real world test of hybrid and diesel cars

I think the one additional productive "barometer" they could've added would have been a standard 4-cyl. econobox, e.g., Corolla or Civic. Other than that, an excellent report.

 

He said it again :lol: "starts on electric, then switches to gas" yet Dagmar got it right. She's more of a "car guy" than he is

 

Yeah, I'm in Vancouver, and my current tank is going to come in at 5.0, and my total mileage since new (last spring) is around 5.1 (thanks to the cold snap late Nov/early Dec), so I think 5.2 is fairly realistic for someone who doesn't know the car very well. The car may not have been broken-in either. I noticed a change in the car's behavior after the first 1500 kms or so. That said, I'll bet that I could've pulled off a 5.0 driving my car on their test, maybe even a 4.8 in the summer.

 

I recall when I was shopping around for an accurate odometer for running the salesperson mentioned that cars were only required to be within +/- 10% tolerance. So for this video we only saw about +/- 3.5% deviation. I think would be considered very good.

 

Yeah, good point.

 

In case no one posted it yet, here is the breakdown:

45.2 - Prius
34.6 - TDI
31.3 - FEH
26.4 - Camry
25.8 - HAH
22.0 - Escape
19.6 - Accord

I think their results are realistic, given they took 6.5 hours to go less than 130 miles, so that's alot of accelerating and braking in slow-moving traffic. The Prius does get 45 mpg often and the FEH does average low-30's, so that's realistic. 35 mpg for the TDI is actually quite good for all-city driving since it isn't a hybrid. 26 is correct for the Camry and is also a realistic value for the HAH in the city.

So I think this test was very interesting. It's too bad you don't see tests like this more often.

EDIT: Regarding the above post, yes, by switching drivers that helped account for different driving styles so no car was unfairly pushed ahead of any other.

 

Actually no, it's because it's illegal for European cars to underestimate speed to any degree so the manufacturers just purposely make it read higher than it really is, often to a fairly generous degree since it makes the driver think the car is better (quicker to 60, etc.). It's dumb.

 

Has anyone alerted Mystery Squid as to the existence of this Dagmar Midcap?

I think the Squid is going to need a new avatar after he sees that this gorgeous doll actually rides motorcycles.

[Broken External Image]:http://dagmarmidcap.com/gallery/photo_26.jpg

[Broken External Image]:http://dagmarmidcap.com/gallery/photo_30.jpg

[Broken External Image]:http://dagmarmidcap.com/gallery/photo_37.jpg

http://dagmarmidcap.com/gallery.html

 

Crikey! She's a looker. Squid must be on his way back to MA. He'll be in for a treak when he looks on next. Maybe Maggie or JackDodge can help him out.

 

damn....Dagmar is babe-a-licious

*apologies to lady members as this thread creeps towards being a Dagmar droolfest !*

 

Exactly- while an experienced Prius driver could likely have achieved even better mileage, the fact that they swapped drivers throughout the test means that they accounted for a variety of different driving styles..

The only other factor that wasn't mentioned was the effect of "drafting"- they showed the vehicles travelling in a "convoy" quite often- did they also break out of formation and/or swap positions along the trip to distribute the effects of drafting vs. leading among all the vehicles?

 

Their average speed was 19 mph. Drafting does nothing at that speed.

 

Speaking of Dagmar... she was fired from the local news for using profanity on-air. (Something tells me that this will make her even hotter in Squid's eyes!)

Here's the story. Before they had the car show, Zack was the local weatherman, and when he wasn't on, Dagmar would be his stand-in. They also did a once per week car segment on the news. One day, while doing the weather report live from the local amusement park/farm fair she swore at some kid (can't remember why, maybe he made a crack at her), while she thought the camera and mic were off. They weren't, and it went out over live TV. Well, that was the last time anyone saw her on the news, and Zack had to get a replacement (not hot, knows less than nothing about cars) for the weekly bit.