(edmunds.com) Fuel Sipper Smackdown 2

And so here is good mainstream article showing the over optimism of the HSI trip meters. When will Toyota admit or fix it.

Wayne

 

Since about January, Wayne Gerdes has complained about the too-short gearing causing a too-high highway RPM. That is why he was tempering Insight-II enthusiasm well before it was released.

 

I'll have to disagree with that. HCH-II A/C can run on both belt or electric. It has the torque robbing belt and the extra complexity of having electric compressor as well. When the ICE is off, it runs off the battery but it can not reach MAX cool.

 

Prius is just rock solid. It is getting better and better every generation!

 

finaly some real jetta dirty diesel real life data

 

autoblog summary:
Fuel efficiency has finally moved to the forefront of many consumers' minds after 2008's record fuel price spike and demand is higher than ever for miser-mobiles. Several vehicles have benefited from the green car movement, and the Inside Line crew corralled three hybrids, a diesel and a supersized go-kart in the ultimate test of fuel economy prowess.

The Toyota Prius, Mini Cooper, Honda Insight, Ford Fusion and VW Jetta TDI were assembled to compete for the best fuel economy in city, highway and back road driving. IL also measured the cost to fuel each vehicle and the amount of CO2 each emitted during the test. The five vehicles were prepped to do battle, but ultimately it wasn't much of a fight.

The Toyota Prius won every conceivable category by a significant margin with amazingly similar fuel economy between 47 and 48 mpg in all driving tests. The Prius also took on all comers in regards to carbon emissions as the symbol of green motoring spewed .08 fewer pounds of pollutants during the test than the second place Honda Insight.

 

i have to mention something when it comes to this, most european start-stop systems turn off vehicle even when A/C is on, so you are left without A/C. Toyota's system does not turn the car off if A/C is running. Right now european journalists are considering it as not advanced as european systems because of that even though the actual start/stop part is the most advanced as it turns the car on/off quite fast... it just doesnt want to do it if you turned on the A/C.



(talking about start/stop systems not hybrids)

 

throw epa out and bring edmunds mpg in!!!

 

Yes and no.

The problem is the EPA 'goal posts' can be moved ... at least as far as the window sticker. I saw my 2003 Prius go from 52/45 (City/Hwy) to today's 42/41 (City/Hwy.) One night, I went to bed and woke up to a new standard but my mileage didn't change because I'd been sleeping. They literally moved the the EPA standard from as far above the median, 45 MPG, for the NHW11 to below that median and suddenly 90% of all NHW11 owners were ... the same people who had gone to bed the night before and woken to another day.

Sadly, Edmunds can't get believable results except by collecting as many vehicles as they can and doing a two-day, road trip. Still credit to Edmunds for doing the job right (and for this I can try to forget their earlier ham fisted reviews.) Worse, Consumer Reports is totally lost with one of the silliest mileage reports ever seen (have they gone *&#! insane?) As for other automotive writers, truth be told, they are even more lost and let's stop there ... (I have to go out and curse the moon.)

There are only three sources, possibly four, that I find any useful information:

• EPA collected user reports - regardless of the outliers, easily removed, it is the best, broadest source of mileage data. Not perfect, it "s*cks less."
• MyHybridCar collected user reports - providing the details so missing from the EPA collected user reports, this includes the user notes and the individual tank records (what is missing from the EPA user records.)
• EPA and Euro reports - because they include the test protocol, they actually tell us what these vehicles do within their narrow limits.
• disciplined user reports - so rare but truly diamonds when done right. My admiration is for those rare individuals who understand how to control the variables and accurately record the data ... truly they have my deepest admiration. In my short list are: Ken@Japan, Hobbit, a Prior, MetroMPG (ecomodder), Stephan and more recently Glider and not even a full handful of others who have gone the extra mile and then some.

I've not forgotten those who before I ever had a Prius laid the foundations for much of our our understandings of this marvelous vehicle, the Prius, including Graham Davis and the tool makers. Truly we stand on their shoulder and as we remember them, not on their toes. And I don't forget, even for a second, the Toyota engineering teams who made this series of marvels, the Prius family.

Bob Wilson

 

Hello Spywolf:

Could you please explain this in a different way? I'm a little confused as to what you are saying here.

The Prius' variable electric AC compressor will run even when the ICE is not running. If you let the car sit in "Ready" mode with the AC in Auto mode, the compressor will run only as fast as needed to maintain the requested cabin temperature. And the ICE will only turn on and off as needed to keep the traction battery charged sufficiently to run the AC. So the ICE will actually turn "off" when the AC is still running, and only come back on when the TB needs to be charged.

 

I just sat in and drove an Insight for about 20 minutes the other day.....not bad, but not as quiet as my Prius II due to road noise. I was truly shocked by the lack of room in the back seat. Not even my 5' 5" wife could fit comfortably in the back seat. I am 6'1" and I had to slouch way down to fit (very uncomfortable), and the headrest only came up to the back of my neck even at that point! The backseat of the Insight is definitely for children, short adults, and groceries. Of course, if you only have two adults in the front seat then the backseat really doesn't matter so much. For me, I would rather spend a little more money for the Prius and get the additional room in the back.

 

I've been thinking about the Honda Insight performance:

I'm still curious by the fall off of Insight performance on the high speed run. I remembered the 2010 Prius has a valve that opens up in the muffler to allow more flow during high power operation. I wonder if the Insight might have either a muffler or catalytic converter constriction in exhaust flow at high speeds?

One reason for my question is the few Honda Insight EPA numbers are showing impressive mileage. I'm wondering if the regular Honda drivers are staying in normal speed ranges versus the many automotive reviewers who seem to nibble on the high side of vehicle speeds in their testing.

Bob Wilson

 

Have you looked at its gearing, and highway RPM? This is a huge problem for fuel economy in normal US-market non-hybrids, where most drivers demand considerable passing torque in the highest gear, with no downshift. Wayne Gerdes' early reviews complained about this on the new Insight as well. Apparently its CVT doesn't have the same ratio range as that of the HCH.

 

That almost makes sense. A quick test would be to see what ICE rpms show up on downgrades at stepped, high speed. If the gearing is the problem, the downgrade rpm should track the velocity change.

With my NHW11, the higher power settings needed to sustain high power puts the engine in an inefficient power setting. This has been confirmed by substantial Graham scanner data collected on several trips. But even before getting the Graham scanner, initial NHW11 mph vs MPH data showed a knee at 65 mph:

	Column 1	Column 2	Column 3	Column 4
0	mph	NHW11	NHW20	ZVW30
1	65	52	55	52
2	70	49	49	50
3	75	39	45	47

.
It is amazing to think that this narrow band 70-75 mph might be all it takes to give one car a great highway rating and the other look like a goat. It could be as simple as the BSFC curve at high power settings, what we find with my NHW11, versus a broader range ICE needed to meet the high-speed, energy demand.

I'm a fan of Autospeed and they've had a number of articles about how improve gas flow, both intake and exhaust, improves engine performance. My NHW11 with an Atkinson cycle, intake flow improvements are unlikely to have much of an effect. But I've thought about trying a high-flow, low back-pressure muffler in my NHW11 to see if this might improve the high-speed performance. Finding the ZVW30 has a by-pass valve suggests this might work.

Bob Wilson