The article makes it sound like Toyota desperately tried to license HSD for Chrysler, Daimler, and BMW trucks and GM swooped down and saved the day.

Automotive Newsflash: Crisis Averted
Today it was reported that BMW and Chrysler narrowly avoided a catastrophy by licensing Toyota's hybrid system for their 4 wheel drive SUVs. Special Ops Representatives from GM were air lifted in with GM's new hybrid system and quickly brought order to chaos. City dwellers felt safe to return to the streets for the first time in days, comforted by the 2-mode hybrid truck patrols currently underway. A few scattered burned out prototype hybrid Tundras were seen being removed from the area in disgrace.

Forgive the sarcasm... It was towards towards the author, not GM. I welcome GM licensing their hybrid technology if it will boost the technology. While choice is good, sometimes too much choice in new technology keeps prices high and bewilders people away from it. I'd still prefer if most typical people thought 40mpg was good goal, and not 20mpg, but only the price of gas will do that.

Two climate control systems, one inside and the other at the tailpipe.

2007 Camry Hybrid (in service June 2006)
FE: 6.67L/100km or 35.3 mpg (6.11L/100km or 38.5 mpg in summer)

GM was behind Honda and Toyota in FE , but no longer .The 6 speed AT 4 cylinder Malibu is rated 22/32 vs the 21/31 of the AT 4 cylinder Camry and Accord . The newest Cobalt XFE matches the Civic and Corolla in FE also. Those 4 Japanese cars are more or less the best Toyota and Honda .Now, when I say best , I mean they are the cars that sell the most ,and make the companies the most $$. Of course ,Toyota was making the most $$ with its truck like vehicles , but they are more or less tanking along with the Big 3's big vehicles.

I know Toyota says it makes money on the Prius , yes, I know you can show me Toyota's figures saying they make money with it , but I still have my doubts. A 4 cyl Camry is just a lot less car/technology than the Prius ,and it is just $2000 cheaper . It just "looks" more than $2000 more expensive than a Camry.

Charlie

as much of an engineering marvel 2-Mode hybrid technology is, the $55k price point will keep the Tahoe Hybrid from being more than a footnote in hybrid history. Once you get above $35k, you leave the realm of "Average Joe" affordability.

GM has always had something to put up against the Toyota and Honda more fuel efficient cars. Sunbird & Cavalier, J-2000, Sprint and Firefly, Le Mans, Monza, Vega and Astre. Even the early 80s firebird came with a 110HP V6 at one point that was pretty good in the FE department in its day. Problem is, GM always made sure these cars were crappy junk so as not to compete with their "real" cars that people really wanted. Today's Malibu and Cobalt are descended from a long long of crappy junk. They certainly do look "new and improved" but that label as disappointed many consumers in the past. Time will tell...

Two climate control systems, one inside and the other at the tailpipe.

2007 Camry Hybrid (in service June 2006)
FE: 6.67L/100km or 35.3 mpg (6.11L/100km or 38.5 mpg in summer)

Well, here we are 8 months after the original post, and something close to a dollar higher in gasoline costs. I think it's pretty obvious that 21mpg trucks are not going to cut it; especially not if they plan to roll these pieces of junk out 16 months more distant into the future from now. Gasoline could easily be in the $6.00/gal. range by then.

I think all the auto manufacturers (including Toyota) need to get the news; anything less than 35mpg in trucks and less than 50mpg in automobiles is headed for failure in the not very distant future; at least in terms of any respectable mass sales figures.

[quote=Whiterook;179811]

I think all the auto manufacturers (including Toyota) need to get the news; anything less than 35mpg in trucks and less than 50mpg in automobiles is headed for failure in the not very distant future; at least in terms of any respectable mass sales figures.[/quote]

I hope you realize there is no EPA rated passenger vehicle sold in the USA today that obtains 50mpg.

