I was looking at the US Dept. of Energy Freedom Car and Vehicle Technologies Program webpage on Hybrids at:

Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity: Hybrid Electric Vehicles

The graphs for Accelerated Reliability and Fleet Results showing mpg for each type of hybrid (Insight, Civic, Prius I & II) really surprised me.

On the monthly fuel economy graph, a lot of what I see makes sense. For instance the average mileage of the four HCH's they test drop dramatically in the first month--but it is May going into June in Arizona; so that probably means the drivers turned on the air conditioning.

Other results don't make sense to me. Why would the average efficiency of the Insight crater during October and November of '03? October and November of '02 are one of the high points of efficiency for the Insight. Even August has a significantly higher mpg for both '02 and '03--and this is in Arizona!

My real question relates to the overall mpg of all of the hybrids they tested. All of them seem to experience an overall decline in efficiency as time passes. Admittedly there is not a ton of data here, but it sure looks like all of their HEV's lost some efficiency over time. The HCH holds up the best, but even that seems to show a very slight decline.

This seems to directly contradict the experience reflected in our database. Looking over results for vehicles with over 10 tanks of gas listed, I see either the mpg improving or staying pretty much the same. This appears to be true across all four types of hybrids. I have also read a lot of discussion about hybrids increasing in mpg over time.

I'm really curious about what you all make of these results.

 

Hi AndyT:

___Other Hybrid forums are commenting on the data as well. Looking at the data, these HEV’s were used in a pool system for people like the Red Cross, APS, and Bank of America. With that, not only were these automobiles driven in AZ. (A/C was on MAX most of the spring, summer, and fall), the owners probably got tired of the performance so there foot was always in it given the low mileage almost all were receiving?

___Here is a summary of what I pulled. Please correct me if you see something in error as that was a lot of pdf’s to review and document.

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HCH pdf #1: 2003 HCH w/ CVT - cost $25,834. Driven by Electric Transportation Application employee. 27,887 @ 36.26 mpg.

HCH pdf #2: 2003 HCH w/ CVT - cost $23,235. Driven by Electric Transportation Application employee. 24,451 miles @ 43.17 mpg.

HCH pdf #3: 2003 HCH w/ CVT - cost $23,174. Driven by Bank One’s courier pool. CVT and CAT failed at the 96 and 97K mark respectively. 104,593 miles @ 37.99 mpg.

HCH pdf #4: 2003 HCH w/ CVT - cost $23,174. Driven by Bank One’s courier pool. CVT and CAT failed at the 99 and 100K mark respectively. 104,381 miles @ 37.6 mpg.

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Insight pdf #1: 2001 Insight 5-speed - cost $22,387. Driven by Technology Development Fleet of APS. Battery Pack and Controller failed - Replaced under warranty. 68,287 miles @ 47.10 mpg.

Insight pdf #2: 2001 Insight CVT - cost $22,387. Driven by Bank One’s courier pool. 104,920 miles @ 44.38 mpg.

Insight pdf #3: 2001 Insight CVT - cost $21,170. Driven by Bank One’s courier pool. CVT failed at 89K. 110,175 miles @ 46.23 mpg.

Insight pdf #4: 2001 Insight CVT - cost $22,387. Driven by Grand Canyon Red Cross courier pool. 18,612 miles @ 49.36 mpg.

Insight pdf #5: 2001 Insight CVT – cost $22,887. Driven by Grand Canyon Red Cross courier pool. 15,746 miles @ 44.38 mpg.

Insight pdf #6: 2001 Insight CVT - cost $22,887. Driven by Grand Canyon Red Cross courier pool. 8,962 miles @ 46.38 mpg.

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Prius I pdf #1: 2002 Prius I - Cost $22,580. Driven by Technology Development Fleet of APS. 69,938 miles @ 39.71 mpg.

Prius I pdf #2: 2002 Prius I - Cost $21,655. Driven by Bank One’s courier pool. Rear hub and bearing failed at 40K. 106,995 miles @ 40.36 mpg.

