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

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.

Hi,

I stumbled across this more recent fleet performance report that includes "End-of-life HEV testing (rerun fuel economy & conduct battery testing @ 160k miles per vehicle)". This report also includes maintenance data. The maintenance and repair summary:

"•Civic & Insight -6 continuously variable transmission (CVT) failures in 4 vehicles @ 97k, 99k, 89k & 77k miles. Again @ 157k & 146k miles
•Insight battery control module & traction battery replaced @ 72k miles
•Insight & Civic -7 software upgrades & 3 catalytic converters replaced
•Gen I Prius -rack & pinion replacements 1st Prius @ 106k, & 2ndPrius @ 25k & 32k miles
•Other HEVs –normal maintenance @ lower mileages"

Every advocate can find something to crow about (and watch out for.)

Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.

I think this is the source data for those viewgraphs:
http://avt.inl.gov/hev.shtml

A ton of great information- lots for any camp to chew on for talking points, as bwilson said. The failure rates have been shot around quite a bit, but many of the naysayers seem to not mention a few items:

- these vehicles were integrated into existing gov't fleets, which are in general driven far harder than personal vehicles. Think 'free rental car.'

- the sample size is very small, to the point of being almost statistically invalid.

The data is fine as far as it goes; just remember to take the above points into account. What this presents is somewhat better than anecdotal evidence, but not enough to make assumptions about any of the models or technologies in many cases.

There is a larger sample set in the Canadian fleet report. They also have data about cold weather performance. Mostly Toyota but some Hondas.

Now I'm wondering if the UK and other European countries might have fleet reports?

Perhaps there are translation of Japanese fleet usage?

Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.