number of miles ignoring that their own stats suggests they will not be able to drive it that far.
E.g. the FFE sticker


This is inflating the "cost savings" because its presuming the user does the EPA expected range (15000 miles) all on EV, but its utility factor is about 80%, so statistically they would need to use some other car for 3000 of those miles. This is not consistent with how they do it for any PHEV, where they use the utility factor computation for cost savings (not just EV MPGe). I actually made this comment during the EPA "comment" period on the new stickers, but I guess it was ignored.

 

I would agree that at one level highway dominates, but my point was pointing out the error of mixing different levels. Arguing to use HWY, which for the Prius is 48 and the Volt is 40, makes things look closer but makes more presumptions so people here can/will complain.

Also looking at real data, the City/Hwy split ignores very short "ICE" usage impact which on the volt can add up. My usage is 1 long trip (>500miles), 6 medium-long trips (200-500 miles) and 7 medium (100-200 miles), all of which are highway. Yet my lifetime is only 37MPG... I attribute this to one tank (of 5 since I got it home) being regular plus the fact that many of the usages are in winter trips (except the 500+ mile one), and there are many short trips in there (>40 and <100) that add up over time. The cold starts are not very efficient and the Engine running due to low temp is, by far, my most common ICE "start".

Maybe most realistic is real-world data.
Average data on voltstats is 36.3 MPG_CS, average fuelly data for Prius is about 48.5 and for C-max is 39.5.

 

Also for suggesting that the Prius/PiP has a manufacturer supported "towing" capacity.

Was that really a Prius I saw towing the space shuttle through LA?

 

It isn't posted in the vehicle entries over on http://www.fueleconmy.gov.

 

Sure, he should have been quoting combined mileage for the Volt just like he did for PiP and Energi so as to be at least minimally consistent. I wonder if he will go back and edit his incorrect table entries?

No doubt....
Nonetheless, highway mileage is more reflective of what Volt drivers would use if they had cars with Hold mode and chose to use it on a routine commute that was longer than the Volt's EV range.

Yes, but.

Fuelly doesn't distinguish EV vs. HV miles so the "short trip" gas inefficiency on PiP and Energi get lost in the overall blended mpg number. I'm not sure about Energi, but Toyota seems to have done a good job of minimizing warm up inefficiency on the PiP. This is an area that Volt could probably improve on in gen 2.

Also, the "short-trip" mpg impact of the Prius and even PiP tends to get averaged away due to greater use of the gas engine. The Volt statistics probably reflect less gas engine use overall and therefore a higher percentage of those gas miles consist of short periods on a cold engine either on trips that slightly exceed the battery range or due to assisting with cold weather cabin heating on cars with high EV utilization.

I suppose a Volt driver could choose to use less EV and drive more on the gas engine in order to spent more time driving on a warm engine with higher mpg but that would be missing the larger point.

 

Sorry, fixed. It was pretty early in the morning but that was an inadvertent error. I wasn't sure I had covered all EPA evaluated, plug-ins, and thought the error was missing the Fisker.

As for towing, I don't really care what the manufacturer claims after I purchase it and the applicable warranties expire. I have towing requirements and after a careful set of tests, I know what towing works with the 2003 and 2010 Prius. Although we do not own a Ford C-Max Energi Plug-in, the 2.0 L engine looks promising and the price appears to be competitive with the Prius Plug-in.

One other minor point, we own a 2003 Prius and before September 2008, the EPA 'moved the goal lines':

	Column 1
0	[th]model[th]personal MPG[th]pre-2008[th]25 owners[th]post-2008[tr][td]03 Prius[td]52 MPG[td]48 MPG[td]45.4 MPG[td]41 MPG

Source: www.fueleconomy.gov and personal logs, star-date . . .

So I look at the Ford C-Max Energi Plug-in EPA "43 MPG" as a data point but your mileage may vary as ours has with the 2003 Prius. Understand that I'm just an efficient driver with instrumentation and typically drive fairly boring using cruise control most of the time.

Bob Wilson

 

Steady cruising is far from representative of everyday driving, let alone high speed.

Today on the 70 mph highway, top speed was 35 mph. On the 55 mph section crossing the river, it was 9 mph. On the 45-50 sections following, the speed was 30 mph. Winter most definitely isn't reflected in EPA, but at least combined is an attempt to not mispresent.

All that said, my 16.8 mile commute this morning at 16°F resulted in a 143 MPG average.

