High speed-long distance driving??

Mel, check my June 1 blog report on a 614 mile run in 12 hours, most of it at 75-80 MPH: http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/bloglist.php?thread_id=7&month=6&year=2005.

See http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/bloglist.php?thread_id=7&month=10&year=2005 for the October 10 report on a trip from the San Francisco Bay area to San Diego and back, mostly on highway 5 where the consensus minimum speed limit is 80 MPH.

Bottom line: My 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid (which has 92,000 miles on it, by the way) can cruise all day at 80 MPH. You will give up before your car does. Your trip sounds like a piece of cake. Send us a report. {grin}

I've recently done a trip from near Washington, DC to Austin, Texas and back in a 2005 Ford Escape Hybrid. The trip there was on secondary roads and such, as I usually travel, visiting everywhere. Got about 33 mpg.

The return trip was in just over two days because of an emergency. It was pretty much all interstate at 75-80 mph. Mileage was about 27. Car was fine and never seemed to strain in the slightest.

:eek: That's not really correct. @ 75 MPH, a hybrid will get the same MPG as a non-hybrid that has the same, small, Atkinson-cycle gasoline engine. The hybrids, however, generally have smaller engines than their non-hybrid brethren and they can use atkinson-cycle engines since the electric part helps their low speed acceleration. The smaller engine and atkinson-cycle make them more efficient at high speeds even though the wind drag is the same.

You have to compare apples with apples. Rather than comparing a hybrid with reasonable performance with a pure ICE with anemic engine, instead, compare a hybrid with anemic ICE and good electric with a pure ICE.

For example, take the comparable performance of the HCH and the pure ICE Civic Sedan. The HCH gets better highway mileage than the pure ICE.

Are you suggesting that the pure ICE Civic would get the same highway MPG if it had a smaller engine?

Similiar comparisons can be reached with the Accord, Camry, Highlander, or Escape.

Perhaps I'm not understanding you.
Your statement "@ 75 MPH, a hybrid will return no benefit in MPG. Other than that, it will run like a normal car @ normal or worse MPG use." indicates that you don't think a "normal" car (I assume you mean pure ICE, no electric) gets the same performance as a hybrid.
This, of course, is incorrect.
Then you say that you get 64.1 mpg with your HCH and 38 mpg with your Civic EX. Doesn't this mean your HCH gets better mileage than your EX?
I guess I'm not sure what you were initially trying to say.

If you have essentially the same road conditions (temp, road surface, rain, headwind, etc.) and drive with virtually the same behavior and drive entirely at highway speed (70-80) only, the identical hybrid version should still get 1+ mpg better (up to 10% better) than the non-hybrid version due to the differences between the "atkinson" cycle setup in the hybrid and the normal (typical) "otto" cycle setup in the non-hybrid version.

The atkinson-cycle runs on a different valve timing/fuel mixture using the same displacement engine but this is optimal only when you have a "booster" like the electric motor in the hybrid. If you put only the atkinson-cycle engine in a car it would run rather wimpy.

Here's something on the subject:
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1487186

The hybrid will have the higher mpg come in when you exit a high speed lane and pull onto an arterial with much lower speeds (as in pulling off the freeway or interstate to fill-up). So in most real world driving the hybrid setup is going to recoup some of the "losses" from idling at stoplights, slowing down or coasting or needing to run accessories such as air conditioning that can run strictly off the battery.

I think testing and tracking these new hybrids on high speed road trips is a great idea. When people first consider purchasing hybrids they want to know what the performance differences are. I'm putting together a discussion group to learn what people want to track about their vehicle, and see if there is an opportunity to build a solution to meet those needs.

If anyone is interested in participating please sign up here: http://bit.ly/fivbYv

Thanks!!