hondamark35

i've had the thought stuck in my head all day- having seen the new Civic commercial in which they emphasize the fact that there are five models to chose from. the most exciting to me being to HF. so i decided to do a little mathematical comparison of the new models, their respective mileages and the cost premiums that go along with them. for my comparison i focused on the sedan.

(side note; the five models lump DX, LX, EX and EX-L sedan as one and DX, LX, EX and EX-L coupe as one)

working in the engineering field... i threw together a spreadsheet in Excel with the needed specs gathered from Honda's website (MSRP, MPG rating) since official city mileage numbers aren't out yet for the HF i used highway mileage for the purpose of comparison. i then laid out the model premiums based on the DX which has a base price of $15,805.00. the highest premium being the Hybrid which costs $8,245.00 more than the DX. i tweaked this number to adjust for the nicer features other than drive train, that i assume the Hybrid has over the DX. i did that by subtracting the average of the LX and EX premiums ($3,375.00).

i did the same adjustment for the HF which carries a $3,650.00 premium over the DX although i'm not sure if there are many extra features..

so the mileages looked like this:

39 - DX/LX/EX
41 - HF
44 - Hybrid
31 - Si (for fun)

i was intrigued to find out that the annual fuel savings* compared to the base DX/LX/EX were only $52.21 with the HF and $121.63 with the Hybrid (the Si will cost $276.22 more/year when compared!) the real kicker was the payback period- how long it takes for the annual fuel savings to "pay back" the premium for buying a fuel saver. for the HF it was about 5 years and a few months. pretty reasonable supposing most new car buyers will own the car that long. but the Hybrid... 40 years! yeah, i triple checked the math on that one! Ridiculous!

figured i would share. thoughts?



*annual mileage taken from average mileage of the average-age-range new car buyer (15,291 miles; 43 y/o)

fuel cost is annual average of a gallon of gas in the US in 2010. apparently it doesn't change much year to year if you adjust for inflation.

notnilc20

I wouldn't buy a hybrid.....I'd go for the full electric car. You'd pay yourself back much quicker this way. Don't think Honda offers one yet...but they should. Nissan and Chevy do though.

Atomic1

You're right. "hybrid is a marketing scheme. They're banking on the many people who cant do the math.

Also maintenence, tax breaks, and insurance should be factored in....

wc4ohio

When it comes time to buy new batteries you'd be better off just buying a new car, apparently. The materials used in the batteries are getting rarer, too, so they'll only get more expensive as time goes by.

Hopefully ultracapacitors will be researched more and become available at a good price. I think only then will electric cars be a viable option. I think once the laser spark plugs are introduced, the fuel mileage of gasoline engines will be significantly improved.

hondamark35

this is a tough comparison, gas vs. electric. one would need to calculate cost/mile or maybe cost/runtime..? Nissan does seem to have something there. But don't be fooled, the Chevy is just a hybrid marketed as an EV. Honda's fuel cell FCX Clarity is closer to full electric than the Volt.

or are just too lazy to do the math. it would be pretty frightening if the majority of hybrid buyers couldn't do 5th grade math.

yeah, batteries are a big topic. as a form of propulsion electric is great but feeding it is tricky.

??

wc4ohio

Yeah, it's in the news now, new technologies are being used to implement high powered lasers in a small package to replace spark plugs, allowing an extremely lean mixture to be ignited and burn quickly... not only will this improve gas mileage, it will allow the mixture to be ignited later, reducing pumping losses BTDC, thereby improving power...

search google news for "laser spark plugs"