Electrical cars

There are loads of Prius(s) in london these days and I've yet to see one driven 'aggressively' Or even spiritedly. I reckon the drivers are glued to the consumption gauge in an effort to justify their purchase. I took an early one to Aberdeen with a full load aboard and only managed

28 mpg. Driven hard - but then it had to be to just keep up. Perhaps the later one is better. It was also a boring car to drive on the open road. Pretty poor steering, handling and comfort. It certainly seemed to be designed with town only speeds in mind.

I doubt someone who only drives along country lanes could be regarded as 'average'.

Stuff and nonsense. 4X4's are invariably owned by women without a clue how to drive who use the 4X4 to protect themselves against crashes caused by their own shitty driving.

Um, I own a 4x4 and a pair of testicles.

Not arguing about the 'without a clue how to drive and using the 4X4 to protect yourself against crashes caused by your own shitty driving.' bit then?

Your choice... ;-)

Is it really free of the congestion charge? Because it seems to me that however it's powered, and however good or bad its fuel consumption may be, this does not affect its contribution to congestion. Unless of course it's extremely small.

Steve

the prius is 104 kgkm or whatever the ratings are. you can see all the exempt vehicles at powershift.org. the prius is definitely exempt at present, so 8 pounds a day savings in London cc zone

An LPG car would make much more sense than a Prius.

an lpg powered prius would be even better !!

Some could, some of us use the big heavy 4x4 some of the time and its not economically or practically sound to have 2 vehicles. Oh and our landcruiser gets 28mpg, my little 1.1 peugeot 205 (800kg) got 35 at most. Oh and dont forget the environmental impact of manufacturing new cars....

Hybrids are pointless, in REAL use they get no more mpg than my partners megane coupe (1.6 petrol) and are clunkier and more complex. you ask any of the US prius owners - they report 22-28mpg (us) when its cold because to have the heaters on you need to have the engine running all the time anyway.

I drive a Honda Insight, and it's given me 85.5mpg overall since I've owned it. My record trip was a little over 104mpg door-to-door (Matlock to Long Eaton; one passenger, minimal cargo; warm, dry weather; I cruised in relaxed manner among the HGVs on the motorway section of the trip).

My previous car was a Seat Arosa with the TDi PD engine. 64mpg in the literature, but I didn't get that much. I think the driver feedback on the Insight (the instantaneous mpg bar chart, and mpg on the odometer and trip meters) helped me to meet (exceed, even) the book figure.

Martin.

-- Can you spare three minutes for Daria? -

campaign to get every episode of Daria released on DVD.I do not intend to imply that any views expressed above represent the policyof any organisation, nor do I warrant any information to be accurate.

You'll not get a UK Prius owner to admit to less than 50mpg+. Even although Autocar gave the lie to this. Dunno why.

The new demonstrator was showing 40mpg, this was a new car (sub 1000 miles) being used hard by many different drivers. I repeat, my friends one with

13000 has a 'lifetime' mpg of 57 mpg. This is not owner calculated, this is a figure you (or anyone that has one) can look up on the computer at any time, it is not an instantaneous figure. So unless Toyota have added in some deliberate fudging of the number crunching capabilities of the computer then I can see no reason to disbelieve it. I am certain that with some stupid driving you can get the mpg down to the twenties, but you can do that with any car, try booting your sd1 around, it will return 8mpg if you are lucky.

Mrcheerful.

Mrcheerful ( snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Not all were using it hard, if it was showing 40mpg average. I averaged not much over 35mpg, IIRC, when I test-drove one. I wasn't pussy-footing, but I certainly wasn't bouncing it off the scenery.

Was I driving much harder than my normal style? No, not much. I got an average of about 27mpg from my petrol-turbo-auto XM.

Probably because the sort of driving the Autocar test gave wasn't representative of how people drive them in real life.

Seems the simplest explanation to me anyway.

cheers, clive

And the figures they give are ... intriguing. Just have a look at

and note that they claim 135 mpg equivalent efficiency.

A car engine at optimum operating point might make 35% efficiency. A gas-fired power station does about 45%. Add transmission losses and storage losses in the car and it is difficult to see how the Tesla Roadster can possibly be more efficient (from fossil fuel to gearbox) than a petrol powered car. So if they stuck a petrol engine in, they'd be getting 135 miles to the gallon.

Yeah, right. Pass me a bargepole.

Ian

I live in the middle of the Scottish countryside. Apart from local farmers who need to drive on fields, nobody has a 4wd car. It's completely unnecessary. The cars which live nearest me are a Micra, a Reliant Rebel, a Fiesta, a Polo and a Golf. The idea that "outside the city" is a scary place requiring Tonka Trucks to cope is complete, utter, unmitigated bollocks.

The funniest thing about the 4x4 owners I encounter - invariably visitors - is how paranoid that are about passing by putting one of their precious wheels on the verge. They come lumbering along single track roads in their ridiculous tanks and, when they meet a normal car, expect it to pull on to the verge to let them pass. Dream on, baby. I've stopped the engine and read several pages of a book before one of them got the point before now, and I'll do it again...

And ... relax.

Ian

You don't normally drive at the optimum effeciency point.

Ian ( snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

I strongly suspect they're working it on *financial* efficiency. How many miles-per-buck...

Oooh, you *sceptic*, you...

Ian ( snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

You are not wrong.

My mother used to commute over the hills from the Peak District to the edge of Manchester daily for a decade or more, then over to Liverpool for a few years. All in a real meaty-off-roader succession of vehicles - RWD Cavalier Sportshatch (Manta), Mk1 Astra GTE, Saab 900, Rover 800, then two Xantias.

Only time I remember her having to give up due to weather was when she spun and wrote-off the Cav in a small lake, then in (IIRC) the Rover when the snow plough got stuck in the snow right in front of her. OK, sometimes she had to amend her route slightly, but not by much.

Hell, I recall one of the local farmers using a Marina pickup for many years to take the feed out to the livestock.