i would want far better performance than 46mpg from a hybrid.

for a car as small as a Focus, that is absolutely p*ss-poor, and I would imagine it is easily achievable in their bog-standard diesel model.

I achieve this easily in a 2 litre 407 diesel estate (I average around 45mpg, and get 48-52 over long journeys.


for a small car with 'whizzo' technology, i would be extremely disappointed not to see 60+mpg as a minimum.

it is not all about the technology, but about driving style. If you drive a hybrid with a heavy foot, you are going to get poor performance. A driving style with an eye for economy should be richly rewarded by a hybrid.
slamming on the breaks as you screech up to a set of reds is a waste of embodied energy. wherever it came from.

regenerative breaking will recover some of the energy lost. Far from all of it, however.

too many "i've done my bit" Daily Mail readers are buying hybrids to score a green point or two over Mrs Miggins next door, but are incapable of driving economically, and still charge around as if they were in their BMW X5

the hybrid is a tool, like any other, and it must be used correctly to achieve its optimum function

a fancy pair of running shoes doesn't finish the marathon for you!

I thought that the advantage of a hybrid was only in stop-start motoring. On a motor way you are running on the "proper" engine any way, and you are carting around 1/2 ton of batteries/ electric motors/ cabling/ electronics. I think what we need are KISS vehicles. Make 'em light and simple. My 1959 Austin Healey Sprite would do over 50 mpg, also My 1996 VW Passat, will do that as well (nursing it along at 45 mph on a motorway), despite the fact thats its twice the weight. Now if one put the VWs engine into the Sprite, lots of MPG possible (and mph!!).
Frank

Chuckey,

The weight gain is negated by the lack of gearbox on a full Hybrid. Dont forget there are 3 types Micro, Mild and full.

"(nursing it along at 45 mph on a motorway)" Frank - this is very dangerous driving and would lead to loads of accidents, extra MPG is not much use if you have an HGV rammed in your rear.

Most manufacturers do a family diesel that will achieve 50mpg if not driven like an F1 car, small family diesels can achieve 60mpg. These are perfectly acceptable environmentally responsible cars to run until technology improves enough so that we don't have to rely on petrol or diesel for the majority of our motoring power.

With what is currently available for the mass market globally these are the best option. There will be a significant period of transition until we switch to less polluting cars, until then high mpg, low CO2 diesels are the way forward.

What is the alternative for mass market? It takes about 7 years from concept to launching a new car. You can't just stop driving any car that emits CO2, the worlds economy would collapse! We will need to drive polluting cars for many years to come until technology develops further.

What we do have the power to do is demand that our cars are less polluting and the manufacturers will start building these engines. Less polluting, high mpg cars are now in demand, unfortunately that means paying a premium.

Diesel is £1.329 at my local garage this week - price seems to change weekly now.

How is the 16p/litre price differential over unleaded justified? That's 72p per gallon.

I understand that diesel is more expensive to refine - or so the oil companies are quick to tell us - but surely not by that margin?

apparently there is currently a UK diesel refinery capacity shortage as well at the moment - allegedly

from www.petrol prices.com:


"Despite these reductions in sulphur emissions, standard diesel fuel is still taxed more heavily than petrol. In 1994, duty on diesel and unleaded petrol (ULP) was the same, however from 1996 through to 1998 diesel was around a penny per litre more expensive. In 1999 it became three pence per litre. At this stage, ultra low sulphur diesel (ULSD) was introduced into the market and, by 2000 the majority of diesel being sold changed to ULSD. This carries a lower duty rate than standard diesel, and by 2001 the differential between standard diesel and ULSD was up to six pence per litre. However, since 2003 high oil prices have caused the duty on all fuels to rise drastically. In the last 2½ years alone a tripling in oil price has caused the price of fuels to rocket, and it seems to have been the case that diesel users have suffered more than the rest of us. If this were the whole picture though, then fuel would be as expensive everywhere as it is here in the UK.

The fact of the matter is that, even with the hike in oil prices, almost three quarters of the petrol station price for any given fuel is government duty. Considering that Britain’s motorists buy over 30 billion litres of fuel a year, that’s a lot of tax."

Yes of course there's loads of tax, but my point was that the recent differential increase we have seen in the past several weeks reflects a global diesel shortage resulting from the factors I outlined above.

btw WTI went up to $129.31 this afternoon, yet another record broken.

Because of the way that diesel and petrol is double taxed, including VAT.
The tax on diesel is higher because claims the government, it releases sulphur. Because of the way the double tax is applied by the government, when prices go up, the tax regime imposed on fuel is amplified. because the tax on diesel is higher the ampliefied effect on diesel is more.
this is why, as reported by the BBC, the recent oil rises have also netted the UK government 1 £billion extra in tax.

in spain you can still buy petrol for 1 euro a litre, their tax regime has not amplified the fuel prices as much as in the UK.

the uk has the highest fuel tax in the world

the UK taxes diesel higer than petrol

every other european country the price of diesel is lower than petrol, from the AA:

out of 26 countries, only in the UK, US and Ireland is the price of diesel higher than petrol

