Where are all the great gas mileage cars from Top Gear

[GreasyJack]

@Zany_Zeolite_Zipper

There is no point to making hybrids.

Hybrids are great for driving conditions that can take advantage of hybrid’s energy recovery capability, which means lots of stop and go driving. Very few private car owners put enough stop-and-go city miles on their cars to really take advantage of a hybrid, but they’re great for taxi fleets and the like. The trouble is that fleet sales are really small potatoes (profit-margin wise) for the car makers and so they opted instead to market them to eco-yuppies (who then sometimes go and bitch about how they’re only getting 40 MPG on their 90% highway driving commutes).

[aruvqan]

@Ravenman

I own a 2009 VW Jetta diesel. I get about 30 mpg in town, and around 47 on the highway. Its power is ample, and the healthy amount of torque makes it fun to drive, in stark contrast to the Prius (booooring) which I test drove several times. Oh yeah, it meets all 50 states’ emissions standards.

It costs a few thousand bucks more than a vanilla Jetta, but it is a good car.

However, I agree that US consumers aren’t really interested in diesels. I would have loved to have had the option of a diesel EOS convertible, for example, which is apparently available in Europe, but not here.

2006 diesel jetta, dependable 43 highway, 36-38 around town. I freaking ADORE it. I would marry it and move into the garage with it if I was into automotibile erotica like that guy they kept catching screwing vehicles :eek:

I recently drove a Ford Kuga around Germany and Holland, and it was kickass, and got 40 highway at autobahn speeds. It also had window defrosting wires in the FRONT windshield, which absolutely was fantastic. It is supposed to be sold in the US starting in 2012 as the Escape, at which time Ford America will probably totally fuck it up and ruin it.

This stupid american fascination with hbrid is totally fucked up. Why should anybody pay many many thousand $4 more for a car that takes specialty batteries that are hazardous material generators to make, will need replacing at 5 years, and create hazardous materials to dispose of to get barely better mileage, when you can get a bog standard diesel that gets excellent mileage and can be used with regular or biodiesel with no modifications? Higher tech isn’t always the best solution to anything.

And why yes I did actually have a 1984 Ford Escort Diesel, and it got 45 MPG highway, and chugged along quite dependably until it finally died of rust

[griffin1977]

@GreasyJack

@elmwood

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve read that in some countries where cars depreciate quite a bit in value (UK, Japan), the lower cost of the car is either offset by higher insurance costs, or inspection requirements that are so strict cars more than a few years old aren’t considered roadworthy.

Basically the government makes used cars artificially expensive to own, so buying a new car becomes a better deal. Same sorta idea-- thrifty people are more likely to buy a new car and so a car maker is more likely to sell more new cars that appeal to thrifty people.

I am not sure this is the case at all. Used cars ARE far cheaper in Europe. But the cost of ownership is not significantly more. True, there are more rigorous road-worthiness checks, but that doesn’t account for all the difference in price (maybe the bottom end of the market where you can pick up a car for next to nothing if you don’t mind that it probably won’t pass its “MoT” but not newer cars).

IMO there is some factor at work that makes used cars artificially expensive in the US, not the reverse (for example you will pay more for financing, which never made that much sense for me, seeing as used cars depreciate MORE than used cars).

[Ximenean]

Some of you seem to be equating diesel with tiny “econoboxes”, but in Europe diesel is an option, and a very popular one, on almost all models of car. Want a diesel Jag? No problem, sir.

I’m also confused by the points people are making about depreciation being higher here (or is it lower?), and running costs being higher. For owners of new cars in the UK, depreciation is easily their biggest cost unless they do very high mileage. I spend about £1500 a year on petrol, while depreciation on an unremarkable car worth say £15K would be about £3000.

[GreasyJack]

@griffin1977

I am not sure this is the case at all. Used cars ARE far cheaper in Europe. But the cost of ownership is not significantly more. True, there are more rigorous road-worthiness checks, but that doesn’t account for all the difference in price (maybe the bottom end of the market where you can pick up a car for next to nothing if you don’t mind that it probably won’t pass its “MoT” but not newer cars).

IMO there is some factor at work that makes used cars artificially expensive in the US, not the reverse (for example you will pay more for financing, which never made that much sense for me, seeing as used cars depreciate MORE than used cars).

Are you saying used cars are far cheaper in Europe than they are in the US or just that they are still far cheaper than new cars? I don’t have any particular data, but the Europeans I’ve known (mostly exchange students and faculty from Germany, Austria & Ireland) are usually pretty shocked by how cheap you can pick up a car here (I’ve even helped a few find cheap cars to use while they’re here). Granted, I’m in a part of the country where they’re probably cheaper than most, so maybe it really is just a regional thing. Or maybe it’s just cultural-- perhaps the folks I’ve met in foreign academia just never fancied themselves the $1000 car types.

At any rate, I think my point stands that the cost of fuel when compared to new car depreciation is much larger in Europe and elsewhere, regardless of the specifics (although I suppose if depreciation is similar, it’s just a long winded way of saying “gas costs more there”). I’m not saying that fuel costs regularly exceed depreciation costs on a new car, but just that they’re much closer.

[griffin1977]

@GreasyJack

Are you saying used cars are far cheaper in Europe than they are in the US or just that they are still far cheaper than new cars? I don’t have any particular data, but the Europeans I’ve known (mostly exchange students and faculty from Germany, Austria & Ireland) are usually pretty shocked by how cheap you can pick up a car here (I’ve even helped a few find cheap cars to use while they’re here). Granted, I’m in a part of the country where they’re probably cheaper than most, so maybe it really is just a regional thing.
.

I can tell you from personal experience that this is not the case. Moving from the UK to Nevada and then California, I was shocked at how expensive used cars were, even though new cars were far cheaper. This ranges from fairly new used cars (which were not really significantly cheaper than a brand new one) down to cars that cost less than $1000 (which is a fairly healthy sector of the used car market in the UK).

[Johnny_L.A]

The Bottom Line
It appears clear, no matter what the driving conditions, that the Toyota Prius will return around 44 mpg—if driven with a sane right foot.

For two and a half years I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet on my Prius. Average mileage over that time is 47.57 mpg.

[Muffin]

Check out Clarkson driving the Californian Tesla if you have a link to Top Gear vids.

Tesla Motors: About | Tesla

[Ravenman]

@Dewey_Finn

I just spent the weekend buying a new car, and what turned me off buying a diesel is the cost of fuel. In my experience it costs 20-30 more than regular unleaded and is regularly more expensive than even premium unleaded. I looked at the Toyota Prius, but bought the Honda Fit in the end because it’s one of the highest mileage conventional cars, has those cool rear seats than can fold up in various ways and cost thousands less than the Prius. I’m unhappy that there are so few cars available in the US with mileage ratings above 30MPG.

The price of diesel seems to average about 15% more than regular, but comparing apples to apples (gas vs diesel Jettas, 335s, A3s) the diesel seems to get about 30% better mileage.