Prius I pdf #3: 2002 Prius I - Cost $21,655. Driven by Bank One’s courier pool. Overheated and Rack and Pinion failed at 87K and 106K respectively. 105,795 miles @ 41.08 mpg.

Prius I pdf #4: 2002 Prius I - Cost $23,884. Driven by Bank One’s courier pool. 27,513 miles @ 43.68 mpg.

Prius I pdf #5: 2002 Prius I - Cost $23,064. Driven by Electric Transportation Application employee. 15,773 miles @ 45.21 mpg.

Prius I pdf #6: 2002 Prius I - Cost $23,255. Driven by Electric Transportation Application employee. Rack and Pinion failed at 25K and again @ 32K miles - Replaced under warranty. 17,490 miles @ 41.81mpg.

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Prius II’s 16,000 each with an accumulative mpg of 44.6 mpg.

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___I did notice a few outliers?

1. How did the HCH’s and Insight’s cost far more then MSRP?
2. Why did the 1 medium mileage Insight’s pack and controller fail?
3. Why did the 2 high mileage HCH CVT’s and CAT’s fail within just a few miles of one another? Someone from Bank One was probably neutral or brake dropping them by the sounds of it?
4. Why did the 1 high mileage Insight CVT fail?
5. How did the rack and pinions of the 2 Prius’ fail and the one with 2 failures at the 25K and 32 K mark only had 17,490 miles on it?

___Although these automobiles were more then likely abused similar to a rental car by those that drove them, the CVT and CAT failures sound very expensive for the HCH’s in particular.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.
___Waynegerdes@earthlink.net

 

I used to work for an employer who provided a truck and gas, business & personal use.
I regret to let the folks here know that fuel consumption was not an issue.
Government fleet vehicles.
'Splains alot.


The way I drive my CVT might last forever.

 

Wayne, I think your summary is spot on. And I believe both you and Hot_Georgia hit the nail on the head. I never paid attention to the fact that these were generic govt. employees driving them. For some reason I fixed in my head that the drivers must be Dept. of Energy Advanced Vehicle Specialists who drove them the way they should be driven.

Doh!

It is interesting to see what they had problems with though.

 

As somebody who runs a small fleet I would be very happy with any of those numbers. Our Prius (gen 1) is running in the mid to high 30s with about 60,000 miles (just got a free rank and pinion from Toyota thank you very much, shhh.... secret recall). Fleet drivers use max A/C all the time, idle extensively, spill coffee inside the a/c vents and generally do everything they can to destroy a car. So far our Prius can take it.


Chris Brown

 

As far as the cat failures go, it's possible they're related to Honda recalling a bunch of Civic Hybrids saying they were programmed to run too lean. Perhaps the fleet examples were running WAY lean and burned up the cats as a result?

Anyway, the only way to make best use of the figures for comparitive purposes would be to see the results of their non-hybrids and see how they were doing before. If they previously had a fleet of 10 Sentras and Corollas that all got 18-22mpg, then we'd know their style of driving is not well suited to getting high figures, but still that the switch to hybrids saves quite a lot of gas.

 

Here's a thought (on the HCH cats)......

Emissions Warrantys are typically 100,000 miles these days.........

As a fleet manager it would be REALLY smart to test a component that is just going out of warranty..

So why not smog test every vehcile at just under 100,000 and see what kind of free parts I can get.....

They may not have failed in the sence most people think of (i.e getting so plugged the car can't move)....they may have just failed a smog test, probably because they ran hotter than normal (too lean as the last post said), in a very hot environment.

I would not read too much into it. Honda builds good cars - you rub them on the carpet and they will go.

Chris Brown

 

Arizona doesn't require you to smog a vehicle until it's 5 years old. Even if the emissions system had totally failed, an unscrupulous fleet operator could just ignore it because the car would be gone before they would ever have to run it through emissions.

 

So, what's the deal with these racks? Leaks? Freezing?

 

The racks develop a shimmy from side to side, usually at low speed (in a parking lot). Ours started doing it at high speed so we brought it to Toyota and got a freebie.