This weekend my significant other and I decided to take advantage of the three-day weekend and took a vacation to Dinosaur National Monument in Vernal, Utah. Seeing as how my car is a piece of crap that I’m hesitant to drive around town, we loaded up her car, a 2000 Honda Insight, and set off at the requist time that all travellers must leave: four hours later than originally intended.
I was worried as we left town that we’d run into a money crunch because of the rising gas prices. We’re not exactly well-off, especially with my still being unemployed, and so with gas prices going up and up and up this summer I was concerned that gas would suck us dry. I shouldn’t have been worried; J.’s car is a hybrid and managed to average 66.7 MPG over the course of the trip.
Doing the math that comes out to: 66.7 MPG over 1,000 miles at $2.15 per gallon, thus 14.9 gallons at $32.23 for the entire trip. I should have been more worried about food. (Incidentally, a single serving of Triscuits ‘ six crackers ‘ contains 4.5 grams of saturated fat. How do they get so much saturated fat in there? Do they cook the Triscuits inside of a pig? And, really, how can they get away with advertising that ‘low in saturated fat’? Does 4.5 grams per serving sound high, or am I just too used to health food?)
[Spelling error in the post title corrected. How embarassing; I feel like I was just caught with my fly down while on stage.].
H-y-b-r-i-d. Hybrid.
Not that I’m any great shakes on my own blog.
Hybrid cars are good. I don’t think that they’re good enough yet. By that I mean that I don’t think the additional cost for one is yet offset by the difference in fuel usage. This’ll change as gas prices go up & hybrid costs drop. We may actually see an improvement in avg. mpg on American roads in the next decade.
I don’t know how they get fat into triscuits. However, if you want to learn a good way to stuff fat into flour, make a pie crust!
Is 4.5 grams of fat a lot? That depends what else you eat! In 2002 NIH increased their upper estimate of how much fat you can eat. They recommend healthy diets contain between 20% and 35% of your calories from fat. My guess: Don’t eat lots and lots of triscuits!
Out of curiosity, about the car….how long can you go before the batteries run driy?
You should have seen the BBC’s Top Gear show last week: Jeremy Clarkson drove an Audi A8 diesel all the way to Edinburgh and back on just one tank of fuel. It sounds absolutely insane, doesn’t it? It was a little over 800 miles in total, and he made it all but 23 miles, at a cost of 82 UK pounds. Less than the train fare one way. Incredible.
Well, the batteries are warrantied for 8 years.
Batteries don’t run out on a hybrid, that’s the beauty of it. They recharge when energy would normally be lost, ie. when breaking or coasting. The battery engine kicks in when you are accelerating or idleing.
Now when will we see a clean diesel hybrid? I’d love to get 100 miles to the gallon.
Family just put down a deposit for a hybrid Toyota Prius. Estimated date of arrival — February, 2005.
That’s right. All be using my 35 MPG “gas guzzler” Saturn for the next 8+ months just until they can get a hybrid into the showroom.
And we picked ours on environmental grounds. I can just imagine how the demand will pick up when people freaked out about gas prices catch on . . .
Well, when you are in a headon collision at 35 mph in your cute little cracker box car…….as they are pealing its hull off your broken and mangled body…Dont say “God I wish I had been in one of those huge,safe,undented, gas guzzling 14 mpg. American SUV’s”.Cause thats probably what hit you headon anyway cause it didnt see your itty bitty car.
GOD I LOVE MY SUV!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Our Honda Civic Hybrid has exceeded expectations, it is a superb car. It seems to be getting even better MPG as we put miles on it, (27K so far). I will never go back to a conventionally powered vehicle – we have seen the future here – it may help us get away from this terrible middle east oil importing thing. I believe that this car is available – no waiting lists as far as my local dealership.
One more thing, if you don’t think you should consider a hybrid or gas-saving vehicle, search “Peak Oil” in Google for a sobering read! Oh, check this out, http://www.theaircar.com/ its a company making cars that run on compressed air!!!
Hybrid cars are not the answer. Imagine what to do with all of those 100 lb batteries when they die? Landfills? The answer is 100 years old. Diesel! http://www.tdiclub.com
The first “I” car X’s will be rolling off the assembly line within the next 60-90 days. Not only do we expect to be in full production within the next six months but we expect to have 185 thousand units produced 18 months after full production has been realized.
Our design team has engine designs that will allow trucks that are diesels now, and carry products throughout our nation to meet and exceed 100+ MPG with no loss in performance.
This composite side by side 2 seater is a fly by wire Super Hybrid. Because the relationship to the gas to electric conversion is rated by hours per gallon, the faster it goes the further it goes. If you are traveling at 60 mph the “I” car will get 5 hours on a gallon of gas, if gas were the only source of energy.
The Superhybrid “I” car X also has a solar array, wind generators and inductive breaking. Once traveling at Highway speeds the Twin wind turbines are generating energy as is (during a sunny day) the solar array. Every time you use the breaks you generate electricity.
Most Hybrid cars of today are very heavy and use one enormous and expensive battery. The “I” car Superhybrid is very light and uses many Li.Ion batteries (the same as in your laptop) that as they fail the onboard sensors detect and exclude that cells participation in the charging process.
If you work within 5 miles of where you live, you may never need to buy fuel. Leaving the “I” car under the sun all day will charge the Li. Ion batteries. If you park in a Metal Halide or Halogen lit parking structure your batteries will charge.
The “I” car has a on board redundant intelligence, that allows you to interface with the car using your PDA. Fly by wire, on board charging control, personal configurations, and GPS are just a few of the smart features.