MPG of Civic Hybrid

quote (about Ford Escape hybrid): "That one is very aggressively
electric, running on electric alone up to 25mph. That could potentially
give some astonishing mpg ratings for the city. The California EPA
expects that it can go 10 miles of the city cycle emissions test and
use no gas."
==========

If true, then this sounds great.

Susan, Su_Texas

 

I said that. Now that I have 1200 miles on my Escape Hybrid, I'm not sure
if I could go 10 miles without the engine starting, but I can certainly go
a mile or two. In parking lot traffic, I wandered around looking for a
parking place, gave up, went a couple of blocks down the road to a
restaurant to get lunch, and had the engine start up as I went up the
incline of the parking lot driveway. If I accelerate carefully, I can get
up to about 35mph before the engine starts. Anything resembling a normal
takeoff starts the engine within a few feet of the start.

Compared to my Civic Hybrid, the biggest difference would be in very heavy
traffic, moving a few feet and stopping again. If you don't get up to
10mph, the Honda keeps the engine running. The Escape might be off the
whole time. I'd like a kill button in the Honda. There is an "econ"
button, which controls whether the engine will idle-stop or not. I would
like to be able to push that button to kill the engine at a stop.


The Escape is pretty heavy, and works the 2.3L engine pretty hard. It
seems to like a noisy 4000 RPM going up a hill where the Civic is pretty
quiet, and the engine is turning 3000-3500. The Escape has a lot more
power, though. It doesn't seem to use all 94 electic horsepower very
often, preferring to raise the engine RPM. The Honda will peak out the
15HP electric motor while slowly bringing up the RPM.


<http://www.caranddriver.com/article.asp?section_id=3&article_id=8777>
Shows a curb weight of 3839 lbs and a 0-60 time of 11.1 seconds.
MotorWeek says 0-60 is 9.5
<http://www.mpt.org/motorweek/reviews/rt2402a.shtm>

 

I recently bought a Civic Hybrid and my combined Freeway and city
driving mileage per gallon is around 44mpg. I usually get stuck in
traffic in the morning and evening (commute is an hour each way) and a
good portion of the driving is in stop and go traffic. I am not sure
how people manage to get 60 miles a gallon, that seems a little too
high......

 

The people reporting 60mpg are probably driving the Honda Insight. The
Civic will get 60 at a steady 60mph cruise. Slowing and accelerating in
rush hour traffic will not be 60mpg. When driving in really heavy traffic,
I have taken to letting a gap form ahead of me so that I can get up to
10mph before stopping again, so the engine will idle-stop. Idling with a
Civic Hybrid is somewhat unavoidable, and is a waste of gas.

My Ford Escape Hybrid was running primarily electric-only for a stretch of
about 6 miles in heavy traffic approaching the Benicia Bridge from Concord
yesterday. On a couple of uphill stretches the engine started and ran for
maybe 20 seconds and shut down again. I was at speeds from standstill
up to about 25mph. I didn't think to reset the mpg reading when I first
hit the heavy traffic, which was at 29.6 from the start of a 50 mile trip
from San Jose at 70-75mph with three people and some luggage. The overall
mpg did go up to 30.8 during the stretch, and then dropped back down to
29.8 shortly after the bridge. That might be 54mpg for the stretch of very
slow traffic.

Otherwise, the Escape seems to average 26 in rural driving, 31 in city, 29
highway.