But if sleep in my lawn chair for 6 hours, I would emit about 200 grams of CO2. Now that our government has been empowered to categorize my life breath as air pollution, can a tax on excessive breathing be too much to imagine. Then we could have a fat person tax, call it an air guzzler tax, and we might create nirvana on earth.

EPA’s Beyond Tailpipe Emissions calculator does exactly that.

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=bt2

MPGe rating is just in the tailpipe scope and ignores the upstream emission. If you add what it takes to produce gasoline and electricity, we’ll have a fair comparison.

For the lazy, here are the national average figures. You can type in your zip code in the link above to get your regional figure. For reference, a regular Prius emit 222 g/mi.

Volt: 260 grams of CO2 per mile
Prius PHV: 210 grams of CO2 per mile

Anyone who asserted such a conversion factor in a physics class would get an “”F” for vaporware physics.

Not to boast or place the Ford against the Toyota PHEV…but I preordered my Plug IN back in March 2011 and received the Advanced Plug in Prius in March 2012…..have had the Plug IN for 5 tankfuls thus far……so far it tops what Toyota has given it in Mpge and Hybrid as well…..the first tank in combination but mostly EV range was 100 mpge…..and to that I can happily and proudly add the other mpge’s were if that is a word LOL…….106mpge……110……116…….currently I am at 122 and still steady going forward I believe it will be 122….at this point each tank allowed over 1100 miles roughly…unreal in my opinion……and you are so correct John….driving at about an average of 30 mph OVERALL ….57 highway and 25 city averaged as well as Charging at my stops and at home at least has allowed these numbers to remain quite impressive….it ALL DEPENDS on how we drive and what we do with the Plug in option…..but I will say that our choice of current and future is to stay with the originator of the Hybrid Vehicle since 1991…..I am so impressed with the PHEV…its was worth the waiting over a year…..glad we can BOTH agree on truths of experience….as usual Ford has not even mentioned what the Hybrid END of their bogus figures delivers…that is why their addition mostly shows that the Energi is heavier than the PHEV and most likely will NOT deliver what they claim……the 550 is a far cry from the 1100 we can achieve……John I was a Ford lover for 5 0r 6 Explorer vehicles and I was sick of Ford never coming clean HONESTLY with their estimates in the Mpg their vehicles achieved back years sooner so that is when I shifted to Toyota Hybrids….its the present/past and FUTURE of Green driving as far as I am concerned and Toyota is pretty on the money since the first Prius boasted 60 mpg…Toyota came clean and honest since then…I give them credit and since then will stick by them with their technology…….take care keep those numbers up their ….we have something in common…………….thanks for sparking me to respond

It really is more of a helpful figure to compare EVs/PHEVs to each other, than to conventional vehicles. For that purpose, it does well. For any other purpose, you really do have to understand more of your driving pattern and the vehicle’s capability anyway, regardless of any measure you use.

The MPGe number is based on the conversion ratio of 33.5 KWh of energy in one gallon of gas. This is compared, fictitiously, with the actual distance traveled using an ICE.

The only real comparison is to indicate the cost per 100 miles using electricity with the cost using gas. For example say an EV gets 3.6 miles per kwh, so would use 28 KWh to go 100 miles. If each Kwh costs $.20 then the cost would be $5.60. However to go that far using a 50 MPG Prius would cost ($3.50 x 2) $7.00. And the cost to travel in the petrol burner would increase with lower mileage vehicles.

Such a sticker would provide an informed basis of comparison, not the vaporware you and EPA are foisting on the public.

If having a pure EV range is important to you the Volt is the only close to affordable way to go.

Now to get this back to the C-Max Plug in Hybrid. The Prius PHV has an 80 HP electric motor, the C-Max has 108 (IIRC). The Prius PHV an 11 mile EV range and the C-Max 20(+). So I would think the the C-Max like the Prius PHV will not have a true all EV range like the Volt (149 HP BTW) does, but it will come closer. What it all means is that buying a new car is a lot more complicated then in the past. So which of the following best fits your needs:

11 mile EV range and 50 MPG after that
or
20 mile EV range and 44 MPG (guess) after that
or
38 mile true all EV range and 37 MPG after that

If you need the cargo space the C-Max wins. If you do a lot of highway driving the Prius wins. If your daily commute is 38 miles or less and you do not need the fifth seat the Volt is the hands down winner.

The farthest I’ve went with mine is 17.5 miles before running out of electricity. It allowed me to drive my entire morning commute without ever using any gas. But that’s not the expectation. Even when the engine runs, you still get great results. At 70 mph, I consistently see over 100 MPG while taking advantage of plug-supplied electricity.