Insight, Prius show off fuel economy at HybridFest
A few of the hypermilers at HybridFestSo, I was at HybridFest this weekend in Madison, WI, which is always kicked off with a MPG Challenge. This year's event brought in dozens of hypermilers from across the US, and while there are always various types of hybrid vehicles participating, the Honda Insight and the Toyota Prius always dominate the competition in terms of number of participants and fuel economy.
This year's top fuel economy was achieved by a Honda Insight, which achieved 108.72 mpg. All Insights combined achieved an average 87 mpg. The top Prius hypermiler achieved 98.7 mpg. All Prius hybrids combined achieved an average of 74 mpg.
Labels: honda insight hybrid, Hybrid Vehicles, HybridFest, toyota prius
posted by Dahcredyns at
10:57 AM
6 Comments:
What about cheating and charging the battery to the full before contest? However, small it is, it can easily add 5-10 mpg on a 26 miles race.
I wish US automakers would make a hybrid minivan. I live in the suburbs and drive my kids everywhere and want a safe, spacious, yet eco-friendly mode of transportation.
There's a new campaign to get automakers' attention:
http://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/let-s-bring-hybrid-minivans-to-the-suburbs
LB-
Your right, I have the rules written down somewhere, but I can't find them at the moment.
Still, the contest shows that today's technology offers a ton of potential. When you think about the after market that soups up today's conventional vehicles, it would be lovely to see a similar hybrid after market to soup up hybrid mileage.
It also shows that if you don't mind driving a little slower or easing away from a streetlight, for example, nice gains in fuel economy can be achieved.
Driving through Madison's numerous streetlights over the weekend, I tried coasting as much as possible rather than rushing to each next red light. Thus, I stayed in EV mode in my hybrid Camry for much of my drives and averaged around 50 mpg. 50 mpg in the kind of conditions that bring the worst out of most cars - I'll take that any and every day.
@anonymous above:
I couldn't agree with you more. My brother and sister-in-law just bought a new vehicle to accommodate their needs with a 4th child about to be born. Fuel efficiency was a major criterion, but there just wasn't anything available that was large enough but also offered good mileage. They ended up squeezing into a Mazda 5, which seems pretty nice and is more efficient than the other vehicles on their short list, but I know they would have been very interested in a somewhat larger yet more fuel efficient option like a hybrid minivan.
Thus, I stayed in EV mode in my hybrid Camry for much of my drives and averaged around 50 mpg. 50 mpg in the kind of conditions that bring the worst out of most cars - I'll take that any and every day.
I agree with you. I also usually drive this way and achieve well over 40 mpg. However, as I mentioned, above this is not "a fresh run". For example, I drive to the school, pickup a kid, the battery is charged and I get 40+ mpg. However, in the morning it takes a lot to charge the battery, so as after driving 6 miles, it is 35 mpg at best (and even 30 in most cases), the I drive additional 11 miles on a highway: very smoothly and predictively, virtually without breaking and accelerating. Yet, my efficiency is in the range 38-40, not 50!!
I usually average around 40 in a variety of conditions as well, but there are many days that I do much better in a variety of stop and go traffic. Plus, I play with hills and pulse driving to try to keep my battery charged as much as possible.
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