Hybrid Cars
I have owned two hybrid cars: a 2002 Honda Insight, and a 2003 Honda Civic sedan. I sold the Insight and bought the Civic when my family grew, and a two seat car became impractical.
I have been interested in alternative fueled cars for a while, but have been reluctant to buy in due to the impracticality of the solutions given my lifestyle. In the moderately near future, that might change -- see for example Forward Drive: The Race to Build "Clean" Cars for the Future. As of now (2004) the only practical approach for me is a hybrid drive car.
Hybrid Drive
In the hybrid drive Hondas, there is both a gasoline and electric motor. The electric motor is obviously powered by batteries, but since the batteries are recharged by the gasoline motor and by regenerative braking, you never have to "plug in" the car. Just fill it up with gas and drive. The benefit is that you get better fuel economy -- that's it. I looked at both the Honda and Toyota hybrid drive cars, and eventually chose the Honda for two reasons. First, the car just looked better (to me). Second, the Honda system seemed much simpler than the Toyota engine, and produced roughly equal results.
Insight
The Honda Insight is a two-seat, sporty-ish car, optimized throughout for fuel economy. Given the amount of aluminum in the car (instead of steel -- to save weight), I find it a bit difficult to believe that Honda sells this car at a profit, but I suppose that's not my problem.
The car drives reasonably well, but can feel a bit "squirrelly" at higher speeds -- I'm told this is due to the toe-in (or lack of it) in order to reduce rolling friction. This may or may not be, but I could certainly it. I got used to it after a short time, and it never really bothered me. The car is very comfortable to sit in. I never got used to the climate controls, and hope that they have been fixed in recent models.
Beware of clueless salespeople -- like many buyers of this car, I had researched it thoroughly on the net prior to taking a test drive. The Honda will turn itself off when conditions are right and you are stopped, for example at a traffic light. When this happened on a test drive, my "salesperson" explained that many people were stalling this car out when coming to a stop due to a "sensitive clutch" ! I didn't buy the car from that store, but did buy (both cars) from Anderson Honda in Palo Alto.
So what about mileage? I had two "modes" of driving. Since this car is all about fuel economy, it makes sense to try hard to get good results -- it become a bit of a game. I drove this car a mix of about 50 / 50 city / highway driving, typically over short distances -- perhaps 50 miles a week. When I was trying to get good results, I would consistently end up with 60-62 MPG. For longer highway drives I could approach 70 MPG. I was extremely pleased with the results.
When I didn't try to achieve best results, I typically averaged 55 MPG -- still quite good. With my driving patterns, I was filling up every six weeks to two of months!
Civic Hybrid
When the family grew it was time to upgrade to a bigger car, so I switched to the four door Civic Hybrid, this time with an automatic continuously variable transmission (my Insight was a manual shift). This car is very comfortable. Road noise is less than the Insight -- though you would never mistake this for an Acura or Lexus. The climate controls are far better, and in general this is just a nicely equipped, comfortable Civic. The batteries are under the back seat and the trunk seems roomy -- I never feel like I need more space.
Since this is a much heavier car than the Insight, with less radical aerodynamic styling, fuel efficiency suffers somewhat. When I don't focus on economy, I can get 44 MPG day in and day out. If I play the game and watch the MPG meter on the dash, I can turn in 50 MPG tanks. I typically get between 500 and 550 miles per fill-up, which for me translates into filling up every three weeks to one month.
I am extremely pleased with these cars -- you just fill them up and drive. I have only one concern: hybrid cars are new, and will only get better, so they may not hold their resale value as well as a conventional car in the medium term.
Categories: technology life
