How fuel efficient are cars such as Prius in real world driving compared to other cars?

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › How fuel efficient are cars such as Prius in real world driving compared to other cars?

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348 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1782915 16-May-2017 08:03

Athlonite:

are you working and earning money if you answered yes then stop worrying about how much gas you use or sell your car and take a bus

True !!!

No matter if the fuel prices be $4 per litre, still people are gonna fuel up.... right

I Eat Dumbbells for Breakfast

surfisup1000

5288 posts

Uber Geek

#1782922 16-May-2017 08:22

KillerHulk:

Athlonite:

are you working and earning money if you answered yes then stop worrying about how much gas you use or sell your car and take a bus

True !!!

No matter if the fuel prices be $4 per litre, still people are gonna fuel up.... right

Or false.

A recent study predicts mechanical engines will be gone in 8 years...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/news/92592333/Petrol-cars-will-vanish-in-8-years-says-US-report

I've thought that petrol cars will become obsolete overnight when electric cars with a 300-400kph range and 5 minute charging become affordable.

At the pace technology moves it is conceivable 8 years could do it.

dickytim

2514 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1782926 16-May-2017 08:30

surfisup1000:

KillerHulk:

Athlonite:

are you working and earning money if you answered yes then stop worrying about how much gas you use or sell your car and take a bus

True !!!

No matter if the fuel prices be $4 per litre, still people are gonna fuel up.... right

Or false.

A recent study predicts mechanical engines will be gone in 8 years...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/news/92592333/Petrol-cars-will-vanish-in-8-years-says-US-report

I've thought that petrol cars will become obsolete overnight when electric cars with a 300-400kph range and 5 minute charging become affordable.

At the pace technology moves it is conceivable 8 years could do it.

Technology can move fast if there is a pay off, in 8 years the technology will still be newish for long range fast charging so expensive.

I can replace my V8 with another one for $20,000, a cheap run about that can get 8l/100km can be had for $3,000 so an electric car has to make sense for those scenarios. That is a lot of petrol even at $4.00/l before it is affordable.

You can replace an ICE car with a EV for new car buyers but not for the second hand market, which is huge in NZ.

timmmay

20574 posts

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#1782928 16-May-2017 08:34

surfisup1000:

Or false.

A recent study predicts mechanical engines will be gone in 8 years...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/news/92592333/Petrol-cars-will-vanish-in-8-years-says-US-report

I've thought that petrol cars will become obsolete overnight when electric cars with a 300-400kph range and 5 minute charging become affordable.

At the pace technology moves it is conceivable 8 years could do it.

That would require a HUGE increase in electricity generation. That probably requires both centralised charging plus edge generation and storage with solar. Creating that many batteries will be an issue as well, and then refreshing them every what, 3-5 years?

Long range driving will require longer breaks for charging, but those trips are rare, and charging is getting faster.

I believe it will likely happen sooner or later, but 8 years seems ambitious.

davidcole

6029 posts

Uber Geek

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#1782929 16-May-2017 08:34

surfisup1000:

KillerHulk:

Athlonite:

are you working and earning money if you answered yes then stop worrying about how much gas you use or sell your car and take a bus

True !!!

No matter if the fuel prices be $4 per litre, still people are gonna fuel up.... right

Or false.

A recent study predicts mechanical engines will be gone in 8 years...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/news/92592333/Petrol-cars-will-vanish-in-8-years-says-US-report

I've thought that petrol cars will become obsolete overnight when electric cars with a 300-400kph range and 5 minute charging become affordable.

At the pace technology moves it is conceivable 8 years could do it.

Nah no way. I mean our stupid government is replacing electric "diesels" with proper diesels. The ICE wont die. Hopefully a lot of passenger cars will go EV or close, but unless worldwide governments decide to banhammer the ICE, I can't see it going for the next 15 - 20 years

Previously known as psycik

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WyleECoyoteNZ

1049 posts

Uber Geek

#1782964 16-May-2017 09:43

The problem in NZ, is our average age of vehicles on the road is nearly 15 years old.

In the UK, it's around 7.

Kiwi's tend to buy cars and hold onto them, meaning for new cars, it takes a while for them to trickle through to the used car market.

MikeAqua

7773 posts

Uber Geek

#1782998 16-May-2017 10:37

The most popular new vehicles in NZ are utes and SUVs. It's difficult to see owners of utes and large SUVs going EV any time soon ...

