4 ms·
I'm not sure it is so much the luxury/economy car as the weight that you need to look at. Weight, often even more than drag, will be a primary driver determina
by toss1 7y ago
I'm not sure it is so much the luxury/economy car as the weight that you need to look at. Weight, often even more than drag, will be a primary driver determinant of fuel inefficiency.
While luxury cars are often heavier, and perhaps built without as much presumption that the owners will be concerned about fuel mileage/costs, there are many anomalies where apparently smallish cars are surprisingly heavy. And even 'economy' cars have become quite portly. Just look at the Honda civic hatch, from 1990-now going from 2165 Lbs to 2763 Lbs -- that extra 600Lbs is over 27% heavier -- a lot more mass to accelerate. Or, check out the Nissan Maxima sedan at 3676 Lbs! That's most of the way to my old BMW X5's 4100Lbs. Meanwhile a friend's C6 Corvette weighed in at ~3140 Lbs and got over 32mpg on the highway between the low CD and lighter weight. Look beyond the luxury to the design & build.
- nradov 7y agoHybrid and electric drive trains allow heavier vehicles to be more efficient. For example a hybrid RAV4 uses less fuel than a regular RAV4 even though it weighs more.
- leetcrew 7y agosure, but a hybrid Miata (if such a thing existed) would be even more efficient than the hybrid RAV4. I think that's all GP is trying to say.
- nradov 7y agoThe old Honda CR-Z was basically equivalent to a hybrid Miata but there's little market demand for such impractical vehicles.
- toss1 7y agoExactly! Drivetrain type is completely orthogonal to weight as a performance factor for a vehicle. Weight will affect the efficiency of every drivetrain (unless you have a drivetrain that can zero out the inertial properties of nearby mass). I was only suggesting that luxury is a less important factor than weight to consider for efficiency.
- davidgould 7y agoThe actual Miata gets pretty poor fuel economy. The shape is not very aerodynamic and the gearing is fairly short so it runs at higher rpms more of the time. Great for fun, but bad for mileage.
- toss1 7y agoThe drive train is obviously a different issue Moreover, if we could have lighter batteries, the lighter hybrid or all electric would be even more efficient. How many hybrids/electics do you see being made with lead-acid batteries (extremely reliable, proven, safe), vs Li-Ion? Basically none. Because the weight is so much of an issue that it makes them impractical. Just because one factor (hybrid or electric drive train) can compensate for another factor (weight), does not make that factor irrelevant.