The thing is the fuel economy only seems good if your previous car has been a silly inefficient Japanese one. Which is the case with so many buyers of these things, they trade in their Mazda 6 or Toyota product with its ancient gas guzzling 1980's 4 speed auto and think all their Christmases have come at once. Especially as despite spending so much money they rarely bother to pull out a calculator and do their own math.
I did the figures on the Prius a while ago and there was no financial advantage even if you were doing as many km's as the typical NZ Taxi driver. You can probably find the thread if you search for it.
The environmental benefit is small if any and the financial gain through fuel savings in 99.9% of NZ running conditions is little to none.
If you want a brand new car look instead at a VW/Audi/Skoda Diesel or FSI Petrol. Those do give you properly astounding fuel economy without the silly disadvantages of the Prius.
Other great economy options are BMW & Fiat/Alfa's completely variable valve technology which does give you a proper and tangible fuel economy advantage with no down side. This is not variable valve timing which is standard issue nowadays but complete individual electro/hydraulic control of lift, timing and duration even to the point of being able to turn a valve completely off when necessary.
In short the Prius is basically just marketing hype, people forget that hybrid technology is fundamentally flawed in that you lose energy to heat when transferring energy from one kind to another i.e charging the battery and driving the electric motor. While you can overcome this downfall and get a little bit of tangible benefit in grid lock and stop start heavy city traffic most of the time you are getting no benefit at all.
While Japanese Hybrids have improved they are still not viable in NZ conditions.
By the way, I am not just all theory here. My parents neighbours bought a brand new one and they couldn't match the fuel economy my folks got in their 2.0 FSI Golf which was not as efficient as the VW's you can buy now.
If fuel economy and saving money is what you are wanting to do and you want some help. Post roughly how many km's a week you do in what kind of conditions, how much you have to spend and what sort of use you have for your car i.e 4 children to cart etc. I am happy to run some actual figures on total running/ownership cost for you. I may not get to it until next week though.
bigfatmat1,
May 6, 10:08pm
some camry hybrids are approaching that with no battery replacements
bigfatmat1,
May 6, 10:10pm
and for you jazz the theory is not flawed infact typical ice losses 1/3 to 3/4 of its power in heat the heice is 1/2 the veyron losses 2000hp in heat
gedo1,
May 6, 10:25pm
Now this may interest you (if you don't have a fixed bias!)Early 2010 my wife wanted to change (update) her 2006 VW Golf GTi.Was going to get a new model.She was curious about the Prius so tried it and bought one - new.Running costs!Way down by comparison.Purchase price compared with Golf!Quite a bit less.But the kicker has been the resale value where the Golf depreciated quite substantially from new the resale of the Prius was remarkably higher.The point being that sometimes the wrong decision are made based in what we have heard and want to believe.It would be easier and use less "new" money for us to purchase a new Prius next time and cheaper than it would be to do the same with the Golf GTI.Resale value!
intrade,
May 6, 10:34pm
why on earth would you compair a golf gti with a prius. !the prius wont be as fast as a gti golf,she could have purchased a push-bike and compaired it to the prius wow amazing how mutch cheaper that would be would it not.
johnf_456,
May 6, 10:35pm
Lol nice, they do that in auckland allthe time even in traffic. I do it with the extra horns now it gives them a scare, dam j walkers.
Indeed, id rather a modern diesal turbo. Great for power to.
intrade,
May 6, 10:44pm
considering the problems you will have to fight with a modern diesel makes it use less fuel yes but repairbills will likely screw you over big time with rooted emission systems and worn out diesel injection systems from the ultra infreior diesel produced and sold in new zealand.
thejazzpianoma,
May 6, 10:54pm
What you say is quite true about internal combustion engines. However, it is completely irrelevant to the hybrid argument (unless it is a plug in and that is a different story all together and does have some merits).
You see the battery's are charged from the engine (except for a little bit from regenerative braking). So with the hybrid you still have the inefficiency of the internal combustion engine to start with.
Then when you are charging the battery you have another loss again through heat to the charging system. When you use the power from the battery you get yet another loss to the electric motors.
Now those losses are made up for in heavy start stop traffic and you get an advantage. However for the vast majority of running you get nothing, and the consumption figures reflect that.
Unfortunately I have to go but I am happy to give some verifiable fuel consumption figures to back up what I am saying.
thejazzpianoma,
May 6, 10:56pm
This is just silly. The Golf GTI is a high performance hatchback. Having compared to the standard Golf which is still quicker than a Prius I can confirm there is no advantage for typical NZ running. If you do happen to spend nearly all your time in rush hour city running I am happy to stand corrected, but then in those conditions there are likely other better alternatives anyway.
