Thread: Hybrid cars what to look for.

Yep, I did get that but in practice there isn't much difference in usability for us. I test drove a Prius (I know, I know) and a Honda mumble (might have been an Insight? Memory is murky on it. Civic sized sedan anyway) and both of them did the same - as soon as you're over 70-odd k's on open road combined power in use. If you're doing that for 90%+ of the trip you literally aren't saving enough fuel to make the extra consumables and higher purchase cost stack up.

If you are urban and the engine is off for say more than 60% of your trip, that potentially is a saving worth having. But otherwise, as XR500 says the hybrid systems on open road use are generally not saving you anything as the IC engine is turning and burning and anytime that is happening you aren't saving fuel.

Originally Posted by No.3

the hybrid systems on open road use are generally not saving you anything as the IC engine is turning and burning and anytime that is happening you aren't saving fuel.

For hybrids, don’t know about PHEVs, I don’t think that’s accurate and hasn’t been my experience. In a hybrid, the electric engine supplements the ICE during open road driving.

Originally Posted by camenzie

For hybrids, don’t know about PHEVs, I don’t think that’s accurate and hasn’t been my experience. In a hybrid, the electric engine supplements the ICE during open road driving.

What are you driving out of curiosity ?

Originally Posted by dannyb

What are you driving out of curiosity ?

2016 Fielder.

Originally Posted by camenzie

2016 Fielder.

I'm looking pretty seriously at a lexus ct200h (same running gear 1800cc toyota hybrid as prius, Fielder etc) do a fair whack of 100kph open road travel for work but also do a lot of stop start stuff running the kids around on days off.
The prius is well proven to be reliable I just like the Lexus aesthetics and higher level of interior appointments etc. I know it won't save much if anything on the open road stuff but even just cutting cost of all the running around we do for the kids will be nice.
.......*takes a moment to zip up flame suit

Originally Posted by camenzie

For hybrids, don’t know about PHEVs, I don’t think that’s accurate and hasn’t been my experience. In a hybrid, the electric engine supplements the ICE during open road driving.

Yep - either way you look at it the ICE component is turning and burning the entire time you're open road driving. The claimed fuel savings are mainly in urban areas where you can be moving on battery electric only, that's a mathematical thing as a certain size engine x rpm = that much fuel burned to get the right air/fuel mixture... Can't really get around it. If you aren't mostly doing open road driving (i.e. the taxi scenario in town and crawling along a rank or in and out of airport precincts all the time) then your savings on fuel will be much higher than when the engine is running most of the time.

My direct experience was less than 1L/100Km open road driving between the PHEV and the pure ICE versions of the car, the ICE version cost $20K less and used tyres etc at a slower rate. Servicing costs were comparable. Just on purchase price at current fuel prices, the saving over the PHEV version = about 7 years of petrol (not including tyres etc and based at 15K km's a year).