Earth Day, Fuel Efficiency, & Electric Cars
In honor of Earth Day, let's consider the hybrid car. Last fall, I bought a hybrid - a Honda Civic Hybrid. To date, with normal driving, I am getting about 42 miles to a gallon. There's a nifty thing on the Civic Hybrid's dashboard which tells you not only the gas milleage since you last reset your "trip" odometer, but also the "instantaneous" gas milleage. Experimenting with this, I find that on a straight stretch of highway with no traffic, if I set my cruise control to about 60 miles per hour, I can get around 55 miles to the gallon. Very nice. Great, in fact.
Except that the sticker on the car when I bought it informed me that I would be getting substantially more, over 60 miles per gallon in the city. This is totally unrealistic and the EPA has finally realized it. In January, the EPA agreed to upgrade its 20-year-old fuel testing system. The result will be that the fuel efficiency ratings of vehicles will plummet, with hybrids probably being hit the worst (although still being more efficient, over all, than conventional combustion vehicles). The revised testing will include cold-weather conditions, higher speeds and more rapid acceleration, and air-conditioning. The tests will be more accurate, so you'll have a more realistic idea of what to expect when you buy a car.
These changes will allow car buyers to make more economical decisions, but will not have an impact on the actual fuel efficiency required in cars, which is maintained through the Department of Transportation's Corporate Average Fuel Economy rules.
Good news is on the horizon, though, because the Las Vegas-based Hybrid Technologies is working on car that runs on lithium batteries, the kind of battery that powers most cellphones. Such a car would be able to, according to corporate spokesmen, get 300 miles on a single charged battery and travel at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour. Unfortunately, when the cars are made they would cost a minimum of $35,000, or roughly twice the cost of a regular car. But for some people, it might be worth it to eliminate the need for gasoline engines entirely.
Comments
Do you carshare? Or could you get the train. It’s a big country but a 4 hour roundtrip each day?? Not accounting for days off and national holidays that’s 1040 hours a year of petrol burning for one person doing one job. Have you thought about moving?
It’s actually a 2 hour roundtrip each day (1 hour each way). I am looking into various options, including working part or full time at home (which is fortunately an option with my job). Moving is a possibility, but I own my home and the market has been hit hard since I bought it a couple of years ago. I wouldn’t be able to afford to buy another house of the same quality closer to Indianapolis, either, so I’d have to go back to renting, which I don’t particularly want. So hopefully the work-at-home option will come through.
Thanks for the concern. Rest assured that I am looking into options.
I have a similar commute. 43 miles each way, nearly all highway. My 2000 Saturn SL has an EPA rating of 32 highway. I’m getting 43 MPG. It doesn’t have cruise control. I keep the speed down to 60-65 (the speed limit is 70). My older Mazda has cruise. I’d set it to slightly less than the rest of traffic, so people pass me. That let me use it for most of the trip. Again, EPA 32 highway, and I was getting 37 MPG until a piston ring started leaking. At 35,000 miles per year, one problem is that cars don’t last very long, and become valueless quickly. Both cars have 5 speed manual
transmissions.
Hi Andrew,
In 1982 I built an electric car from
a 1957 Volkswagon frame. It used
an aircraft surplus, 2CM76 DC generator,
with a separately excited, shunt wound
field. I also built a DC, pulse modulated,
variable speed control with regenerative
breaking. The hardest part to build was
the motor to 4 speed, transaxle coupling.
It shifted smoothly with NO clutch.
It had maximum torque at 0 RPM. It was
fun to build and was a college education
in a box. I learned about chemistry
and electronics and mechanics, but mostly I learned
about diplomacy. You see the Mountain View, CA DMV had never registerd an
an electric car before and insisted that
I get a smog test. Actually, it would have failed the smog test for lack of proper smog equipment. I got it registered after much debate and long
distance calls to Sacramento. They finally let me register the car because
a 57′ is too old to require a smog test!
If I can build an electric car in my
garage…….why can’t Detroit???????
Tom
San Diego, CA
I have a so called inefficient standard car.
2.0 Diesel Turbo, Avensis Estate. A much bigger car than the civic. I drive motorways and a lot of town driving. My avaerage over 30000 miles is 49mpg, without making an effort and easily do over 70mpg on motorway stretches. Hybrids are a con, backed by oil producers. No matter how I drive my car I am not going to get less than 45mpg, the hybrid a college of mine has is under 40mpg.
Heavy batteries (high carbon cost of manf) and transforming chemical to electric makes them particular ineffient.A few things on them make them efficient which easily can be transferred to petrol cars, but would effect prformance, plus they recover some energy on braking. if you want to save the planet do not get a hybrid a bigger con as electric cars