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I'll be interested to see now the new Hyundai Ioniq in 15in rim form does (note that KIA Niro only comes with 16in or 18in rims and emits high CO2/worse mpg), particularly as the downside generally for both cars is the low speed ride, similar to the apparent issue on all other hybrids such as the Prius.
I wonder if the decision to go for higher profile 15in rims/tyres will prove a good one - it might tempt me if their dual clutch system proves reliable and usable (not many have yet), given the CVT transmissions used in Toyotas and Hondas appear to not be well regarded, just tollerated by owners. No 'drivers cars' yet amongst the affordable end of the market with at least some decent low speed comfort. Still perhaps a way to go before they replace full-on petrol/diesel vehicles.
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I found my Prius (1.5) to give excellent fuel economy whilst being relaxing to drive. It should be noted that they are less polluting from the exhaust than diesels. This seems to be a factor so many diesel car drivers forget. Yes I owned a diesel too.
As for the CVT type transmission it's a great way to get the best out of their setup, 2 electric motor/generators and a Atkinson cycle engine. I found it easy enough to live with, just let the car get on with it, don't fight it go with it. If you use a Scangauge and learn how the car works you can get some great MPG with a little effort. But then that's true of 'normal' cars too.
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It should be noted that they are less polluting from the exhaust than diesels.
That's the typical sanctimonious nonsense regularly heard from Pious ... sorry, I mean Prius drivers.
Just where exactly do you think the electricity comes from that you charge the car up with, unicorn f***s ?
I suggest you go and have a look at a power station. Just because the pollution isn't coming out of your exhaust pipe, doesn't mean you aren't creating it.
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At 70 mph on the motorway any Pius (or Auris hybrid for that matter) pumps out just as much polution as any other 1800cc petrol engined car.
In truth I would wager that my 1.4 Leon TSi polutes less at 70mph.
The only time the Pius polutes less is when its running on electricery and stange as it might seem that has to be produced in the main by nuclear or fossil fuel power stations.
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No Auris has the facility to charge from the mains. Some Prius models do, but the emissions are remote from the streets, and probably better controlled than the shambolic car situation where the MoT doesn't measure NOx or particulates.
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I think they are worst for polution, as the drivers tend to drive slower than speed limit holding up drivers trying to get to the limit, as for taxi drivers with prius dawdling along they are a pain
almost as annoying as cyclists,though at least they do move fast
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People are slowly starting to realise that there is a particulate problem with direct injection petrol engines. They really should also have a particulate filter, just as diesels do (or should do).
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People are slowly starting to realise that there is a particulate problem with direct injection petrol engines. They really should also have a particulate filter, just as diesels do (or should do).
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/volkswagen-group-fit-particulate-filters-all-petrol-engines-2017
Funny you should say that!
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"Just where exactly do you think the electricity comes from that you charge the car up with, unicorn f***s ?"
You obviously don't know how an hydrid works - the electricity is generated by braking, over--run, etc. - i.e., it's using the electricity that all cars generate, but non-hydrids waste.
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"Just where exactly do you think the electricity comes from that you charge the car up with, unicorn f***s ?"
You obviously don't know how an hydrid works - the electricity is generated by braking, over--run, etc. - i.e., it's using the electricity that all cars generate, but non-hydrids waste.
What is a hydrid, please?
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What is a hydrid, please?
A hybrid is a total con.
Their owners believe they are saving the planet but in reality they are simply living in cloud cockoo land.
All cars polute, end of arguement.
Simply sticking a duracell battery in the boot and a hybrid badge on the back of an 1800 petrol car is not going to save the planet.
Most of the public realise this but some will carry on believing.
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Indeed - its the source of the polution that most people worry about, i.e. near to people at street level. In the end, motive power is produced by burning *something*, except for a small proportion of the electricity produced by solar panels and wind/wave power and exported back to the grid.
What some people happily buying full-on electric (as opposed to plug-in or std hybrids) cars may not understand is that of the electricity it consumes, about 70% of it is lost through inefficiencies in the generating and transmission of it from generating source to the socket.
