Hybrid question

My current car is an 8th gen 1.8 Civic hatch Manual and I do really like it for its boot size and reliability plus the 1.8 is a great engine in the hatch in terms of performance and MPG

New Civic is out next year so maybe the current model will drop in price but I cant see me changing from a 1.8 Civic to a 1.8 Civic, I have spent a weekend in a Tourer too and the 1.8 felt weaker with the extra weight

Thanks for the info Uriel, sounds like a Hybrid wont benefit me. Back to reading horror stories RE DSG boxes and TSI engines!
 
6 Miles, just buy whatever the difference in fuel cost is negligible, test drive both and pick the one you like best.

As someone else suggested an i3, it's the electric car's wet dream to do a 6 mile commute, you'd need to charge it once a week.

BMW i3 REX for the long journeys would tick every box, pricey though.
 
Plugins make more sense to me. For my commute, 15 miles each way, the Outlander PHEV would be perfect. It would manage the commute on electric only, but has the direct drive petrol engine for longer journeys. Free parking in Leeds too with a plugin or full electric
 
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i3's boot is tiny. I'm guessing he wants to at least match his existing Civic, which will be 480 odd litres or thereabouts.

If we're talking PHEVs, Passat GTE? My mate is leasing a Golf GTE and loves it but the boot will be too small there. It has everything the OP wants - hybrid, big boot & DSG all in one. Probably too new and expensive I guess.

But seriously - if you want hybrid, PHEV or EV for the finances - it ain't going to be worth it on 6 miles each way. Or find a Jazz or Insight (2nd Gen) hybrid. There's little to no hybrid premium there but the boots aren't as big as a Civic.
 
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There are a lot of misconceptions about hybrids and particularly the Prius, comments such as it's too slow, the batteries don't last long etc.etc.

For starters what is considered slow? the Prius 0-60 is around 10 seconds which is typical for lots of everyday cars, however 0-32 in my Prius gen 2 is just 3 seconds and will easily outrun a lot of cars from a standing start, the engine & 3 phase electric motor plus no gears to change etc are what achieves this. There is no clutch,stepless transmission is via a sun & planets sytsem and not a belt through two cone pulleys as reported by some reviewers.

I get 55-60 mpg on every day driving. tests we did with a stopwatch actually show my car can do 0-60 in 9.2 seconds
The car is now 9 years old and still has the original brake pads due to the car using the electric motor generator resistance to slow the car before the actual pads touch the disc.

I've now ordered a new gen 4 which has adaptive cruise control, pre- collision sensors with pedestrian detection which will prevent collisions by applying the brakes if you fall asleep :p
road sign assist which actually scans the road signs and projects speed limit info on the windscreen and all round parking sensors etc.

On a recent prolonged test drive in a gen 4 I got 94.4 mpg. on an 14 mile trip home, and then we went out for a longer drive of 76 miles which showed 86.6 mpg. The new version uses the electric motor a lot more than mine does

With zero road tax and a CO of 70 it's also congestion charge free, I can't wait for it to arrive from Japan :D
 
Usher - 14 miles and 76 miles is much more in optimal range for a Prius than 6 miles. Also, was the engine cold when you picked up the Prius for a test drive?

The Gen4 is averaging 59 mpg on Honest John's RealMPG register: http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/toyota/prius-2016 . While very decent for the size of car - that's nowhere near the claimed published figures. The NEDC gives hybrids a very favourable ride compared to real life (regenerative braking + start-stop are basically awesome for gaming that system).

I think people on here have got over their general hybrid disdain by now. But the Prius in particular is just a little bit - marmitey.
 
Uriel said:
Usher - 14 miles and 76 miles is much more in optimal range for a Prius than 6 miles. Also, was the engine cold when you picked up the Prius for a test drive?

The Gen4 is averaging 59 mpg on Honest John's RealMPG register: http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/toyota/prius-2016 . While very decent for the size of car - that's nowhere near the claimed published figures. The NEDC gives hybrids a very favourable ride compared to real life (regenerative braking + start-stop are basically awesome for gaming that system).

