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Originally Posted by Tim K
Another thing to consider is the fact that hard driving will impact the FE of a standard vehicle as well. If you drove a FEH hard you might only get 22/27 city/hwy. If you drove a traditional escape as hard you might only get 14/19. Both vehicles are going to take the hit....and probably equally so. (not including wear and tear of course)
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Both will take a hit, but it will not be equal. The fuel consumption of the hybrid will gradually approach the fuel consumption of the standard vehicle the "harder" it is driven. This is because one of the main advantages of the hybrids, at least on the highway, is the fact that the smaller displacement engine will operate at a more efficient loading than an oversized one that is designed to handle peak power demand by itself. The larger engine will waste fuel due to operating at partial throttle. However, if the power demand is high for a sustained period of time, neither engine will be operating at partial throttle.
However, there's still the issue of
getting to the highway in the first place, even if both the standard and hybrid cars perform nearly the same for MPG at 85mph, the hybrid will still win out when stuck in traffic, or driving around in the city.
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I think it's important to note that there are different levels of hypermiling. You could be going at or just above the speed limit and still use some hypermiling techniques. Some people cruise at 50mph, others at 80mph, but most are somewhere in between.
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Agreed. For one, it's possible to do a lot to increase gas mileage that does not increase total travel time at all. One of them is to pay attention to the timing of traffic signals, so as to avoid unnecessary stopping. This is actually a technique that will make
more of a difference in a non-hybrid than a hybrid, since at least the hybrid can recover some energy from regen braking, unnecessary braking in a nonhybrid is completely wasted.