 

How about:

• Volt
• Fisker
• Ford C-Max Energi
• Prius Plug-in

	Column 1
0	[th]model[th]size[th]EV range[th]+1 Gallon[th]+2 Gallons[th]+3 Gallons
1	[tr][td]Volt[td]compact [td]38 mi[td]75 mi[td]112 mi[td]149 mi
2	[tr][td]Fisker[td]subcompact [td]33 mi[td]53 mi[td]73 mi[td]93 mi
3	[tr][td]Ford C-Max Energi [td]midsize[td]21 mi[td]64 mi[td]107 mi[td]150 mi
4	[tr][td]Plug-in Prius[td]midsize[td]11 mi[td]61 mi [td]111 mi[td]161 mi

using EPA combined city/hwy mpg

 

That array will probably work better if the last three columns are defined. I don't see them at www.fueleconomy.gov.

It really comes down to one's requirements and if making a better model based upon some empirical data works . . . go for it. <grins>

Bob Wilson

 

Nice, but maybe the amount of gas used would help more

	Column 1
0	[th]model[th]size[th]EV range[th]charge[th]epa mpg combined[th]gas 15 mi[th]gas 30 mi[th]gas 60 mi[th]gas 100 mi
1	[tr][td]Volt[td]compact [td]38 mi[td]13.1 kwh[td]37 mpg[td]0[td]0[td]0.6 G[td]1.7 G
2	[tr][td]Ford C-Max Energi [td]midsize[td]21 mi[td]7.1 kwh[td]43 mpg[td]0[td]0.2 G[td]0.9 G[td]1.8 G
3	[tr][td]Plug-in Prius[td]midsize[td]11 mi[td]3.2 kwh[td]50 mpg[td]0.1 G[td]0.4 G[td]1.0 G[td]1.8 G

For longer trips looking at highway gas used with 1 charge

	Column 1
0	[th]model[th]epa mpg highway[th]gas 50 mi[th]gas 100 mi[th]gas 200 mi[th]gas 400 mi hwy[th] gas 700 mi hwy
1	[tr][td]Volt[td]40 mpg[td]0.3 G[td]1.6 G[td]4.1 G[td]9.1 G[td]16.6 G
2	[tr][td]Ford C-Max Energi [td]41 mpg[td]0.7 G[td]1.9 G[td]4.4 G[td]9.2G[td]16.6 G
3	[tr][td]Plug-in Prius[td]49 mpg[td]0.8 G[td]1.8 G[td]3.9 G[td]8.0 G[td]14.1 G

With the firm notes prius phv uses 0.02 gallons of gas in 11 CD miles, combined mpg etc. Combined mileage picked for trips 100 miles and shorter, highway mileage for 200 miles and longer with volt 35/40/37, c-max 44/41/43, prius 51/49/50. It should be fairly easy to compute gallons per year from this information. 30 was chosen as the start point as this is close to the average american driving distance.


It will be interesting to see how people choose these different EV ranges and power/size manufacturing choices.

 

My only suggestion on this table is to use a semi-log scale for distance:

• 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500

As for longer distances, in my case:

• ~710 mi - Huntsville-DC
• ~740 mi - Huntsville-Madison WI
• ~670 mi - Huntsville-Kansas City MO
• ~640 mi - Huntsville-Coffeyville KS
• ~600 mi - Huntsville-Canton IL
• ~580 mi - Huntsville-Raleigh, NC

It might be tempting to approximate 700 miles by adding 500 and 200, this double counts the EV segment, it should still be close. This could be solved by having two scales:

• 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500 - first leg (aka., EV+gas)
• 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500 - second leg of trip (aka., gas only)

So adding 500 miles from the first and 200 miles from the second and the problem for a 700 mile trip is accurately solved.

Bob Wilson

 

We are back a full circle to the point I was trying to make. There is no free lunch for EV miles. It takes time to charge to boost it from 37 MPG. It adds weight and 3,780 lbs for a compact 4 seater is pretty high. Electricity is not free and it has emission in fuel production. The point of the discussion is to present balance point of views.

Determining the potential emission of a plugin is a totally different topic than the emission weighted with the actual sales. Even if you weight it by sales, PiP using average grid emission is cleaner than Volt's weighted emission. We don't have sales breakdown for PiP yet.

In the states with the biggest market (CA, NY, etc) where the electricity is cleanest, electricity is not much cheaper than running on gasoline. Cheap electricity is available only in states where the source is dirty, exception of a few lucky states near water fall.

 

How about:

15, 30, 60, 120 for combined city/hwy aka "daily commute" between charges.

50, 100, 200, 400 for hwy aka "day trip"

This would allow folks to select their daily commute for 5 days/week and then take a swag at their annual or monthly day trips.

So I might dial in ~ 350 x 60 mile daily commutes and ~ 10 x 200 mile day trips annually.

... on second thought, to recognize my daytime charging I would use:

350 x 15 mile commutes
350 x 30 mile commutes

10 x 200 mile day trips