patrick.net

New Renter says

The catalytic converter(s) does nothing for mileage, only for emissions.

Well, fuel injection is controlled by ECU, which in turns takes the readings from cat converter via O2 sensors. Yes, cat plays a role in the mileage.

My list of top cars is based on acceptable legroom and lowest CO2/mile:

1. Jetta Hybrid
2. Passat TDI
3. Jetta TDI

If you don't need the legroom:

1. Toyota Prius (not the plug-in version)
2. Toyota Prius (not the plug-in version)
3. Toyota Prius (not the plug-in version)
4. ... did I mention the Toyota Prius?

Cars to avoid like the plague, because they suck and the CO2/mile is WORSE
than the best hybrids or diesels of the same size:

1. anything electrical (EV), because it has higher CO2/mile
2. anything plug-in hybrid (PHEV), because it has higher CO2/mile
3. Chevy Volt in particular
4. Nissan Leaf in particular
5. Tesla Model S in particular
6. Prius PHEV in particular
7. any car with more than 4 cylinders or more than 2L of displacement
8. and ESPECIALLY: anything hydrogen (need I say more?)
9. anything made by that fool Elon Musk, including Tesla, and especially including Space-X rockets that burn megatons of fossile fuel just so that said Elon Musk can feel important.

Undoubtedly, lots of uninformed and misinformed people are going to get their shorts in a twist over what I'm saying here. May I respectfully suggest that you do the math, considering that nearly 70% of US electrical grid mix is from fossile-fired power plants, including about 45% from COAL. That's right, your shiny new Tesla model S, runs on 45% COAL, and with a thermal efficiency of less than 33% to boot.

Some common fallacies:

1. no, it doesn't matter that you have a solar panel on your house: instead of charging your car with it you should feed that electricity into the grid and use it to displace COAL there. Then drive a Prius.

2. no, it does not matter that your electric car gets "102 MPGe" (Nissan Leaf). MPGe is a fraudulent measure because it "forgets" to account for the 100-33=67% energy loss in the coal plants, and the 45% energy loss in the natgas plants.

3. no, the amount of fossile fuel in the grid mix is not going down anytime soon. CO2/kWh is not going to drop because of some tiny amount of green power. Nuclear will take 20+ years to come online. In fact, added demand from EV charging will force the CO2/kWh higher.

4. no, it doesn't matter that you believe that you can charge you car with wind power at night. Use the wind power to turn off the coal plants (displace the coal).

5. no, it does not matter that you think California power has lower CO2/kWh than Ohio (or whatever) because "we" use more natgas and "they" use more coal. There is pretty much a national grid and therefore electrical energy is a fungible commodity.

Listen, there is a bit of sarcasm towards Tesla and Elon Musk mixed in with the facts above, but the rest is the plain truth. Anyone who can think straight and do freshman physics can calculate the CO2/mile for any vehicle based on published MPG or kWh/mile numbers.

Addendum: I agree with NewRenter that the Mazda 6 Diesel is a good choice, but you'll have to wait until fall 2013 for the 2014 model. There are also many other cars in various stages of development that would be good choices. Here is one of them:

http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/alternative/1306_2013_volkswagen_xl1_first_drive

261 mpg on EU driving cycle! Powered by Diesel Hybrid, which is the best technology available today. No Sci-Fi, it really works today.

I bought a new 2012 model recently-got a very good discount. I was willing to pay cash for it. But the dealer said I would get one of their rebates only if I financed with them. Since it was a big discount, I asked about the interest rates and they offered me zero percent interest loan, after running my credit.

I am still scratching my head-I am willing to pay cash, but you give me a loan at zero percent interest and a discount/rebate for that? WTF?????

Now, if only I can find someone who will give me a zero percent mortgage!

lostand confused says

I bought a new 2012 model recently-got a very good discount. I was willing to pay cash for it. But the dealer said I would get one of their rebates only if I financed with them. Since it was a big discount, I asked about the interest rates and they offered me zero percent interest loan, after running my credit.

I am still scratching my head-I am willing to pay cash, but you give me a loan at zero percent interest and a discount/rebate for that? WTF?????

Now, if only I can find someone who will give me a zero percent mortgage!

Is it zero percent for the life of the loan or is it going to balloon in a few months?

APOCALYPSEFUCK is Shostakovich says

New Renter says

APOCALYPSEFUCK is Shostakovich says

New Renter says

Its CASH or FUCK YOU!

It's CASH or FUCK YOU, America!

I stand corrected my Sensei!

It's all good!

Glad to hear it given I am supposed to taste AWESOME smoked with an orange sauce.

