candymancan

My neighbor has had a Hybrid Ford escape for a couple years now. The other day i was changing the transfer case fluid in my Jeep and we started a conversation about the vehicles and he started to brag about this MPG on his vehicle.. I thought nothing of it as that escape is a peice of junk compared to my 98 GC..

However today i was looking up the specs on his vehicle and it pretty much confirms what i thought.. The ford escape hybrid has only 130HP 4 cylinder engine and only 135b of torque, goes 0 to 60mph in 11 seconds, Weighs 3900 pounds..., Its AWD, batterys are only good up to 70k miles before needing to be replaced which costs thousands of dollars. Its smaller inside also. The only good thing i can see with that vehicle is the MPG in the city which is 34mpg compared to my average 17mpg. The highway/freeway MPG on the hybrid is 31, and mine gets like 26mpg at 55mph.


We had 3 feet of snow this winter, and i remember driving no problem in it in the Jeep i asked him how his vehicle did and he said it did great and he would never buy anything else but 4x4 vehicles.. However his car is a AWD not 4x4.. I remember him only driving in the snow after the roads were plowed. I drove before big diff.


I dunno i think the hybrid can be good on the city MPG.. Does it really justify having to spend thousands on EACH battery when the car reaches 70k miles tho ? Or the basicly no HP and no torque, add'd weight and less room ? Or the fact that AWD sucks in the winter ? The Inline 6 on my Jeep isnt even that fast when compared to the other Jeep engines out.. 190-200HP and 225b of torque but thats almost double that of his vehicle lol which is silly.. Double the gas mileage for almost 2x less power... Makes sense to me.. lol

Dont forget about how expensive repairs can be on the hybrid, or how dangerous they can be in wrecks.. The electricity produced is lethal and firefights cant use the Jaws of life in certain spots on the car... I was talking to a firefighter and he said he hates hybrid vehicles for this reason they are dangerous he said.

JerseyJeeper

Most hybrids use a 4 cylinder only anyway which are going to be more fuel efficient already. The thing people get so wrapped up in is the "savings on fuel". Hahaha what a joke that is anyway especially if you need to like you said, replace the batteries. The amount you would spend on battery replacement would be more probably than you would use on fuel itself. Not to mention the initial cost of the vehicle itself. Hybrids are going to be more than the typical gas cars there are out on the market.

Personally a hybrid will never sit anywhere near my garage or driveway. The power isn't there and neither, in my opinion, is the technology to make it better.

KTMrider

I hate them too. It's one thing if you do city driving in a prius because those things have 0 get up. And the price of new batteries is the cost of the gas you would have purchased. And i wouldnt be saprised if the pollution of old battery was worse than the C02 that would have been produced if they had just bought the gas. Some lady told me to get a prius while i was looking for a car, i laughed at her.

JerseyJeeper

Very true with the point of battery pollution with all that acid and stuff that needs to be taken care of.

candymancan

Well the hybrid batterys arent your typical acid lead batterys like gas cars have. They are Lithium Ion batterys, the problem with them is they cost alot.. To replace them costs around $1700-3000 for prius type cars, and for the ford escape it costs around $7k. Im reading some articles about this and once people reach around 80-120k miles the batterys wont hold a charge anymore. One guy said his dealership recomended to scrap the car for parts isntead of repalcing the battery

Which is hilarious... 7k for batterys ? Lets see, to get 80k miles the car should be around 5 years old. 5 years of paying half the price of gas i did.. Thats about $5k dollars, so its either pay $6k over 6 years or pay $6k in one big chunk

NewXJaddict

Personally I don't think I would ever drive a hybrid not any time soon anyway. Not until after several factors come together. I know "cant have your cake and eat it too" well ....whatever. Point is that until they are more equal in power/torque, the cost of the vehicle, price of repairs/parts come down to a more reasonable range then there is no reason at all for me to own one. What is the point in having a vehicle for that costs you an arm and a leg to buy then pounds you with the cost of everything else.

So yeah...I might get crappy mpg's but the money spent in gas is overall less than I would spend on the batteries, maint and other various repairs that may need done. And more than likely you can't do many repairs yourself anyway so you HAVE to take it to a shop/dealer and have THEM charge you another arm and leg for the repairs.

Also I hear hybrids cause some deformation of the brain making those who drive them believe that they are suddenly better than everyone else.

zetsxj

The materials used to build those lithium ion batteries are usually obtained from strip-mining. So much for more environmentally friendly eh?

Dogberri

more people should buy used 4 cyl cars and spend like 3k getting it mechanically brand new then drive it another 100 thousand. you'd save thousands over a new car and its easier on the enviro too. plus you'd most likely get better overall performance out it vs a prius anyway

Dogberri

a prius is only efficient if you drive it like a grandma

candymancan

Yea this test is valid because the Gas engine kicks in on these hybrids when you go a certain speed and then its just like any other gas engine...

For example the Ford escape my neighbor has, in city driving its rated 32MPG.. On highway its rated 27mpg.. Why is that ? Because in speed 35mph or higher the gas engine kicks in.. My 98 grand cherokee averages 19mpg, and highway 55mph i get around 27mpg according to the computer..