Second hand imports might be a different story.

The purchase price of EVs is probably still a barrier. The biggest costs are depreciation and finance (or opportunity cost if you pay cash). For that reason entry price into an EV will remain a significant disadvantage. I think when EVs are cheaper to buy they will take off for use as daily runners - school work, shopping.

Of course it would still be preferable for people to use public transport or walk.

Mike

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timmmay

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#1783004 16-May-2017 10:56

MikeAqua:

Of course it would still be preferable for people to use public transport or walk.

Public transport is a PITA. I live in a suburb not far from Wellington CBD and it massively increases the time it takes me to get to work.

If I took a train to work it's 10 minutes walk to the train station, 25 minutes on the train, then 15 minutes walk at the other end, 50 minutes. Buses that stop close near my house are infrequent, you have to walk 5 minutes at least. So 10 minutes walk inc a buffer so you don't miss it, 25 minutes trip, and a couple of minutes at the other end, 40 minutes. I can't actually walk that distance due to a foot injury.

It takes me 12 minutes to drive, saving me one to one and a quarter hours per day. That's HUGE.

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#1783037 16-May-2017 11:40

Just to add a few round numbers for context since I think it's quite hard to visualise what the real world dofference in fuel economies actually mean.

If the average car does around 20,000 kms per year, the average economy of a Prius is 4.5l/100kms, then a Prius will consume around 900l of fuel each year.

Compare that to a more inefficient model that gets, say, 6l/100km, that consumes around 1200l of fuel per year.

If fuel costs around $2l then the difference using a Prius is around $600/year in fuel saved.

Or to look at it another way, a 1l/100km difference in fuel efficiency equates to roughly $400/year in savings for a typical car. More if you drive more, less if you drive less.

I happen to drive around 15,000km per year, and my current car gets around 5km/100l so the savings for me are fairly immaterial.

MikeAqua

7773 posts

Uber Geek

#1783041 16-May-2017 11:52

timmmay:

MikeAqua:

Of course it would still be preferable for people to use public transport or walk.

Public transport is a PITA. I live in a suburb not far from Wellington CBD and it massively increases the time it takes me to get to work.

If I took a train to work it's 10 minutes walk to the train station, 25 minutes on the train, then 15 minutes walk at the other end, 50 minutes. Buses that stop close near my house are infrequent, you have to walk 5 minutes at least. So 10 minutes walk inc a buffer so you don't miss it, 25 minutes trip, and a couple of minutes at the other end, 40 minutes. I can't actually walk that distance due to a foot injury.

It takes me 12 minutes to drive, saving me one to one and a quarter hours per day. That's HUGE.

That's not a generic problem with public transport - your route is clearly poorly provided for. Contrastingly for the routes I regularly travel in Welly, frequent public transport gets me within 1 block of work/home with no service changes required. I typically work on-board so it's productive time.

My point really was that the more people we can get on public transport the better.

If we swap combustion for EVs and nothing else changes we will still have most of the problems we have now. EVs create just as much congestion as petrol vehicles, they still need to be parked, they are no less prone to accidents. They do cause less pollution - less noise and no exhaust fumes.

Mike

dylanp

840 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#1783079 16-May-2017 12:55

We have a 2010 Prius, third generation one with the 1.8L engine. It's great. Deciding factors when purchasing were safety, efficiency, and expected life. Fuel efficiency is typically between 4.1 and 4.8 / 100Ks, depending on how we're driving etc. I've switched from 91 to 98 recently, but that seems to have lowered the efficiency which was a bit surprising (as reported by the display on the dash), will leave it another month or so and see how it goes.

The combination of petrol and electric is very useful for Auckland traffic, and with the 1.8L there's enough power to set the cruise control and just go over the Bombay Hills or whatever. I like it being silent when we stop, then normally starting with the electric and then the petrol kicking in when getting up some speed.

At low speed need to be aware of everyone around as it's so quiet - the drivethrough at Mitre 10 is a bit classic, need to have the window down and say "excuse me" out the window so you don't startle people.

If we were buying a second car would definitely look towards the Nissan Leaf etc.

mkaresh

1 post

Wannabe Geek

#1783505 17-May-2017 09:16

richms:

IcI:

@tommyboy:

@LostBoyNZ: ... http://www.truedelta.com ...
...

For some reason, the link to truedelta.com seems to use LostBoyNZ's session. Please edit your link.

