drove to Austin yesterday in one of these hybrids
November 28th, 2007 @ 09:44
Posted by: John
The gasoline motor turns off when you’re sitting at a light then the electric motor silently pushes you off. The gas engine magically restarts itself at the right place in the power curve as you accelerate. It’s smooth and it felt about like the performance of a regular all gas car it’s size. It’s genius because you don’t need to be burning gas while sitting at a light and electric motors have the perfect kind of instant torque for start and stop driving. People think locomotives are diesel but those engines power the electric motors that pull the train – they’re hybrids like these little cars.
It’s cool that, just the opposite of every other car, this one gets even better mileage in the city than on the highway because the electric motor is used for starting and stopping and low speed cruising. You don’t have to charge the batteries, they charge themselves off the wheels when you’re going downhill… BUT if you get the kit to plug it into the wall overnight you’re supposed to be able to get a lot of 30 mph driving around town in the morning for almost free without the gas engine coming on at all. Doing everything right, somebody drove one of these from New York to L.A. on a single tank of gas.
The coolest thing is the big computer screen in the dash that has different displays including one that monitors your gas mileage as a chart. Shows fuel usage right as it’s happening so you see it go up and down in different situations. Takes the driver from knowing just about nothing about fuel useage to knowing just about everything. At $3 a gallon it’s starting to pay to know. 
Habits like how aggressively you accelerate make a difference on mileage and these real time readouts make it crystal clear what that’s costing you. Hauling ass from light to light and watching your gas mileage drop in half during the process might be worth it to you at a dollar a gallon but maybe not at three bucks a gallon.
I was completely impressed. It’s a comfortable ride that’s as good as any small Toyota. I expected it not to be but it seemed plenty peppy. It takes a little getting used to to be going down a hill on the highway at 70 miles per hour and suddenly hear the engine turn off. A little unnerving the first couple of times it happens. But it gets 50 to 60 or possibly even more miles to the gallon and puts out less than half the emissions. Eddie is my buddy that owns this thing, some of you met him at my 50th birthday party. He’s a graphic designer and we were up in Austin doing a press check on a CD cover print job. He was telling me that he paid $22,000 for it but traded in his fuel inefficient older pickup for $7,000 and paid $3,000 down so his monthly payment is on $12,000 so it’s pretty low for a new car payment but the kicker is that his gas savings makes up for a nice little chunk of that. With gas prices like they are you’re talking real money here. Pretty smart. And he has a really good feeling about owning and driving it which is extra value to him. Lots of ways to look at it but with our Suburban and it’s 15 miles to the gallon as the comparison (25% of his fuel efficiency) it’s like Eddie buys gas at 25% of what we do….. 75 cents a gallon. That’s an eye opener.
email2friend
[smiley]
how can you afford to do that without any ads?
Are you going to go?
November 28th, 2007 13:03
The hybrid car I am waiting for will have a vertical shaft engine with a inertia wheel located beneath the floor. It will have 2 alternators and 2 hydraulic pumps running off the perimeter of this wheel. There will be many choices of fuels including hydrogen. The list will advance as new sources are reveled.
The car has no transmission or differential. . . only torque converters in the two rear wheels giving a perfect power to drive ratio at all times. All braking energy is returned to the inertia flywheel.
The two front wheels will be electric hubcap type motors eliminating a need for power steering and 4 wheel drive and regulating slip devises and automatic braking systems.
The car can propel itself along the future monorails built over existing highways safely and securely with the gyro stable inertia wheel driving the vertical shaft. Commuting will be just more time on your laptop.
It can be modified for a rotary wing and fly similar to a helicopter for those that qualify. The wingspan would be less than 20 ft and resemble a flying saucer.
The cars body is made from a special polyurethane plastic with a 360 degree steel band protection bumper inside the plastic. Also the batteries are located along the sides and there is only one door in the rear. Your selected seating arrangement tray comes out for loading and convenience.
The really big thing about this car when used in conjunction with like cars collision injury will be almost nonexistent.
November 28th, 2007 19:44
I work with several people who have switched to hybrids – two have the Civic, one has the Toyota Highlander and one has the Prius. Three of them traded in Suburbans and one a Crown Vic – so you know these were people who were used to some power in an automobile. But all of them are thrilled with both the performance and the comfort of their new hybrids. One of them told me they even received a significant decrease on their car insurance. Seems like a winning proposition all around!
January 9th, 2008 23:19
That dashboard would just say SLOW DOWN!!!! all the time if I was driving.