GreenHybrid - Hybrid Cars - View Single Post

AshenGrey · #9 (**permalink**) 07-21-2006, 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orcrone

I can't comment on whether you can get a discount on a Prius. No dealerships in my area had any in stock for sale. If I wanted one I could put a deposit down and purchase it for MSRP when it arrived. The only way I was able to test drive one was to find a used one on a lot. And that one was going for the same price as a new one.

However, I will make one comment regarding "62 percent of hybrid owners are dissatisfied with the fuel-economy performance". I drive my Camry as a hybrid is meant to be driven and get about 38 mpg. However, if I just got in and drove the car as I do any other car I would probably average low 30s. Respectable, but not so much better than a 4 cylinder Camry. I would guess that a majority of the population is not going to read bulletin boards such as this or have ever heard of pulse and glide. They're going to get in them and drive them like any other car they've owned.

I would also put forth the idea that the average driver has no clue as to their conventional car's fuel economy. They see 29 MPG on the window and think that's what they're getting. And, on an overwhelming majority on non-hybrid cars, there is no real-time fuel efficiency gauge to tell them anything different.

So... When people graduate from a 1996 Tercel to a Prius, and their Prius shows 44 MPG in the real-time FE meter, they say, "Gee whiz, that's only six MPG more than my $7,900 '96 Tercel (manual, with no AC) got!" But they really didn't know that their 38 MPG conventional car was probably only getting 29-31 MPG -- since that's just how the EPA estimates work.

If every car had a real-time FE gauge, then new hybrid owners would be less gripey about their gas mileage.