Prius or HCH Hybrid Technology?

What Evan said. There's no reason to think the Honda would do better in the cold. Darn that Prius MFD, reminding drivers how lousy fuel economy is on short trips and cold days :_>

 

As much as I love the Prius, unless you really want another hatchback, I think the new 06 HCH looks great and at $23k includes NAV. If it was a Ford, I wouldn't both with this, but Honda's are reliable as well. Why not have 1 of each?

Did you get the same snow killington got a few weeks ago? Must have been nice seeing the white stuff I can't wait for some snow!

 

Forget the shovel - I'm bringing my snowmobiles I just wish they were hybrids

 

Hahaha.. yeah, they're 2-strokes unfortunately, so they do both. I really wish I could afford new one's, I'd love to get a 4-stroke - no oil burning there.

I was thinking though, there would be lots of opportunity for a snowmobile to generate power. Granted, you'd be solely on gas going up hills, but there's lots of down hill areas and a fair amount of flat terran. I'm just not sure all that extra stuff would fit in an already tight space.

 

Actually, I bet the HCH DOES do better in short cold trips than the Prius.

Remember, the Prius is tuned to put a premium on emissions, so it spends extra time and fuel keeping the emissions system functioning.

If they wanted to tune it down to ULEV standards, the Prius would get better mileage.

Edit: On checking, it does look like the 06 HCH is going to meet AT-PZEV standards so this may or may not be a valid issue.

 

Well, we all have opinions, and here is mine.

I think the HCH would give more consistent gas mileage than the Prius, for any variety of trip length, outside temp variations and driver technique. Although, this would be less overall MPG that the Prius can provide, due to the basic differences in the HCH hybrid system.

The Honda system relies predominently on it ICE, all the time, so variations in trip speed, length, duration and tempurature will not cause a lesser nor greater percentage of ICE operation, as does the Prius.

Furthermore, the HCH has a normal metal gas tank, so inconsistencies common with fuel tank quantity during colder months would be absent in the HCH.

Finally, the less complex operating modes of the HCH would seem to require less importance on driver technique to get the most extreme levels of efficientcy out of it's hybrid system.

All that being said, I'm still buying the Prius, because I can get the most out of it.
My regular commute will allow me to maximize the Prius HSD system, I understand the technique requirement, I like the hatchback configuration, it's larger and far more techno-interesting.
I do like the looks of HCH, thought

 

I hope you buy an HCH to go with your Prius. Then you can do a comparison test for us over several months or even years. I very seriously considered a Honda hybrid but ended up with a Prius because I thought the HSD technology was better than Honda's parallel hybrid system. Another big factor was that the two Honda dealers within a reasonable distance of where I live didn't seem the least interested in selling me a hybrid car. If you have reasonable access to both a good Honda dealer and a good Toyota dealer you are fortunate.

 

Depends on whether Honda has implemented a similar cold start sequence or not.. Remember that the Prius is first and foremost, designed as a low-emissions vehicle; the good gas mileage was a bonus, not the design goal. Because of the low emissions target, it uses a fuel inefficient valve setting if the cat is cold to warm it up for emissions control (and on the Classic, they actually put in two cats, one with a hydrocarbon adsorber and a valve that opened and closed (and when the valve was closed, the car was a real pig due to the inefficient valve timing and the increased back pressure) to control cold emissions), and further, it won't allow the ICE to shut down or use stealth (unless you have the EV mod and have engaged it before ICE start-up) until the coolant temperature reaches 70C. All of this contributes to poor mileage in the first 5 minutes of operation.. The thermos in the HSD Prius helps a bit, but is not a cure-all; a block heater also makes a big difference, but again, does not solve the problem entirely, and you do need to have plug-ins available at all your destinations to take advantage of a block heater..

If the Honda does *not* have a specific warm-up mode and allows the engine to shut down at stops even when cold, you may still have worse mileage than usual due to cold temperatures, but I would bet that it would still be better in those first 5 minutes and short trips than the Prius.. After the initial warm-up period and on longer trips, I would put my money behind the Prius though..

 

You could get a cheap timer to turn the heater on 2 hours before your ready to leave.. portable light.. prob under 15 bucks.

 

I like this idea. Be sure to switch off cars at intervals or we'll be arguing the degree to which observed performance differences are caused by differences in the drivers.