Country Currency Unleaded Diesel Unleaded Diesel
Austria Euro - - 1.171 1.096
Belgium Euro - - 1.433 1.158
Finland Euro - - 1.322 1.061
Germany Euro - - 1.372 1.226
Greece Euro - - 1.032 1.029
Netherlands Euro - - 1.470 1.138
Italy Euro - - 1.330 1.286
Luxembourg Euro - - 1.131 0.971
Spain Euro - - 1.057 0.974
France Euro - - 1.295 1.115
Ireland Euro - - 1.152 1.104
Portugal Euro - - 1.314 1.114
Slovenia Euro - - 1.000 0.994
Sweden Swedish Krona 11.94 11.54 1.292 1.248
Estonia Kroons 13.20 12.90 0.843 0.824
Latvia Lats 0.653 0.625 0.950 0.909

Slovakia Koroan 38.04 38.81 1.144 1.167
Switzerland Swiss Franc 1.75 1.82 1.044 1.086
GB Sterling 0.990 1.019 1.425 1.466
USA US Dollars 0.729 0.80 0.503 0.553
Northern Ireland Pound Sterling 0.981 1.001 1.411 1.440
Norway Norwegian Krone 12.10 10.80 1.514 1.351
Poland Zloty 4.30 3.85 1.124 1.007
Hungary Forint 282.6 270.0 1.152 1.101
Czech Republic Czech Koruna 29.90 28.70 1.080 1.037
Denmark Danish Krone 9.99 9.13 1.343 1.227

From the BBC

"Diesel cars, which are more economical, now total 40% of all UK car sales, up from 10% in 2000, said the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT)."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7174856.stm

So if you sold diesel for a living and you were part of a cartel who controlled prices in the UK and the market you were selling into was to grow from 10% to 40% in 8 years wouldn't you be tempted to raise your prices to cash in? We are all being screwed by the big oil companies. Always have been and always will until the stuff runs out.

Slightly moving away from cars but still on motoring. I was sitting at a set of traffic lights the other night at about midnight. While I sat there for about 3 minutes waiting for them to change ( I was on a main road, lights to help people from residential roads get on to it) not a single car came out of the other roads. I thought that it must cost local councils a fortune in electricicty to run the lights and was wondering why more aren't put on to part time usage so after say 9pm they are turned off. Does anybody know why this isn't the case?? To my mind not only would councils save money to spend somewhere else ( probably if my town is anything to go by more road works!) but the environementally impact would be huge if this happened on all suitable traffic lights around the country. Have I missed something here because it seems to be a win win situation for all. Less money, less pollution and less time sitting at lights for no reason.

Best to get your facts from the source not lobby group websites (or newspapers which like slagging of anything to do with improving the environment)...

Road fuel duty for all fuels is now £0.5235 per litre.

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/downloadFile?contentID=HMCE_PROD1_027232

So diesel is more expensive because of supply chain issues not tax. Most forecourts now sell low sulphur pretol or diesel so the differential has been scrapped.

The ford focus mentioned in the report is not a hybrid but one of fords new econetic range. They've used low viscosity engine oil, stiffened suspension, changed the engine maps, fitted low rolling resistance types, changed aerodynamics a little and shaved several percent of the fuel consumption.

VW have Blue motion which is similar.

BMW have efficient dynamics which also includes stopping the engine when you are stationary and in neutral and a display telling you when to change gear. They also only use the alternator when the engine isn't under load. Upto 15% improvement.

All this articale really does is show how useless the Official Fuel consumption figures are. And that the CO2 figure is based on the combined cycle so will always be lower than reality. The test is useless becuase is doesn't include air resistance, hills, cold weather, head winds. To make them repeatable and controllable they are carried out in a lab not a real road. I'd have thought it was now possible to conduct tests somewhere like MIRA on a day with windspeed less than 5kph? And temperature between 15-20 degrees and no rain. Although that last one might be hard in the UK ;-) The manufactureres aren't to blame - the EU is for allowing a useless test to be the basis on which all cars are sold. If anyone is working out EU wide emissions based on the existing car stock they better add 50% to their calcs. Or use fuel sold instead!

http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/information/fuel-consumption-testing-scheme.asp

I really can't believe that millions of cars are sold based on a 11km / 6.8 mile labaratory test drive!!

I now just look at the urban figure - as that what you really get. The Extra urban is simply unobtainable - unless you are driving with a tail wind on a flat surface in summer. Combined can be obtained if you do 3 miles of urban followed by 100 miles of motorway driving at 70 mph or less.

A prius does well for a petrol powered car which has 12% less energy in it's fuel than a diesel. A fuel that is also cheaper to buy. The previous test The Times did was basically all long distance cruising UK to switzerland or something - so the 1.5l prius was never going to get to use it's electric motor. But I came to the conclusion a Toyota Aygo is a better buy - it fits 4 adults, has a boot big enough for 8 carrier bags of shopping (or 4 reusable big ikea blue bags) group 1 insurance, 98 mph max speed, OTR £6700. :-) And you can hire a bigger car if you need to or get a trailer.

That is until real electric cars are here in a couple of years. All the bits needed are now avaiable - if only to development / integration companies...

Drive trains
http://www.uqm.com/products/specsheet.html
http://www.acpropulsion.com/technology/gen2.htm

Batteries
http://www.altairnano.com/markets_energy_systems.html
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:EEStore (so secretive they don't have a website!?)

I did consider ripping the 3 litre lump out my 330ci and sticking in something electric powered. But it seems a couple of years too early :-(. But if you have the skills look for an old one with a knackered engine, scuffed seats and turn it into an [almost] lightweight electric racer. You can lose 600kg from the 330ci and the frame is stiff as you could ask. They can be had for under £4000 on autotrader with high mileages.

Simon.