YESTERDAY, SAE’S SEBASTIAN BLANCO described rFpro’s massively detailed 22-mile digital loop of southwest Los Angeles. I sensed a kinship to the LA4, this city’s downtown route that evolved into EPA’s assessment of City Mpg. Today in Part 2, I recall when we at R&T performed a comparison test of advanced gasoline, diesel, and hybrid technology. Here are tidbits gleaned from that March 2010 R&T article.
“Hybrids Part 2: Reality.” This was one of a two-part assessment: hybrid perceptions among Firsties, Techies, Greens, Statement Makers, and Pencil-Outers; and the reality of hybrid performance compared to advance diesel and advanced gasoline technologies. (Indeed, there was a snafu with the latter, of which more anon here). The cars were a Toyota Prius, a Volkswagen Golf TDI and a Ford Fiesta.
Our Route. We devised a 336-mile test route with stints representing Easy Suburban, Mixed Suburban, Suburban Sprawl, Canyon Carving, “Free”ways, the Dreaded Commute, Cruise Control with A/C On or Off—and the LA4.
Measuring MPG. “We accumulated data for these stints from each car’s on-board trip computer. Also—though not actually needed with this fuel-sipping trio—we did three fuel top-offs, one at the start, another in Ventura and a third after our travels.”
“Our Shell fuel partners,” R&T wrote, “gave excellent suggestions in doing this. With each car, we put the pump’s automatic fill at its slowest, most gentle setting. After it clicked off, we waited 10 seconds for fuel in the tank to settle. Then we repeated this slowest fill for one more click.”
Our Driving Technique. “We mixed stints among our three drivers, Editor-in-Chief Matt DeLorenzo, Assistant Road Test Editor Calvin Kim, and me, Engineering Editor Dennis Simanaitis. We agreed beforehand on an enthusiastic but fuel-cognizant pace—no dicing, no hypermiling, no ‘pulse-and-coast,’ no extreme skip-shifting. We were each on our honor (though not uncompetitive about posting the best mpg during our particular stints). We also agreed that, as enthusiasts, we were going to have fun on the trip, especially in the Canyon Carving.”
Newport Beach/Long Beach/LAX/Malibu. These three suburban stints proved the efficacy of the hybrid concept. “This heavy stop-and-go cycle [Long Beach/LAX] greatly favored the Prius, which posted its best fuel economy of the trip [66.7 mpg] on this segment.” The diesel Golf consistently bettered the gasoline Fiesta, all in the 35-43-mpg range.
Canyon Carving. The 35.5 miles of Malibu Canyon Road, Mulholland Drive, and Decker Road were home grounds for the Euro-bred Golf and Fiesta. “The Prius can hold its own,” R&T wrote, “but its tires are optimized for low rolling resistance, not especially grip.” As expected, it posted significantly better fuel economy: 40.8 mpg versus the Golf’s 30.9 mpg and Fiesta’s 28.6.
Decker Road twisties.
“Free”ways and the Dreaded Freeway Commute. The 101 gave us relatively free travel “north to Ventura. (It’s actually west,” R&T noted, “but many of us hold the childlike belief that our California coastline is a north-south one.).” “Free”way mpgs: Prius 53.8, Golf 45.0, Fiesta 34.4.
The next morning, though, it was a normal commute: “We’re either going 70 mph or 0 mph,” noted one of us. For this stint we averaged 35 mph with mpgs Prius 57.8, Golf 47.4 and Fiesta 35.5.
The LA4. This brought us downtown for the LA4’s 15.7 miles. How well did our mileages agree with the EPA? Hmm… Prius EPA City 51 mpg, ours 50.5. Golf EPA City 30, ours 31.6. And Fiesta EPA City est. 31, ours 26.7.
Frugal or Cool? Down home again, we selected a stretch of the 405/5 between Newport Beach and San Clemente for essentially cruise-controlled travel, one with a/c in operation, the other with a/c off. Differences: Prius 57.3 mpg a/c off, 55.8 a/c on. Similarly, Golf 53.5 mpg a/c off, 49.2 a/c on. Fiesta, 38.8 mpg a/c off, 36.8 a/c on.
“On a hot day,” one driver concluded, “I’d certainly trade these couple of mpg.”
Overall Results. Our 336 miles had non-speed/speeds varying from 0 to 70 mph; the average speed was 31 mph. As expected, the Toyota Prius posted a best average of 54.5 mpg. The Volkswagen Golf TDI got 42.7 mpg. And the Ford Fiesta got (a corrected) 33.9 mpg.
Our Fiesta Fiasco. Our Fiesta was a Euro-spec car (in advance of its U.S. intro). Only later did we learn from Ford that its mpg computer had done its computing in Imperial gallons (1.20095 U.S. gallons). A later citation in the magazine noted this 0.83 correction of the article’s Fiesta figures.
Here at SimanaitisSays, I’ve taken the opportunity of using corrected values for the Fiesta.
Hmm… I suspect the Fiesta’s “EPA est. 31 City” was askew as well. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024