40 mpg Prius vs 50 mpg European Diesel cars

Makes me feel quite smug, Jean.

interesting, anyone know what causes better mileage in winter?

higher density of fuel due to cold? not running a/c? lower motor winding resistance due to cold?

is this a common phenomenon?

is it true for non-hybrid cars, or only hybrid cars?

Right, and recovering energy in the process, energy that can be used on the up-side.

It isn't true for hybrid cars if you winter where the snow falls.

According to the information on this site

there are 228 batteries roughly the size of a D-cell battery. There is a picture of the battery pack on the site.

I'm not sure that hybrid vehicles get better fuel economy in the winter than in the summer. For conventional internal combustion engines, the air is denser in cold weather so theoretically, the air-fuel mixture burns more completely. The engine takes longer to warm up in the winter so the air-fuel mixture is enriched a little longer so in the real world, most people tend to get better fuel economy in warmer weather.

I was in DaNang during the TET offensive. I had been scheduled for a short TDY to Hue, but it was postponed because of the anticipated offensive that only we MI types believed was going to happen. That was very fortunate because everyone in the office that I would have been at was either killed or captured by the NVA.

-- Michelle

Thanks, bookmarked for later consumption. I'm told by the service manager at my dealer the battery pack is surrounded by computers and not user serviceable. Amazing technology and I think it will only get better.

I have a friend who has a hybrid Highlander and likes it. He just checked mileage in city driving and it was 36 mpg city driving. Not bad for a vehicle of that size and weight. I just had my 04 Sienna on a road trip this week and I checked the mileage, 27.63 MPG, also not bad for a 4400 lb vehicle, gas only. I'm a prudent driver which helps.

Amazing luck. I'm happy we both made it out alive. I hope to make it back to the Vietnam memorial at least once more in my lifetime.

You know, in my Passat (which I'm going to sell), I always seemed to have so much energy left when I came to a stop (even when I started braking/slowing WAY back), that I found myself thinking about that a lot....

You can go to toyota.com and look at Prius faq's and info about hybrid technology to learn why the Prius does not offer optional battery packs, plug-in chargers, etc., even the response to a question about whether the Ford Escape uses Toyota's technology (it does).

It is natural human nature for people to think that their ideas are better than what the automakers have designed and built, but in most cases, the automotive engineers have thought everything through pretty thoroughly. Other factors to keep in mind are the marketability of a product, production and retail costs, and utility of the product.

Okay, I see his point. Fair enough, if the flexibility you go on to describe can be made to work.

My short-term expectation is that battery technology will shrink the current pack. This would (a) release more space in the rear of the car (for normal uses like carting around random rubbish) and/or (b) allow more battery capacity in much the same volume.

Well, I can tell you this with a lot of certainty, large piston aircraft engines produce much more power at low temperatures than at high temperatures and the reason is that the air is much denser when cold than warm.

These engines have MAP gauges (Manifold Air Pressure...they're supercharged) and in summer they'll reach their maximum MAP before they reach their maximum 'torque', while in winter they reach max torque well before max MAP...quite a large difference...(this is at 'take-off' power)

The temp of the fuel apparently makes not much difference because we only used one weight for fuel winter and summer, it was 7.2 pounds per Imperial gallon (very high octane fuel). The aircraft held 6,640 gallons and if temp had mattered much then we'd have needed to take it into consideration in those large numbers...

yeah, I wonder what the corporate image makers were thinking with that name? Is it supposed to suggest anything at all?

The only association that 'Prius' brings to my mind is 'Priapus', but maybe that's just me?

"recharges."

Oh, I do not think I am smarter than Toyota's engineers. I figure they are thinking about this or have thought about it and the idea has been at least temporarily shelved under the heading of "infeasible" for reasons I don't know or "unmarketable, except to that DH character and a few loons like him."

:-)

I will check the faq, though, and see what they had to say. I hadn't realized they would bother to put up a faq that included speculative items like this.

*** Posted via a free Usenet account from ***

According to the faq section of Toyota's web site, "Prius" is derived from the Latin prefix meaning "to go before"

It is not true, the real thing is that the Prius has lower mpg's at winter, it is because it's main target is to be a close to zero emission vehicle, so at colder weather the catalyzer needs more gases going through it to keep at good work temperature to avoid contamination.

escribió en el mensaje news: snipped-for-privacy@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...

You would still have your petrol engine for times when the battery got low. But at least you could arrange to always start out with a full charge. If you did a lot of short journeys, it would vastly reduce overall fuel consumption.

Oh, I do not think I am smarter than Toyota's engineers. I figure they are

Toyota has a reputation among the public and automotive press for making good cars. Toyota's reputation among automakers is that of being a moneymaking machine and being perhaps the best in the world at "doing business." i can tell you from firsthand experience that Toyota gives thought to every actioin.

I've often thought that Toyota should have designed and marketed the Highlander, RX 400h, Camry, GS, and LS hybrids for good fuel economy yet the emphasis for these vehicles is more on performance than fuel economy because Toyota is aware the hybrid powertrain does not make sense from a pure dollars and cents view. Rather than market to people who are trying to save money, they market to people with money who want performance and reasonable fuel economy.