Hi,
First I want to express my appreciation for the creation of this forum. Each hybrid electric vehicle has different performance characteristics. What is important is understanding one's requirements and then selecting the vehicle that best meets those needs.
Along that line, I would like to offer a link to
"On Road Fuel Economy Performance of Hybrid Electric Vehicles", a Dept. of Energy study of fleet usage. It gives a fair evaluation of different hybrid vehicles in fleet usage. To this we can add our individual 'value added engineering.'
In our case, an 03 Prius was the best answer. and we are concentrating on improving its performance and capabilities. It doesn't mean the other hybrids are 'bad' and if our situation changed, another might be chosen instead. For example, we have weather induced power outages in N. Alabama. This led to our 1 kW
PriUPS modification of a Classic Prius. Others have taken a higher powered, 3-6 kW approach to
PriUPS power using the current model. But a Ford Escape can be ordered with a 1.5 kW inverter built-in, an excellent option.
Enjoy,
Bob Wilson