Fully understand that, unfortunantly a lot of people who bought or are
looking at a hybrid don't realize the limitations. The are good for
their purpose but most don't realize you can much better and cheaper
with something else.
Jeff
p.s. I would love a Mini with an electric motor for around town. That
would be fun.
On Jun 3, 2004, at 12:52 PM, Mr. Plow wrote:
>
> All good points Jeff!
> But, it always comes back to picking the right vehicle for your needs
> doesan't it?
> I would love to have a little electric car for booting around town,
> just enough space to hold 3 other people and maybe a little tiny trunk
> for the useless junk i end of hauling around for months at a time only
> to throw it in the trash at some distant point in the future....
> hehe
> I'd love to be able to "plug" the car in at the end of the day and not
> care about the dollar/litre that we will be paying over the summer
> months... arrgghhhh...
> But, i would not expect that type of vehicle would be good for hauling
> 500+ pounds of gear all the way out west. (Trip i'll be taking in
> July)
>
> So, bottom line is know what you need out of a vehicle, then go from
> there. ;)
>
>
>
> The Adam Blaster
> Two words, figure it out.....
>
>
>
>>>
>> They have been having fun with this on the VW TDI board. Not trying
>> to say go buy a VW but the bit about the mileage and the fact you can
>> get the same from a jetta tdi with a stick is making them laugh.
>>
>> As we'll as the other big thing they don't tell you. Say you have a
>> hybrid and want to take a trip on the blue ridge parkway. We'll that
>> road at parts runs up and down the smoky mountains and can be a while
>> running up or down. The problem with hybrids is the up part. See when
>> you get going up a steep hill the gas engine kicks in, which is all
>> fine and good. The problem is that it isn't made for an extended trip
>> up a mountain road (half hour or more which is common on the blue
>> ridge). What happens is this, the gas engine kicks in to help the
>> electric one but after a while the electric one starts draining the
>> batteries faster then the gas one can recharge them because the
>> electric one is also trying to get up that mountain and using alot of
>> power to do it. What happens, the electric motor runs out of juice
>> and the gas engine, being a little dinky three cylinder to just help,
>> can;t move the vehicle and if you run it too long trying to keep
>> going it will start to overheat from too much stress.
>>
>> Now we all know that there are not big mountain roads everywhere but
>> there are in alot of places and this has already been happening quite
>> a bit. Been a few postings in the different forums on the net. This
>> gets even better, they find out that a vehicle like the escape, which
>> is an suv not a little car, cannot haul that much of a load either.
>> In fact the escape doesn't have too much over a prius in the max load
>> it can haul. All those people that got it for the good mileage and
>> being a small suv to put things in find that you cant put much in
>> there at all. This is besides the cost of batteries when they need to
>> be replaced and the fact that you already paid more for it since it
>> was a hybrid.
>>
>> Hybrids so far work good as commuter cars and the escape will do goo
>> in that role but people get a vehicle like that (suv) to go places
>> too and the hybrid may actually not be the better choice. The jeep
>> liberty that's coming with the diesel would be a better choice. It
>> doesn't get quite the fuel mileage but it can carry more in it and
>> has the ability to tow which, I forgot the to mention, the escape
>> hybrid cannot. Twenty some mile a gallon in town and in the thirties
>> on the highway is nothing to sneeze at when compared to a normal suv
>> or what the escape hybrid cannot do.
>>
>> I am saying I don't think hybrids have a future, i actually do, but
>> only when they get smart. I small diesel engine actually makes far
>> more sense for that type of use (torque alone not including it's own
>> low fuel sipping ability) but until they get to that I just don't
>> think it will be that great. Lexus is going to do it with the RX SUV
>> but, again, there are people who are going to be disappointed when
>> they realize that it cannot do what the normal RX can do simply due
>> to the small engine and they way the batteries need to be recharged.
>>
>> Jeff Durling
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 01 2004 - 00:15:16 EDT