"Pete C" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 14 Jul 2005 22:54:07 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Pete C wrote:
Unless you do mainly city driving, avoid the extravagant maker's
claims
for hybrids as regards fuel consumption and emissions. On average out
of
town journeys they're no better than a conventional petrol car.

How are they extravagant claims? They are the result of standardised
urban/combined fuel economy tests.

They may be, but are not representative of real life driving. And given
just how poor the Prius turned out to be, one can only assume the
software
etc was tweaked for optimum results *for these tests* Otherwise, how do
you explain an overall figure of 23 MPG in an Autocar test? No other car
I
can find is so far away from the 'official' figures.

Web reference?

Do you really believe Autocar alone? I used to get 42mpg combined from
a hatchback so claiming a Prius does 23 is absolutely laughable.

Very few cars will be used only for out of town journeys, most cars
will be urban/combined.

Yup. Autocar have a test route designed to simulate this and put every
car
they test over it. The Prius still did badly - considering its claims.

See this real life test, quotes 58mpg over the first 1000 miles:

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/road_tests/?id=135

IMO you've spent so much time replying to DIMM you've started thinking
exactly the same way...

Do you mean he sends emails to Dim Lin, the Oriental enchantress? The
filthy *******!! Maxie! Get this sorted!!!