I just came upon a comparison of basically what is a Volkswagen called Skoda Octivia and the third-generation Toyota Prius against an LPG driven Chevrolet Aveo. It was made by the magazine car and driver in Spain. Now unfortunately, I do not speak Spanish so I was not sure what they were talking about. But at the end of the video which is posted on YouTube they did a comparison of fuel economy as well as the range of the cars. I thought the results were quite surprising, with The Prius getting the worst fuel economy and by far the shortest range. The fuel economy was 6.1 L per hundred kilometers and stopping at 750 km due to lack of fuel, versus 5.3 L per hundred kilometers for the Skoda TDI being able to travel 1040 km before running out of fuel and an even better fuel economy for the Chevrolet Aveo of 5.1 L per hundred kilometers with a range of 1060 km. When you consider that LPG is almost half the price of gasoline or diesel in Europe and it is actually a very clean fuel to burn it's quite surprising that the Chevrolet did that well. At least in Canada propane is not much cheaper than gasoline. With somebody who understands a little bit of Spanish could tell me what the review was all about. While I do understand that this was not the optimal conditions since it involved traveling mostly on the highway where the hybrid does not do as well, I'm still surprised it did so much worse than the turbodiesel. It's ironic that the test the hybrids on the highway in Europe were by far the vast majority of drivers in Europe to 90% city driving. Nevertheless it's an interesting video in an interesting result. I have posted a link to the video below.
Re: Toyota Prius vs Skoda Octivia vs Chevrolet Aveo Wasn't Walter D'Silva once design head for Skoda after he left Alfa Romeo? I seem to remember that.
And they tell me diesels don't clatter? I do not know.. European tests seem to do a lot of highway driving when comparing the Prius to another car (The BMW 5 series test comes to mind). I'm also not sure how get got 6.1L/100km. At a steady 70mph in the old Prius, I get 5.1L/100km. I expect the new one to be at 4.9L/100km.
Don't forget LPG is extremely bad for the engin. and Toyota should come out with a Diesel Hybrid plug in. That will really kick some serious butt as long as they get their QC right.
but how? The benefit of a petrol-electric hybrid is that the elec. motor takes care of the low-end torque and lets the petrol engine rev at its most efficient rpm (as well as allows the Atkinson cycle to run). In a diesel, you're gonna get a lotta torque from both the diesel and the elec. motor. Where's the hp? I'm not saying that I need 400hp but IIRC, a low hp, high tq motor is just as bad as a high hp, low tq motor for everyday driving. When I mean low hp, high tq, I mean a larger difference than what we're seeing in today's diesel. Again, unless you're expecting a non-turbocharged diesel.
Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 0 L/100km MPG (USA) vehicle 1 6.1 38.5 2010 Prius 2 5.3 44.4 Skoda TDI 3 5.1 46.1 Aveo LPG Euro Car and Driver Interesting, I can only get 38.5 MPG at a speed of 80 mph (128 km/h) with our 2010 Prius. Bob Wilson
Car magazines try to sell a dream: drive on the Autobahn, consume little and don't think about the daily commute into office where you are blocked in city traffic. For some reason a car must be tested on the Autobahn even when the majority of people drive in the city or on other non-Autobahn roads for most of their driving live. I don't think there is much difference in the kind of roads people take in the US and in Europe. Day in, day out we drive to work and are stuck in traffic. Then, ones or twice a year we go on holiday and do some travel in the Highway. What do we want to read about in the reviews? Being stuck in travel, going to work or being reminded about the last holidays, going fast on the highway towards a nice destination? Magazines know this, they want to sell, and so they talk about the fast track.
Right now we don't have much tq. Atleast I don't feel any. BMW they are in the process of building a diesel hybrid. As to how they combat the issue you are saying I have no idea. Even with diesel engine you still get the HP. In the honda accord diesel in the UK a 2.2L diesel gets about 150 HP and 300tq which is not bad compare to 100 HP from the Prius with the electric engine. If you add a battery to that diesel you will have more HP and even higher tq and I don't see how is that not good?
I would drive in a box full of angry hornets and sharp glass with a radio that played only John Tesh before driving in an Aveo again.
The Prius has 134 net hp. Yeah but you already have a discrepancy with 150hp and 300tq. The elec. motor on the Gen 2 puts out 295tq and the Gen 3 156tq (reduction gear and larger engine apparently makes up for the lower tq figures). That's a lotta tq going through the transmission. Plus the elec. motor is available at 0rpm which is why the Prius still feels reasonably fast despite the small engine and heavy weight (0-60 in under 10 seconds for a 1,360kg car with a 1.8 litre engine? Our Corolla with the same engine [132hp] and weighing 100kgs less takes 10 secs)