This hybrid stuff is a joke. The only good thing i see out of this is from stop and go driving, the hybrid does get good gas mileage because that kind of driving from a stop light the electric engine is running, and My Jeep from stop light at start gets around 8-12MPG until i get above 25mph or stay 25mph and just glide and once that happens im getting like 20mpg

firstime00XJ

Hybrids in theory are great. I would drive one, but only if I drove A LOT in the city. I do mostly highway driving, so a hybrid would not be beneficial. Candymancan, you're right. They are VERY dangerous when they've been involved in an accident. A non-hybrid car with airbags is dangerous because after the battery power is removed (by cutting the wire) airbags have stored energy for up to 30 minutes and an airbag that hasn't activated can activate. With a hybrid vehicle, you've got the main wiring harness from the Lithium Ion battery that usually is routed in the driver's side B Pillar that stores a WHOLE LOT MORE energy than a typical car battery. I don't feel safe extricating someone with the Jaws of Life because of that reason. However, manufacturers of hybrid vehicles are providing fire departments with multiple trainings, and A LOT of literature about extrication from a hybrid vehicle. so that's nice.

GreenClassic

Hybrids are a much more complex than a typical vehicle. This makes maintenance and repairs much more expensive.

Hybrids also cost an average of $8000 more than the normal vehicle. They typically get about 10mpg better city and 5mpg better highway.

Say you buy a 2010 Toyota Camry LE. The average gas mileage is 27mpg (city and highway combined). Now let's say you drive 15,000 miles a year, and gas is a constant $3.00/gallon. Gas will cost you $1666.67/year.

Now let's say you buy a 2010 Toyota Camry Hybrid. The average gas mileage is 33.5mpg (city and highway combined). Like before, you drive 15,000 miles a year at $3.00/gallon. Gas will cost you $1343.29/year.

So that's $323.38 less you pay with the hybrid for a year. The Camry Hybrid costs $7500 more than the Camry LE. It will take 23 years and 345,000 miles just to break even with the hybrid's initial purchase cost. This does not even take into account the cost of replacement batteries.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now for the 2010 Ford Escape XLS 4wd vs 2010 Ford Escape Hybrid 4wd.

The Ford Escape XLS 4wd gets an average of 23mpg (city and highway combined). 15,000 miles a year at $3.00/gallon. Gas will cost you $1956.53/year.

The Ford Escape Hybrid 4wd gets an average of 28.5mpg (city and highway combined). 15,000 miles a year at $3.00/gallon. Gas will cost you $1578.95/year.

That's a difference of $377.58. The Ford Escape Hybrid 4wd cots $7600 more than the Ford Escape XLS 4wd. It will take 20 years and 300,000 miles to break even with the hybrids initial purchase price. This does not even take into account the cost of replacement batteries.

huntingman2706217

i priced and plaid out the idea of driving a hybrid vs. a diesel car vs. the best gas milage for the money reg car which was the nissan versa at $10k brand new and 36 MPG with a special order smaller motor... my goal was under $14k total... i test drove all... this was only 3 months ago... the versa was actually nice... ugly... but had decent power for the MPG's... didnt have a inboard arm rest at all... which sucked so my arm layed in my lap the whole test ride... I was about to buy this as it was the best deal for a brand new car and a warranty... then i went to test drive the VW jettas... around 06 07 model... this is what i wanted on paper... 46mpg... nice looking... diesel reliability... only one i could find of this body style was AT $14k and i drove it and it was so darn slow i felt scared to pull out in traffic... has abunch of door dings and just didnt look taken care of... i wanted this bad but it wasnt in my budget well enough and i got turned off after driving it... i also drove a civic hybrid at the same place... they had a few of them... NO luxury... $13k felt like a space ship... felt like a nerd driving it... interior colors were ugly as crap... wrote that one off also... was even slower then the jetta diesel... then after searching for more jetta diesels i came across a 05 VW passat... had a larger engine... 40mpg... 80k miles and at $12k... this is the one i came home with... great gas milage... plenty of interstate power compared to the others... jeep could still outrun it probly...well maybe... also was fully loaded with sunroof, leather, heated seats... all the goods... on top of that there was only 7k of these cars made and i like being alittle different... lol... was black too... i live 45 min south of Atl and drove form here to birmingham AL and back and still had a quarter tank of gas left... drive 65 miles to work and back every day and can do that 5 times on one $45 tank of fuel... its frickin great...

i will always be a diesel fan... my jeep will get one... my dodge gets 23 on the interstate on H1's and 37in MT's...

i know this isnt SUV's but same concept... also when i researched i found that the hybrids have "one" big battery that consist acouple smaller batterys... so you dont have to replace them all at once... and i read and was told it was around a grand for the civic hybrid batteries... not sure what and where yall read but pay attention to the dates they were written... if it was 4 years ago... prices come down fast...

sandaddik2

it gives the tree huggers more money and thats all they care about. if diane finestine had to do her job in a non profit manner we would have never heard of her.

as for a hybrid, i wouldnt drive one. my dd is a ford ranger 6cyl and i get 26 mpg on the highway so its not horrible to drive, i can drive almost 400 miles for 30 bucks, hybrids suck lol

James Hopes

It looks very much like the traditional Tahoe, almost impossible to tell the two apart externally. Internally it is another matter. The hybrid Tahoe has a two mode hybrid power train combined with GM's patented Active Fuel Management Technology. Because of this the Tahoe can run exclusively on electricity, exclusively on fuel, or on a combination of both, depending on the circumstances involved. The company claims that is has a 25% fuels savings over a traditional Tahoe with the same equipment.