How far travelling a Hybrid with no petrol

All hybrid drivers tend to drive slowly everywhere. Odd, considering how little fuel they are claimed to use.

Quite funny on the M4 to Heathrow. All the Uber Prius in the inside lane at 50 mph - and all the black cabs steaming past them.

A 10 year old Ford Mondeo can get that. 55mpg average though obviously won't match a hybrid in city stop-start traffic.

I know, I was trying to point out that driving style makes a lot of difference in a hybrid.

The uber drivers need all the economy they can get, black cabs earn plenty and so can afford the hit on fuel

Prius: 50mpg or more TX4: 35mpg if you are lucky

Is this for real?? Only a mile on battery?? WTF Surely you want enough electric propulsion to get you to a filling station of being green, through a town and out the other side. I cant really see how there can be much saving in running costs A bit of saving on regenerative braking and maybe a bit more smoothing out engine demand I suppose.

It's rather a myth that Uber drivers can't make reasonable money. And that all black cab drivers make a fortune.

I discovered after spending years towing my race car to events that driving more slowly on motorways is much less stressful and has virtually no effect on travel times, so I always do it now.

"Driving style makes a lot of difference."

There. Fixed that for you.

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FWIW, this is most certainly not true in a LEAF.

You obviously have no idea how hybrids are supposed to work.

Some of the latest more hybrids can get about 20 miles on battery alone at reasonable but not high speed. They are fitted with a 8.8kwh battery pack.

116 years ago a columbia electric could about 3 miles on battery power with a top speed of 14mph, really we have not progressed an enormous amount.

Absolutely correct. I had assumed a greater proportion of electric power capacity, the possibility of home charging and a "get you out of trouble" petrol engine. To be honest, never really looked at them before and now I have a vague interest with the possible fossil fuel vehicle ban in the future.

Is there a name for the technology nearer to what I described? I just don't feel I could ever be comfortable with purely battery power with the risk of running flat on a journey, or touring holidays which we enjoy currently.

"Range extender".

That's not quite accurate. The Prius (certainly Gen2, I think Gen1 as well) starts the engine after 7 seconds even if you're stationary. This is to warm up the catalytic converter for emissions control purposes - warmup takes about 1/2 mile under normal driving. The EU Gen2 has an EV button that overrides the engine start to allow pure-electric mode from cold; the US version doesn't have it (CARB rules), not sure about the Gen1.

At the end of the day, it's a 1.5l engine with about 1.2 tonne behind it. Driving that at 85mph isn't going to be the most efficient. At about 60mph it's a lot better.

Theo

Not sure what you fixed?

The extra weight of generators, motors and batteries also 'makes a lot of difference'.

A Leaf is not a hybrid, there is no engine to use as a backup system. Therefore the calculus is rather different.

Theo

What you're saying is a car where the main motive force is the battery/motor with a small petrol engine to recharge efficiently as you go along (range increaser). That doesn't seem to be the main focus of manufacturers at the minute.

Yes when I said about needing to take into account charge in battery I hadn't realised that the battery in petrol hybrid had such a small capacity. I'd assumed that it could manage maybe 50 continuous miles on its charge so as to not require the engine to be used at all while in a city.

that should read 30 miles.