Even as it has made advances in other areas, Hyundai has lagged its more experienced competitors in fuel economy. Even the tiny Accent, with a 1.6-liter engine and automatic transmission, only managed 24 miles-per-gallon in the city and 33 on the highway in the EPA’s tests last year. A Toyota Yaris: 29 in the city, and 35 on the highway.… More →
Category: Gas Mileage
Gas Mileage
How should the Chevrolet Volt’s energy use be calculated?
GM plans to launch the Chevrolet Volt in 2010. The Volt runs on battery power for the first 40 miles or so, and after that a small gas engine will cycle on as needed to recharge the batteries. Plug-in versions of parallel hybrids, where the engine can directly power the wheel, are also coming. Earlier today I learned of an interesting discussion… More →
Where’s my car?
Back in 2001 the Toyota Altezza arrived in the U.S. as the Lexus with a price in the low 30s. The interior didn’t seem worthy of a Lexus, and the price was beyond the reach of many who would otherwise buy a small rear-drive sedan. Ever since then I’ve been waiting for a manufacture to fill an obvious hole in… More →
Filter results on TrueDelta’s Fuel Economy Survey
Sometimes when I have an idea, I wish I’d implemented it much earlier. This is one of those times. I’ve been planning all along to eventually analyze results of TrueDelta’s Fuel Economy Survey to generate figures for straight city driving, straight highway, the impact of A/C use, and so forth. Problem is, with so many variables, this is going to… More →
GM’s decision to kill its future V8: nearsighted or farsighted?
The Detroit News reported this morning that GM has decided to kill a $300 million program for a new DOHC V8 to replace the circa-1992 Northstar engine. Rising oil prices and the new CAFE standards were given as reasons. But this will leave GM without a competitive DOHC V8. So are they just successfully reading where things are heading, or over-reacting… More →
Upgraded Fuel Economy Survey
Since the Fuel Economy Survey began, the survey has asked for a miles per gallon or liters per 100 kilometers figure, depending on where you live. But a number of members emailed me asking for the ability to enter the distance traveled and amount of fuel used individually, and the price of the fuel as well. This way they could track… More →
About the left lane
I drove 700 miles yesterday, and for the most part the trip was uneventful. But while driving around DC it became painfully obvious that most drivers in that part of the country (and probably most other parts as well) either don’t know or don’t care how to properly use the highways. I’m speaking specifically about the common practice of sliding… More →
Reminder: EPA ratings will take a hit for 2008
Already I’m starting to see it: people around the Internet are criticizing 2008 models for low EPA ratings. What they’re forgetting is that the EPA has revised the methods used to calculate fuel economy ratings for 2008 model year vehicles to make the numbers more realistic.
The Economist demonstrates how not to calculate fuel economy
Over at Autoblog I read that The Economist has had a blinding flash of the obvious and discovered that a used Civic is less expensive than a new Prius. But there’s more to the story: the author also found that changing the oil and air filter boosted the used Civic’s fuel economy from 34 to 40 mpg. This set off… More →
Assumptions made by the CNW “lifetime energy cost” report
A few weeks ago I posted a critique of CNW’s lifetime energy cost report, which controversially concluded that a Prius uses up more energy per mile over its lifetime than a Hummer. My critique then was based simply on the ridiculously high cost per mile figures the report included. From this I inferred that some untenable assumptions were made by… More →