Hopefully as clean generating technologies improve performance/efficiency at converting solar/wind/wave energy into electricty, and similarly battery (or some new equivalent that doesn't require complex manufacturing and lots of nasty chemicals as batteries do) technology, then generating nearby to where you'd charge your electric car would be the most efficient. Using regenerative braking etc to harvest waste energy (which would've ended up as heat or noise [eventually turning into heat also]) is also useful in increasing efficiency in vehicles, whether electric or not.
To be fair to 'green' car owners, as long as most/dceent proportion of your driving (and if you do a reasonable amount of it too) is in jig-jog traffic/towns at slow speeds, then they are less polluting (using electricity generated by burning fossil fuels) than diesels. If you do most of driving out-of town and above 30mph, then they are a waste of time and money as the efficiecy gains compared to petrol/diesel are lost due to the others' increased fuel efficiency at higher speeds and lower weight.
My problem is that (currently) my commute (most of my driving, c. 9k miles pa) is about 12 miles of free-flowing (70mph) dual carriageway and 5 miles or so of variable tarffic - outside the school holidays and on Fridays its mostly slow moving, often jig-jog traffic, otherwise not that bad, with up to another 3k miles p.a. in reasonable traffic on weekends, work trips and holidays to Cornwall.
I'm not really sure if that makes hybrids (of both hues) worthwhile, especially if I moved jobs/careers (not certain either way) at some point whereby I had different/no use for a commuting car - some years whilst working in London I've only done 2k miles! Paying upwards of £20k for a new hybrid, or far higher for a full electric car (not worth it for me due to lack of range, relatively slow charging and no accessible charging facilities at home/work and not many ones out and about either) would be a high risk for me, especially when the cars in question aren't particularly quick, good handling or nice to look at (aside from the Ioniq externally, ok internally) compared to their fossil-fueled competition. I definitely wouldn't consider a second hand one unless it was an ex-demo or pre-reg car.
I'll probably end up chickening out and buying another petrol-engined car, maybe an automatic this time for ease of driving in the slow traffic. Maybe the next one after that, when the technology has really matured...
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Many thanks for such a well-argued post, Andy. As so often it's a matter of horses for courses: hybrids make a lot of sense if your driving is almost all in town, but there's very little benefit from them on the open road, either in terms of performance or of economy / pollution.
It'll be interesting to see how the technology 'matures' as no doubt it will. The Audi A3 e-tron and VW Golf GTE are a step forward from the Prius, as the electric motor is mated with the excellent 1.4 TSI engine giving good performance and economy: but at the moment they're much too expensive to buy to give value for money.
Too expensive....don't sell in big numbers....prices don't come down. We'll only see major changes in car buying trends if someone finds a way round this particular circle.
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We'll only see major changes in car buying trends if someone finds a way round this particular circle.
Wrong metaphor, Avant - the makers are all going round it now. We need to find a way off it, or maybe to square it ... :-)
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There are MAJOR improvements in methods of electricity storage - mainly capaictors using graphene - which will transform battery technology.. Like increase range from c 100 to 400 miles AND reduce battery weight.
www.graphene-info.com/graphene-supercapacitors
I suspect this debate will have been decided in 10 years time in favour of elctric cars.
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There are MAJOR improvements in methods of electricity storage - mainly capaictors using graphene - which will transform battery technology.. Like increase range from c 100 to 400 miles AND reduce battery weight.
www.graphene-info.com/graphene-supercapacitors
I suspect this debate will have been decided in 10 years time in favour of elctric cars.
Sounds great, until you have a bit of a careful read (I'm a scientist, and weasel words are very easily noticed).
For example :
Graphene-based supercapacitors are said to store almost as much energy as lithium-ion batteries, charge and discharge in seconds and maintain all this over tens of thousands of charging cycles
"are said to store almost as much energy as Li-ion batteries" .. Just read that carefully, and then be critical.
