Plug In Prius - Seattle Times Article

Well said.

Bob Wilson

 

One of the big differences here of course between fleet drivers using PHEVs as part of their daily work and own/drivers using their PHEV on a daily basis is that when it's your own car you do EVERYTHING you can to maximize fuel economy.

You make sure you plug it in at night.

You charge whenever you spy a free elctrical outlet reserved for plug ins..

You keep the tires inflated correctly.

You don't thrash the car.

Why? Because it's your own vehicle - and if you've shelled out $$$$ for a PHEV you're damn well going to get every cent's saving you can. That means being careful about your driving style and use of the battery pack.

Secondly, there IS a difference between driving for work and pleasure.

My PHEV, while only a week old, is hovering at about 82.5 mpg UK for 210 odd miles of travel. On Thursday evening (after a stressful few days at work where I had to do lots of hard driving) my fuel economy was hovering around 75 mpg. Over the past three days (although Friday was a work day it's a less stressful day as I have lots of time to get between client schools) I've really improved the economy greately. And because it's my car (and ultimately, my pocket) I tried real hard to improve the mpg.

When it's someone else's car, and someone else's fuel bill, you won't be quite so careful.

Our City Council had a fleet of various electric vehicles for two or three years. Most were either peugeot 106 electriques - and later five GWiz (Reva). While there's a few electric car owners in Bristol who have no problems with the hills, charging or vehicle reliability the local council cancelled the pilot in 2007 because the electric vehicles they were using were just "not working correctly". Similar stories abounded in the local EV scene about council employees taking the cars down to the dangerous "red" zone where the poor things were running a volt or so above the aboslute minimum voltage the cars could drive. And yet the privately owned vehicles has no issues at all and some are still being used, five years post purchase.

Just think for a second. How many of us can honestly say that they've driven a work car or hire car as carefully as their own? I know when I had a company car back in 2002-2004 I certainly didn't drive it as carefully as my own car....

Nikki.

 

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