Dan's Blog

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05-29-2007 03:03 PM

I've changed some of my data dump entries around, and as such, I've moved the key to those dumps to this page. Please post comments if you have questions on my factoring.

Key:

Start Trip = The trip/tank mileage when I started the drive.
Start mpg = The tanks mpg via the FCD at the start of the drive.
Start SoC = The number of bars on the battery icon at the start of the drive.
End Trip = The trip/tank mileage when I finished the drive.
End mpg = The tanks mpg via the FCD at the end of the drive.
End SoC = The number of bars on the battery icon at the end of the drive.
mpg avg = The calculated mpg for this drive.
Trip mi = The length of this drive.
T °F = The average temperature for this drive
50W car = The number of green regen cars that show on my consumption screen
Er±mpg = The range of error associated with mpg_avg
PoE = Percentage of EPA, 120% means 20% above, 80% means 20% below.
* = Indicates that trips where other drivers drove are factored out.

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Dan's official CNW rebuttal

05-24-2007 01:48 PM

Found one of the best rebuttals of this report to date. The Pacific Institute wrote a rebuttal in a fully sited and peer reviewed paper.

Hummer versus Prius: “Dust to Dust” Report Misleads the Media and Public with Bad Science from "Pacific Institute" (PDF linked at bottom of their page).

This is the kind of rebuttal the media can sink their teeth into, and makes it very hard for CNW to rebuke it.

Here's my original rebuttal at Priuschat. I go into more detail later in the thread. This shows how easy it is to skew a lot of numbers by manipulating only a few.

There's also this rebuttal, which says owning a hummer is greener than owning 3 prius.

And here's the SFGate rebuttal.

Here's Toyota's rebuttal

MegansPrius Blog on it

TrueDelta Blog on it

Consumer Reports Hybrid Cost retraction

Toyota's Blog entry on the Myth

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan's MSN Post

da LionTamuH,

Fair enough, but to be honest, replace "a hybrid" with "certain hybrids". I'll agree with you that a Lexus Hybrid is never going to save you as much money as a new Yaris would.

Argument falls apart when you compare Civic Hybrid to Civic, or Prius Hybrid to Camry (remember Prius is classified as mid-sized, Yaris is classified as compact). The most popular hybrids (and thus by definition, the "majority" of hybrids) will make their money back within the first 3-5 years at $2.50 / gal. If gas goes back to (averaged annually) $2.00/gal the break even point stretches further out. In North America the average time frame for title transitions (how long people keep cars) is 6 years.

The cost of maintenance is lower for hybrids as well. The electrical components are sealed and have warranties 3 times as strong as any gas engine available anywhere. The electrical components also reduce the amount of time the engine is running. Miles don't wear out an engine.... hours of operation do. A hybrids gas engine has fewer hours of operation per mile than a conventional car does.

Brakes also last 4-5 times as long since much of the breaking is done with the hybrid system.

Also keep in mind that if the car used as a comparison is a 1980 CRX you'll never make your "Money" back, since you can get a CRX for a few hundred bucks. But if we are talking

1) New Cars
2) 4 doors
3) Completely airbaged
4) ABS
5) Traction control
6) A/C
7) Power Windows
8) Keyless entry
9) MP3 audio

... well you get the point. Current Hybrids are a far cry from a striped down Aveo without A/C, so comparisons that try to tally the cost of ownership between the two are failed.

If someone is looking for a Midsized family sedan with all the modern amenities, a Hybrid will save you bundles.

If someone is looking for the cheapest econobox with 4 wheels, get a 1980 CRX
.

And if someone is looking for something to haul a camper or boat, stick with a truck, or rent one for the weekends they put the haul'ables in service.

Some people don't want hybrids, and they definitely shouldn't get one if it doesn't fit their specific needs. But on the same note, people should not be soured away from hybrids because of myths and marketing.

I use my car to shuttle myself and my family around an urban area. Safety, comfort, gagetry, and economy were my goals. Hybrids can fit this nitch perfectly.

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Did some Wiki Today

05-23-2007 11:53 PM

Allright... went out to wikipedia and did some house cleaning. Some wiki history..

In September 05, I got interested in Hypermiling. I tried to do some research and to my surprise noticed that wikipedia had nothing on it. So I posted one of my first wiki entries. Here's the archive of my original Hypermiler entry. As of today, the Hypermiler entry looks vandal free.

For today, I did some work on the Eco-Driving entry. There isn't much there, but it mentioned Hypermiler

which mentions CleanMPG.

There seems to be a lot of "Eco-Driving" articles coming from my google alert, like:

This one from Ford.
This one from Madison, WI Office of Energy Independence (care to guess who pushed this)

The Frederick News Post

This way when people google Eco-Driving they are (eventually) directed here.

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Dan's FCD High Scores

05-22-2007 05:21 PM

Did a bit of digging on my mileage logs, and found some neat stuff.

Wanted to know the highest FCD display I've held at (or past) various mileage markers. So, here are the results.

best @ 75 = 70.8 (Mar-02; 16)
best @ 100 = 69.4 (May-10; 08)
best @ 600 = 67.7 (June-14; 09)
best @ 700 = 64.4 (May-05; 12)

Keep in mind other people drive my car and (when I get my way) it's the family shuttle. So if some of the numbers look low, that's why.

So if I keep on my current numbers for this week, I should get a 500 mile high score some time this week when the FCD rolls to 64.9 for this tank.

Update:
Got it and then some... pushed the FCD up to 65.4 which tied my best for 400 too

Just pushed it up to 67.7 now. Should be 68 something by the time I fill up.

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