BTW I could easily be making absurd comparisons the other way by pointing out VW's 260 MPG (yes thats right) hybrid. However its smaller, not available in NZ and if you would still have to pay diesel tax.
The real answer for cheap car running is not going to silly extremes in one direction. Its in looking carefully at your needs and tailoring a vehicle to suit the specific situation.
bigfatmat1,
May 7, 12:18am
again incorrect 68% of the battery charging is fromregenerative braking also not available yet they are looking at making the prius a plug in as well to further enhance the fuel efficiency.
richardmayes,
May 7, 12:32am
But if you are able to recharge your battery using energy that would otherwise be 100% lost (heat dissipation from your brake rotors), who cares if that charging is not in itself 100% efficient! You spent money getting the car up to speed, Hybrids can at least recover some of that kinetic energy for later re-use.
As I said earlier, not even the cleverest diesel I've seen can drive the 3.7 km from the bottom of Bolton Street to the Interislander terminal with the engine switched off!
richardmayes,
May 7, 12:36am
The worst write-up I've read of any fuel-efficiency car was the BlueMotion Polo.
The test driver reported it to be a very ordinary little car, with a very underpowered little engine with no top end, coupled to a ridiculously tall gearbox, and all rolling on ultra-skinny low-friction tyres so that if you ever manage to build up a decent speed, the handling is dodgy as all hell. All this, for a pretty premium price IIRC.
They rated the little diesel Hyundai far ahead of it.
elect70,
May 7, 12:45am
Bit off topic, but I read while back BMW were working on a steam hybrid . Using manifold heat & water heat to boil ethanol in closed circuits & driving a hi & alow pressureturbinesmounted beside engine .Sounds good no expensive batteries & availableonce engine up to full temp . True energy recovery wonder it hasnt been tried before
elect70,
May 7, 12:49am
I thought they now had a "plug in" option on them , maybe only on euro models
richardmayes,
May 7, 12:57am
Bastards! This idea came to me in a daydream years ago.
I still reckon it would work best in conjunction with a battery & electric motors, so that when you suddenly want 10 seconds of full power to overtake somebody, you don't need to build up a head of steam first. (You would need this as it would be a Commodore-sized car with only about a 1500cc lump alongside all the steam pressure vessels / turbines and their plumbing in the engine room.)
gunhand,
May 7, 1:04am
Well after reading all this I would be getting none of these cars because I keep reading on here that V8 Falcons and Commodores are getting 8ltr per 100km on a regular basis. Makes 5ltr per 100km sound not that economicl if you get 8ltr per 100km out of an echo friendly V8. Whats an extra $6ish per 100km when you have all that power available.
serf407,
May 7, 1:46am
There was the $20K price stated on here for a replacement steering rack for the Toyota Prius, is this still the case ! What was the NZ allocation for hybrid Camrys -400 ! Has that been increased !
vtecintegra,
May 7, 6:08am
Not of similar size and performance though.
A BlueMotion Golf is pretty close but somewhat smaller and poorer performing, especially around town where hybrids come into their own and small turbo diesels kind of suck.
richardmayes,
May 7, 6:09am
When you're counting litres using your fingers it's hard to count higher than ten.
Hence the frequent, incredible claims made by owners of big, heavy, high-powered V8s that they somehow use less fuel than micro-cars.
gunhand,
May 7, 6:13am
Im glad im not the only one who has noticed these claims. Just because the fuel useage gauge flashes 8ltr per100 while on a perfectly straight road with a tail wind or going down a slope dosnt make it so. I know, ive tried several times to achieve these figures in big cars.
by_hdt,
May 7, 6:33am
My $6500 supercharged V6 Calais averages 9.8L/100Km and goes as low as 6.9L/100Km on a trip (and I don't hang around either), I am yet to see the reason to downgrade to a slower, smaller, far more expensive car to save 2-3L/100Km. Ill stick with my acres of interior room, huge boot, and the ability to tow 1600kg, my 10 CD stacker and my leather and wood trim thank you.
And before the doubters say its BS, YES it is the AVERAGE, and YES I have checked the trip computer against the actual figures obtained the old fashioned way and they are IDENTICAL.
bigfatmat1,
May 7, 6:37am
is a debunked myth for an angel would be able to confirm
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