Wow that is a crap website to do that. I even pressed the logout button and retried it and it was still logged in.

I run the website in question, and just wanted to clear up what happened here.

We conduct a quarterly car reliability survey. To make it as easy as possible to participate, we send direct links to the survey that automatically log the member in. Otherwise, far fewer people would participate, as many people have trouble remembering or keeping track of their login info.

Each time such a link is clicked, a new session is created.

A member then inadvertently copied and pasted the link from the email for the survey when posting to this forum. In the 12 years I've been conducting the survey, this has happened two or three other times--it's very rare, and has never caused any real trouble.

If someone does get into some else's account and makes changes, these are easily reversible. We don't store any sensitive information, not even members' names.

The links don't include the password at all, so a password change does not affect them. I've made a different change to the account to disable the previously posted link.

RUKI

1402 posts

Uber Geek

#1783541 17-May-2017 09:58

My Prius C (aka Aqua in Japan) real consumption around Auckland is 4.1L/100km (as seen on two consecutive tank fill & which coincide with car's computer stats). When cruising on SH16 to West Auckland using Cruise Control - it is ~3.8l/100 -contrary to some people saying it is worse on motorway vs city.

Prius, Camry Hybrid, Lexus Hybrid, Honda Hybrid owners, EV enthusiasts and all others who use batteries (may need testing or rebuild) - you may wish to bookmark my site:

www.hybrids.co.nz - Battery Testing Lab in Auckland

https://www.facebook.com/toyotahybridbatteryexperts/

RUKI

1402 posts

Uber Geek

#1783598 17-May-2017 11:16

dylanp:

We have a 2010 Prius, third generation one with the 1.8L engine. It's great. Deciding factors when purchasing were safety, efficiency, and expected life......

I have published recently animated GIF from two 2010 Prius (Z30) battery tests on my site front page. They've made >320000 kms before original battery failed. That is more than twice the promised range as warranted by Toyota.

Nissan on the other hand had also promised "some" longevity for Leaf batteries. However real life examples show premature battery failures in GEN1 and in GEN2.

It is too early to make any predictions, but my gut feeling is that Leaf's batteries could significantly loose it's capacity down to non-practical range half-way before making 320000km .... There had already been 2013 Leaf with very low ODO and one failed module in Auckland.

Have anyone asked themselves this: Why would frugal Japanese start getting rid of 3 year old Leafs with low ODO for very discounted prices? Those are now becoming very popular in New Zealand with many car dealers as margins are way bigger than with ICE (told by those who import them).

On the other hand you would have difficulty to source high grade (non damaged) second hand Toyota hybrid with low ODO from Japan for low price.

Perhaps Japanese remember that Toyota Prius showed it's reliability from 1997. Nissan had not demonstrated it yet with their EV from 2012...

frednz

1467 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1784196 18-May-2017 13:07

RUKI:

dylanp:

We have a 2010 Prius, third generation one with the 1.8L engine. It's great. Deciding factors when purchasing were safety, efficiency, and expected life......

I have published recently animated GIF from two 2010 Prius (Z30) battery tests on my site front page. They've made >320000 kms before original battery failed. That is more than twice the promised range as warranted by Toyota.

Nissan on the other hand had also promised "some" longevity for Leaf batteries. However real life examples show premature battery failures in GEN1 and in GEN2.

It is too early to make any predictions, but my gut feeling is that Leaf's batteries could significantly loose it's capacity down to non-practical range half-way before making 320000km .... There had already been 2013 Leaf with very low ODO and one failed module in Auckland.

Have anyone asked themselves this: Why would frugal Japanese start getting rid of 3 year old Leafs with low ODO for very discounted prices? Those are now becoming very popular in New Zealand with many car dealers as margins are way bigger than with ICE (told by those who import them).

On the other hand you would have difficulty to source high grade (non damaged) second hand Toyota hybrid with low ODO from Japan for low price.

Perhaps Japanese remember that Toyota Prius showed it's reliability from 1997. Nissan had not demonstrated it yet with their EV from 2012...

So, when do you think Nissan will starting selling new Leafs again, some of the above would put me off buying a second-hand Leaf!

And, if the battery of a Leaf needs replacing, are these available in NZ and what would they cost to buy and install?

And here's an interesting article about odometer checks:

http://www.odocheck.co.nz/FAQ.htm

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