2005 AWD Escape Hybrid
Best Interstate tank trip MPG 39.02 (scangauge II) for 402 miles on I-70, 10.3 gallons used over mostly flat terrain. Aug. 2007

Best Interstate tank trip E30 MPG 34.6 for 271 miles along I-80 in Indiana and Ohio. May 2008

Best multiple road tank trip E30 MPG 36.2 for 202 miles in Southwestern Pa. July 2008.

[quote=Billyk;181199] They have their work cut out for themselves don't they?

"In the not very distant future" we'll be looking at $5, $6, $7 dollars a gallon gas. If $4 gas is straining the economy now, I think higher prices will cause some pretty radical s**t to go down.

Also, one can legitimately quibble with the revised EPA figures on some cars like the Prius. I know people with these cars that are only getting in the high forties, mileage-wise. But I'm having no trouble at all keeping my mileage in the high fifties; 57 to 59mpg. My average over the past 40,000 miles; two and a half years in all weather, has been solidly in the low fifties; about 52mpg and that's without really trying. If one cares enough to learn how to drive efficiently (anyone can do it) every car on the road (even Hummers) could get better mileage.

As I read this thread, I was struck by the lack of understanding about the significance of these 2 mode hybrid trucks. The reality is that replacing a traditional SUV or pickup with a 2 mode hybrid will save far more fuel than trading in any small car for a Prius. The blog below, written by my son and based upon an article published earlier this summer in Science, explains the nonlinear aspect of fuel savings when using MPG as the metric. Simply put, there is far more to be gained by each incremental improvement at the low end of fuel efficient vehicles than in improving already fuel efficient vehicles. Since a robust economy needs a variety of vehicles, it is important that vehicles at each segment of the society be as fuel efficient as possible.

As for the argument that the FEH is only a "city car", I have a 2007 FWD FEH that is driven on expressways 90% of the time. I am averaging 29.6 MPG over nearly 37,000 miles. I agree that it is not a vehicle for towing boats, but it does a respectable job off-road. Check out this youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1iHGwj7MUA

http://michiganinnovators.org/bullpen/brian/
by
Brian Barkley
on July 8, 2008 TrackBacks (0) Comments (2)
Professors Richard Larrick and Jack Soll conducted tests to see whether the unit of MPG was giving people the wrong ideas. As it turns out, they were right.
Filed under: Automotive | Fuel Efficiency

We've always used Miles Per Gallon as the unit for measuring the gas mileage and fuel efficiency of automobiles. Why? Sure, the numbers are fairly easy to work with, but just because it's easy doesn't mean we've found the best way to do it. With all the innovation going on with hybrids and making more fuel-efficient cars, now is the time to change the way we measure the fuel efficiency itself.
Duke University professors Richard Larrick and Jack Soll conducted tests to see whether the unit of MPG was giving people the wrong ideas. As it turns out, they were right; most people were thrown off by MPG : "for example, most people ranked an improvement from 34 to 50 mpg as saving more gas over 10,000 miles than an improvement from 18 to 28 mpg, even though the latter saves twice as much gas.
"These mistaken impressions were corrected, however, when participants were presented with fuel efficiency expressed in gallons used per 100 miles rather than mpg."
The New York Times wrote that "[Larrick and Soll] ran a series of experiments to show that the current standard of miles per gallon leads consumers to believe that fuel consumption is reduced at an even rate as efficiency improves. But that’s not the case.
The following graph plots Gallons Used Per 100 Miles vs. Miles Per Gallon between 10 and 60 Miles Per Gallon. Note that the relationship between fuel savings and MPG is not linear. Also note that changing from a 10mpg vehicle to a 20mpg vehicle (5 gallons saved per 100 miles) is five times more efficient than changing from a 34mpg vehicle to a 50mpg vehicle (1 gallon saved).

As professors Larrick and Soll found in their examination, many people have trouble understanding this. We should switch our system of units to GPM to avoid any confusion. Fuel efficiency would be rated with a single-digit number, the lower the better. When comparing two cars' GPM, all you would need to do is subtract one from the other. Wouldn't that be so much easier than a hyperbolic equation?