I think people on here have got over their general hybrid disdain by now. But the Prius in particular is just a little bit - marmitey.
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The engine was cold when I picked up the Prius, however they warm up extremely quickly now due to new modifications inc exhaust heat recirculation system and a powered radiator shutter blind



I've got to the point where I ignore a lot of revues and mpg figures as so many are clearly not to be taken as fact, honest john gives the lowest reported as 45 mpg on the new gen4 ?? I couldn't get that low no matter how I drove the car, I suspect that driver was from the USA and driving with the the heater and fans on full blast and even then I doubt 45mpg unless something was seriously wrong with the car


Toyota owner forums are full of drivers easily getting 80+mpg and showing a pic of the energy display screen to prove it, lots of revue sites giving mpg are from USA drivers where of course their gallons are different to ours

I forgot to add that the difference between 15" and 17" wheels is around 10 mpg, practically every revue I've ever read has been on 17" wheels
 
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Usher said:
I've now ordered a new gen 4 which has adaptive cruise control, pre- collision sensors with pedestrian detection which will prevent collisions by applying the brakes if you fall asleep :p
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But it looks like total ass. Plus MPG real compared to displayed may show some variance?

I overtook one today, made my Insight Mk1 look like an actual resolved piece of design! Hyundai Ioniq looks a better car.
 
The new Prius really does look terrible but some people just arent bothered about looks and are more interested in function

I've decided to keep my Civic until May next year when its due its service and MOT and then I'll probably trade it in but still not no where near settled on what I want. I'm still going to test drive an Auris Hybrid regardless of the mileage I do as work may only be 6 miles away but I use the car for other things than just commuting and a lot of it is town driving
 
Simple way to get <40mpg on a Prius. Just drive really short journeys in heavy traffic from cold all the time. Once the battery becomes suitably discharged, fuel economy will tank.

The honestjohn RealMPG register is a UK site. The results come from owners reporting fuel consumption based on fill-up receipts and distance driven.

And yes - I'm not a fan of the Prius Gen4's looks either.
 
Uriel said:
The honestjohn RealMPG register is a UK site. The results come from owners reporting fuel consumption based on fill-up receipts and distance driven.
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Fuelly users put it a little higher for 2016 vehicles, 65.7 mpg (UK).

http://www.fuelly.com/car/toyota/prius

The spread on vehicles is pretty wide though, roughly 49-92 mpg.

Averaging >80 mpg is perfectly possible, about 5% of cars are getting that.

On the other end only the lowest 5% of cars are getting <58 mpg. That's in complete disagreement with honestjohn.

Note that honestjohn only has 73 submissions. Fuelly for 2016 vehicles has 1,887! i.e. 26x more data to work with.
 
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Fuelly is primarily US users. In the UK, on average, we spend proportionally more time sitting in traffic with shorter average journeys. Plus, on average, our open road / highway / dual carriageway speeds are higher (only interstates are 70 in the USA). That contributes to lower typical fuel economy in the UK.

That spread is fairly typical of the difference between HonestJohn and Fuelly for most cars.

Edit: Fuelly has the following for 2016 Prius drivers in the UK: 4 cars. Average MPG(UK) of each car: 67.7, 60.8, 65.8, 69.6. Higher than HonestJohn average but within the range reported. They launched in March 2016 so haven't seen a winter yet. Therefore I expect those averages will go down (as will the one on HonestJohn).
 
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Averaging 80mpg is easy enough, here is a graph from a driver in the USA, you have to convert to imperial to compare, for example 70 mpg US is 84 imperial, the driver has 17" wheels, he's comparing actual fuel used versus what's displayed in the vehicle which will vary like every car on the planet

MPG converter http://www.calculateme.com/cGasMileage/milespergallon-us-to-imperial.htm

15dutqq.jpg
 
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Averaging 80mpg will be easy in the right conditions. A rural commute of sufficient length with little traffic and typical speeds of 20-50 mph with few stops will see 80mpg quite happily. Heck - you could probably get over 100mpg in those conditions in decent weather with a bit of effort.

Most people in the UK don't get to drive consistently in those conditions though.

And Usher - the example you show has the driver averageing about 57 miles per day. It's hardly a 12 mile round trip commute.
 
I've got a Merc C350e hybrid and love it.

It goes like stink, 0-60 5.9 secs as standard but I've had it chipped.

Clearly economy isn't my driver, it's very tax efficient so saves me a fortune in BiK tax.

If you can plug in each end of your journey I can achieve 14-18 miles on a charge depending on temperature and how much I use heated seats etc

It's fabulously smooth on motor power as you would expect.

It has various settings including "charge" which means that the petrol engine is constantly running not only to drive the vehicle but to charge the battery, this is going to deliver around 22 mpg though.
 
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