Ask yourself if it reads like if it's an advance on Li-ion batteries or not.
Yes, the fast charge / discharge and lack of drop in capacity would be good, but from the critical read of it, they don't store as much energy as Li-ion batteries.
Two words destroy electric cars. Range anxiety.
In a few months, we're off up to Mallaig in the Highlands. It's a 415 mile trip, door to door. I can fill up the (horrible diesel) BMW 5 miles from home, and travel all the way up there. No worries about running out of fuel, or planning stops that last for hours for a recharge, or the charging stations being in use by someone else, or the charging stations being out of use, I just drive. We can stop in Fort William (or elsewhere) to top up the tank, we can stop for a bite to eat and a coffee wherever we want. Even if we didn't stop, I'd still have 100+ miles of range when I get to Mallaig.
Mainstream EVs are great - as long as you never want to go more than 30 miles from home. As soon as you get further away than that, you've got to start stressing and planning charging facilities to get you back home.
Hybrids will destroy EVs. But hybrids are only really economical if, again, they're used on short trips and recharged. Use the petrol engine and they're no cleaner than a 'normal' petrol-engined car - in fact they're worse, because you're lugging around all those batteries !
But whether hybrid or EV, all you're doing is pushing the pollution away from your tailpipe, and out of a power station instead.
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There are MAJOR improvements in methods of electricity storage - mainly capaictors using graphene - which will transform battery technology.. Like increase range from c 100 to 400 miles AND reduce battery weight.
www.graphene-info.com/graphene-supercapacitors
I suspect this debate will have been decided in 10 years time in favour of elctric cars.
Sounds great, until you have a bit of a careful read (I'm a scientist, and weasel words are very easily noticed).
For example :
Graphene-based supercapacitors are said to store almost as much energy as lithium-ion batteries, charge and discharge in seconds and maintain all this over tens of thousands of charging cycles
"are said to store almost as much energy as Li-ion batteries" .. Just read that carefully, and then be critical.
Ask yourself if it reads like if it's an advance on Li-ion batteries or not.
Yes, the fast charge / discharge and lack of drop in capacity would be good, but from the critical read of it, they don't store as much energy as Li-ion batteries.
Two words destroy electric cars. Range anxiety.
In a few months, we're off up to Mallaig in the Highlands. It's a 415 mile trip, door to door. I can fill up the (horrible diesel) BMW 5 miles from home, and travel all the way up there. No worries about running out of fuel, or planning stops that last for hours for a recharge, or the charging stations being in use by someone else, or the charging stations being out of use, I just drive. We can stop in Fort William (or elsewhere) to top up the tank, we can stop for a bite to eat and a coffee wherever we want. Even if we didn't stop, I'd still have 100+ miles of range when I get to Mallaig.
Mainstream EVs are great - as long as you never want to go more than 30 miles from home. As soon as you get further away than that, you've got to start stressing and planning charging facilities to get you back home.
Hybrids will destroy EVs. But hybrids are only really economical if, again, they're used on short trips and recharged. Use the petrol engine and they're no cleaner than a 'normal' petrol-engined car - in fact they're worse, because you're lugging around all those batteries !
But whether hybrid or EV, all you're doing is pushing the pollution away from your tailpipe, and out of a power station instead.
Hi Rob, quick question: as a scientist could you advise how much energy (and waste/ pollution created) is spent on refining diesel/ petrol, storage and then transporting it to pump? I would imagine, when using the 'pushing the pollution away' argument, it would only be fair to add whatever pollution is generated by the energy spent in getting the fossil fuel to the ICE in the first place? Happy to be proven wrong, as I'm a lover, not a scientist!
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Not everyone is buying a hybrid in order to save the planet.
I consider the hybrid as an alternative to the existing technology. Why do you have to stick to Petrol/Diesel ? Aren’t they the same technology invented 100 years ago, a piston goes up and down and extract the power from it. I think it’s sometimes important to move on and try new technology if one is allowed to do so.
