Why are hybrid cars not able to get better gas mileage than some cars from the early 90s?
coreydevillier asked:
Some cars in the early 90s like the civic, geo metro, etc got 50mpg or more. Howcome almost 20 years later, our hybrid technology is not able to significantly outperform these vehicles?
Arnold
Some cars in the early 90s like the civic, geo metro, etc got 50mpg or more. Howcome almost 20 years later, our hybrid technology is not able to significantly outperform these vehicles?
Arnold
November 3rd, 2008 at 4:32 am
Mainly those cars were very light.
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My 94 Civic gets 41 mpg (or better). It is only 2300 pounds. The newer Civic is about 400 pounds more. That’s like dragging around a full size motorcycle in the trunk.
Good luck….
November 6th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Yeah, I wonder the same thing. Had a 90 Ford Festiva that got 42 mpg – consistantly. . .city, hwy, air, no air, didn’t matter. Of course it was a lot like driving a coke can!
November 8th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
three words, big oil companies
November 8th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Take a look at the curb weights.
A Civic 4-door from 1984 had a curb weight of 918 kg.
A 2008 Civic 4-door LX has a curb weight of 1194 kg.
Over the years, the cars have grown heavier– They have become bigger and included a lot more safety features.
The 2008 Civic LX is lugging 276 kg of extra weight above the 1984 model (a difference of almost 600 pounds), so gas mileage is going to suffer. Putting in a more efficient hybrid powertrain in the 2008 Civic simply gains back some of that gas mileage lost due to the weight gain.
That’s why you can’t really compare the hybrids today to the cars from 15 years ago– The cars are built to different structural and safety standards.
November 11th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Great question. Cars today are much heavier (about 1000 pounds, typically) and also have 3 times the horsepower. I’m not kidding.
In 1980, a typical car had 100 hp. Today they have 300. It’s still going up. I read car and driver and autoweek and road and track. HP is still going up on everything, across the board.
So – Hybrids are nothing special in this regard, they’re just on top of the heap. You could just as easily compare non-hybrid Honda Civics from 1975, 1985, 1995, and 2005.
P.S. The Geo metro weighed 1600 lb and had 50 hp.
November 13th, 2008 at 6:50 am
uncertain
but it seems date coincident with the advent of computer sensors which have been installed in all vehicles since 1995
these sensors are there to peg your mpg at whatever the oil companies want to allow you to have. it is criminal.
i would suggest that you might want to take a look at the featured videos at this page
because there is a way around those sensors and to get better mpg on cars and trucks and SUVs new or old.
Best
GARKO