147 comments on A Tale of Two Speeches--OPEC's Demand Side Fear Is Very Real
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VW already has a 1L/100km car - it only carries 2 people in tandom. A Prius will never be a fuel efficient car as it's big and heavy and designed to go fast. It's got a monster engine that is running at such a tiny fraction of full throttle and has to operate over such a wide range of RPMs that it'll never be efficient.
The only real option is a 4hp IC/heat/turbine engine which generates the average power necessary for a car. That also generates a continous source of heat which is necessary for those of us outside la-la land where we have fall - winter and spring and -30C weather.
Parallel hybrids are useless with only marginal gains over a small IC car (and the gains are really only in the city driving - driving which is most easily avoided).
In short a parallel hybrid is a solution to a non-existant problem; it's just for people who wish to appear green and refuse to accept that radical reduction in energy use and change in lifestyle is necessary.
Oh, man, this made me actually laugh out loud. I take it you don't own a Prius, nor have ever driven one.
Big? Well, it's classified as a mid-sized car. So, not big, and not small. Compared to other mid-sized cars, at ~2700 lbs. it weighs anywhere from 500 to 1,000 lbs. less than other cars in its class. Granted, 2700 lbs. does not make it a potato chip, but then I'm less likely to get squashed by a Ford F-350. That 'monster' engine you refer to is a 1.5L four cylinder. That eliminates the 'fast' part right away. With the electric assist, it can get out of it's own way, but I'm not about to race for pinks anytime soon.
It's unfair to compare a 2 person VW test vehicle to a mid-sized production car that can carry four plus their luggage. I'm averaging about 50mpg in my Prius. Efficiency is not a destination, but a sliding scale. The Prius isn't perfect, but it's more than twice as efficient as my last car.
. . and please elaborate how a 4hp engine of any type will move anything heavier than a small motorbike.