Member Comments

I have a Prius II series car, (1500cc), as a work vehicle and in my experience the fuel consumption rates are understated. I live in Wellington and get a good mixture of city, hills and motorway driving. My typical tank of gas, (about 47 litres), will give me about 1,100km. This is around a 4.2l/100km average, better than the 4.4l/100km quoted. My best economy was 3.7l/100km driving in and around Auckland and my best distance on one tank is 1,432km, (about 50 litres if you really top up the tank. I fill up once every 3-4 weeks unless I'm travelling. The series III Prius should be even better but I'll wait for a plug-in model.

You don't need any where near that many power stations if you bother with decentralised power generation at/near the home. And a sensible way to avoid the load would be the same as water heaters. Remote controlled trickle charge to power packs which can provide the fast charge option when desired.

This statement ("Hybrid vehicles save most fuel when used for stop-start city and commuter driving, rather than long-distance motorway cruising") is misleading - but oft repeated.

E.g., I drove a Prius Series II across the Southern Alps from Christchurch to Greymouth and back, and achieved 16kms per litre, and I was in a hurry, not trying to drive conservatively.

The electric motor cuts in and out in highway driving just as it does around town, so you do get better fuel consumption at 100+km/hr, because the 1.5l petrol motor is still only working part-time.

Its nice to have your own private transport, problem is its not sustainable.
There is such a thing as Peak oil, its a fact of life and quite a few NZers don't know about it. We need two Saudi Arabias by 2015, China and India are now oil consumers, their demand is huge. This is the beginning of the transition to an era of expensive energy.
Electric cars are sensible. Trouble is we have trillions of dollars invested in the fossil fuel business. More sensible to focus on Public Transport which seems to have suffered in NZ. Wellington Pub. buses have to give way to private cars for example. It needs to be made as attractive as possible Bus lanes can come later. In the US many cities have or are introducing electric buses. The corporate media tell us what their advertisers want. At the moment Society is schizoid; the experts tell us of the problems ahead, the govt and media say nothing, carry on as usual and no planning for the era of expensive energy.

Fully agree with Phil above. When this Govt can sort out a fairer Road User Tax System for Diesel vehicles, (under 2 tonnes for example), there will be little else that can match the cost/benifit factor of the modern Diesel Vehicles. 53% of new vehicle sales in the UK are Diesel, (higher again in Europe)where diesel is more expensive than petrol. Does that not tell us something? A recent (NZ) Autocar Magazine comparison of Hybrid, Petrol & Diesel cars clearly confirms this.

I'm not sure that I agree with the rush to electric and hybrid vehicles. The current limitations and cost of battery packs will take time to resolve. A readily available option that is largely ignored except in Europe is the new generation of highly efficient and clean-burning diesel engines.
Why anyone would choose to buy a Toyota Prius with mediocre performance over similar-sized vehicle with an efficient diesel engine giving similar fuel consumption and much better performance is quite beyond me. I can only assume that political correctness and lack of knowledge prevail over informed debate.
If Neil Abbott wants to get rid of cars, the answer is simple... get rid of people!

I recall a National Radio article recently (This Way Up?) where a researcher predicted/calculated we would need double the number of power stations simply to cope with 2 million electric car users all plugging in at 7pm each day to charge up; this, on top of the huge power/energy input needed to provide all those chargers in homes, streets, places of work (and repair/maintain them).
The question should be "how can we get rid of cars?", not "how can we make them more efficient?"