Hybrid Car Review

The Toyota Prius beat out the Skoda Octavia RS TDI, a Honda Civic Hybrid, VW Touran EcoFuel, Ford Focus FFV and Subaru Outback ecomati in a clean drive marathon according to Germany's automobile association ADAC (Seems similar to AAA in the US??). The Prius won out by averaging only 5.8 liters per 100 kilometers.

Each of the cars was driven about 20,000 kilometers for a total of 120,000 kilometers in total.

The Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid were 'actual winners' since they were able to go anywhere without any careful planning the way the other cars had to. In other words, they could fuel up anywhere, but the other cars had to search around for fuel.

Press Release Follows:

Munich - The Toyota Prius beat five other cars with clean- drive technology in a marathon test conducted by Germany's automobile association ADAC. The Toyota Prius measured an average fuel consumption of 5.8 litres per 100 kilometres with a carbon dioxide emission figure of 119 g/km, well ahead of its rivals, the ADAC said.

Other cars in the test with over 300 criteria were a Skoda Octavia RS TDI, a Honda Civic Hybrid, VW Touran EcoFuel, Ford Focus FFV and Subaru Outback ecomatic. In total the testers drove the six cars over 120,000 kilometres with about 20,000 kilometres for each car.

Both the Prius and Honday Civic with hybrid technology were described as the "actual winners" because petrol was available everywhere with the hybrid technology working very well, especially in city driving conditions.

However, the ADAC testers said that there was no ideal concept for every situation, with individual driving habits playing a big part in the choice of the ideal drive technology.

A long trip using natural gas (CNG), liquid petroleum gas (LPG) or ethanol needed to be carefully planned on European roads. The Touran using CNG could only use its advantage when a filling station was nearby and it was used daily in the vicinity. LPG filling stations for the Subaru Outback were more widely available but LPG consumption was higher than using petrol which thus had no positive CO2 effects.

The Ford Focus had a 40 per cent higher consumption of ethanol than petrol which put it on the same level as petrol from a cost perspective. The environmental effect of ethanol was questionable when food products such as corn were used to manufacture the fuel, the ADAC said. Second generation ethanol production from plant residue was still years away, the testers pointed out.

The Skoda Octavia RS TDI was chosen in the test as the cleanest diesel car in its class with an average consumption of 6,8 litres per 100 kilometres. On actual CO2 emission it came second behind the Prius.

Source: earthtimes