40 mpg and it's not a hybrid?
A Cruze to better fuel economyThe Toyota Prius is rated at 48 mpg highway by the EPA, the Honda Insight 43 mpg.
According to GM, the Chevy Cruze should achieve about 40 mpg highway, prompting CNN's Peter Valdes-Dapena yesterday to claim, "The automaker's new Chevrolet Cruze ECO will get very high gas --mileage without relying on any hybrid technology."
And what about the Cruze's city fuel economy? That is largely the point of hybrid technology, right?
City fuel economy for the Prius is 51 mpg, and 40 mpg for the Insight. Yet, GM isn't even releasing its estimates for the Cruze's city fuel economy. I wonder why? Might it be that when overall fuel economy is compared, the Cruze simply won't compare to hybrid vehicles? Won't the Cruze be lucky to achieve even 30 mpg in the city?
The Cruze is a nice car, and it might be a great deal for highway commuters concerned with fuel economy, but if priced similarly to the Insight or the Prius, those concerned with fuel economy will do much better with a hybrid.
Labels: honda insight hybrid, Hybrid Vehicles, toyota prius
posted by Dahcredyns at
10:07 AM
7 Comments:
Add start/stop to it, like Europe is doing, and it would get a cheap 10% city mileage improvement. Better yet, give us a choice of 4 options:
1. conventional
2. start/stop
3. hybrid (volt with small battery)
4. Volt
When GM does this, you'll have to go to 4 different dealers and they'll have different names.
An inefficient dealer network at GM? No way.
Some choice would be nice. I thought that was the reason for the fed's grants and loans to automakers to make them more adaptable.
I know most of us would love to have a car that got 70 MPG. However here is a website that tells you why that might not be possible.
http://energy.typepad.com/the-energy-blog/
Just thought everyone would like to know the math involved.
Tom G.
Tom,
I think most will agree as to the limitations of gasoline only technology.
This re-affirms why the gasoline powered engine is near then end of it's lifecycle.
1. We can only improve the fuel efficiency so much
2. We cannot sustain the consumption of gasoline at that rate indefinitely
The transition to alternative fuel/energy sources to power our vehicle is inevitable......
I fully agree Smurf. Somewhere I read that peak oil was to occur sometime in 2014. When that occurs, a big spike in fuel prices will probably happen and we don't seem to be well positioned for that event.
Tom G.
Interesting site, Tom.
With numerous transportation studies citing how increasing congestion is the pattern of the future, I think this research demonstrates the ever-growing importance of hybrid vehicles.
Higher gas prices and greater congestion are the future and hybrids can have a huge impact as more cost-effective plug-in and fuel cell solutions are developed.
Tom,
I also fear that peak oil will put us in a situation we are not ready for.
We tend to be more "reactive' than "proactive".
But, history has shown that when we finally do react, it is usually very agressively. We will suffer some inital pain when peak oil hits, but then make a very agressive transition off of oil, spawning a whole new non-oil based economy.
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