I wish if I could afford to have a car with hybrid system. I’m bored with driving Turbo Diesel Car. I’m not trying to save the planet. I don’t care about how polluting the car is, nor bother about saving a litre of fuel here and there.
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Why do you have to stick to Petrol/Diesel ?
If you had a hybrid you would still be using either, so you may as well stick to what you have!
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RobJP - how to make yourself look silly in one terrible post.. well done !
Nowhere here does it say that it's a plugin prius - therefore the energy to charge the battery comes ultimately from petrol - through two routes...
1) Taking the excess power for the given EFFICIENCY point of the Hybrid system - ie. running the petrol engine efficiently and bleeding off the excess, rather than inefficiently with a net loss.
2) Taking the energy normally lost to heat and dust through braking, and converting it to electicity to help with acceleration or EV running. Yes stop/start cars do an element of this but nowhere near as sophisticated as a hybrid (from whatever manufacturer). Yes, we all know that usually it took petrol to achieve the speed to slow down from :-)
Is a hybrid less polluting - depends I suppose. There are those who would argue about the battery materials. But essentially the most power you can get and USE out of a gallon of fuel is the way to go - whether that be ultra-lean petrol engines, hybrids, or whatever.
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The vast majority of Prius' are charged by their petrol engines. There's a small amount of plug-in ones that can take a charge from the mains, but they are a small minority, and it's a small charge for about 30 miles of driving.
Accusing all Prius' owners of polluting by 'taking' electricity from somewhere is (very) inaccurate.
We should be reminded why the Prius came into production back in 1999. It was because US buyers, Toyota's largest market by far, simply dont want diesel powered cars, but did want better 'gas' economy. At launch, the Prius offered rougly double the mpg of an equivalent petrol-powered compact 4 door car. Sure, Toyota have played the green card hard, but it was a market opportunity that drove the car into being. And what a market they've captured. Plus, the US consumer seems to have been proved right about diesels, following VAG Dieselgate and the realisation for many European cities, especially Paris and London, that prolonged exposure to NOx emissions from diesels are seriously harmful.
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Hybrids are not my cup of tea until perhaps someone realises buyers may just prefer a manual. They might be more economical as well.
I get 45 mpg out of my non - hybrid Seat Leon 1.4 TSi. Its much faster than any Toyota Hybrid and not that much less economical in normal use. Considering you can buy one for about £4000 less than a similarly kitted out Auris it makes the Leon a clear winner in my eyes. I would need to do 150,000 miles or more to break even and have to live all that time with a noisy slower car.
Funnily enough, hybrids have had no attraction to me for some of the reasons you mentioned, especially when buying new. However, I would only buy an automatic, so suddenly the Toyota hybrids look quite attractive!
With the questionable reliability or issues with VW DSG and non torque converter gearboxes, and the poorer efficiency of torque converter gearboxes, as a second hand purchase some of the Toyota hybrids look really good value, depreciating much more rapidly than you might think. While the Auris estate seems to hold its value well, presumably because there is high demand for it with taxi drivers, the Yaris hybrid isn't that much more expensive than a petrol version so makes an ideal automatic city car.
I'll stick with my auto torque converter diesel for the time being, as it is great to drive and provides reasonable economy; but when it comes time to change I think a Toyota hybrid might be the way to go.
I have not read of or considered the comparative noisiness of these hybrids at motorway speeds, though, or the comfort of the seats, so will have to take test drives at motorway speeds before looking seriously.
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I suppose it depends upon how old or much mileage the second-hand hybrid car has done, as the manufacturer often only warranties the batteries for a certain number of years/miles, and if it was used as a taxi, then it would've clocked up a lot. Taxi drivers don't get rid of cars that are working fine with no potential big bills on the horizon - it eats into their profits!
My borther-in law px'ed his Honda Civic Hybrid because of faults appearing with the battery systems - too much (potentially expensive) trouble in store! Got a standard (perfectly decent) run-out mk2 Jazz instead.
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