Okay, so here's a question:

I was approached a while back, as I have been in the past, with what I believe to be a "pull-ahead" offer from Toyota. They basically entice you to get out of your current lease (which ends in 3-4 months) and stay in the manufacturer's family.

I thought it was possible that I had some positive equity in the car, and they had the used car mangler appraise it. He calculated that I was underwater by some amount and they began to deduct that amount from the incentives they were giving me.

I walked out of the dealership, since I figured that the amount they were taking away was equivalent to my remaining payments. Why not keep the car and drive the hell out of it for 4 months, since I'm only at 20K miles on a 36K mile lease?

Is this SOP? I would assume that any pull-ahead would expunge any negative equity. Anyone have any experience with this?

New Renter says

Is it zero percent for the life of the loan or is it going to balloon in a
few months?

Zero percent for the life of the loan.

lostand confused says

Zero percent for the life of the loan.

Which manufacturer?

CL says

lostand confused says

Zero percent for the life of the loan.

Which manufacturer?

Hyundai and my finance is through Hyundai too.

raindoctor says

New Renter says

The catalytic converter(s) does nothing for mileage, only for emissions.

Well, fuel injection is controlled by ECU, which in turns takes the readings from cat converter via O2 sensors. Yes, cat plays a role in the mileage.

I don't believe that is the way it works. The O2 sensors ARE used to tune the engine in real time but they are not integral to the converter.

The shitty mileage is more likely to be caused by the greater viscosity of cold lubricants, sloppier tolerances of cold parts, cold tires (cold air = lower pressure), etc. The engine may also be tuned for a richer mixture and higher idle to run better when cold (This used to be performed manually with a choke cable). None of this has anything to do with the converter.

Nissan Leaf S lease is $99/month. Many folks get these and use the money saved on fuel for the lease payments.
justme says:
1. no, it doesn't matter that you have a solar panel on your house: instead of charging your car with it you should feed that electricity into the grid and use it to displace COAL there. Then drive a Prius.
The bulk of recharging is done at night with excess reserves. BEVs have a positive impact on air quality in urban areas; there is also a case to be made for short trips in with a BEV versus an ICE.

EBGuy says

Nissan Leaf S lease is $99/month. Many folks get these and use the money saved on fuel for the lease payments.

justme says:

1. no, it doesn't matter that you have a solar panel on your house: instead of charging your car with it you should feed that electricity into the grid and use it to displace COAL there. Then drive a Prius.

The bulk of recharging is done at night with excess reserves. BEVs have a positive impact on air quality in urban areas; there is also a case to be made for short trips in with a BEV versus an ICE.

That's right. Its not only Hyundais that get shitty cold-engine mileage.

I think that $99/mo lease takes a hefty down payment though.

NR said: I think that $99/mo lease takes a hefty down payment though.
I'm not a 'lease guy', so take this with a grain of salt. From what I can tell, the 'standard non-negotiated' lease for $99/month requires $3,500 down (total out the door). You may be able to negotiate better lease terms (cost, residual, or money factor).

EBGuy says

Nissan Leaf S lease is $99/month. Many folks get these and use the money saved on fuel for the lease payments.

I would also get free HOV over the bridge, n'est-ce pas?

CL said: I would also get free HOV over the bridge
Define free. Reduced rate is the new free: The Bay Area Toll Authority grants reduced rate passage on the above bridges to inherently-low-emission vehicles with DMV-issued decals, such as electric cars, that use FasTrak® to pay the toll.

EBGuy says

FasTrak® to pay the toll.

Fucking fascists!

EBGuy says

CL said: I would also get free HOV over the bridge

Define free. Reduced rate is the new free: The Bay Area Toll Authority grants reduced rate passage on the above bridges to inherently-low-emission vehicles with DMV-issued decals, such as electric cars, that use FasTrak® to pay the toll.

Oh yeah! I remember that from when I used to carpool.

"HIGH-OCCUPANCY VEHICLES

The Bay Area Toll Authority grants reduced-rate passage on the above bridges for vehicles classified by it as high-occupancy vehicles that use FasTrak® to pay the toll.
The reduced rate is 50 percent of the regular toll: $2.50. "

Isn't the Bay Bridge 6 bucks?

ToT said: Fucking fascists!
Don't worry, the Golden Gate Bridge has done away with toll takers for cash payments. They automatically read your license plate and send you the toll bill if you don't have a FasTrak® transponder.

Well does it matter, they are just taking your money, and when the big one comes, and destroys the GGB, do you really honestly think that there is some fund, that has been sat aside, from all of this strong arm robbery, to build another one?

Fuck NO! It's all going to FasTrak's profit outlook.

EBGuy says

Nissan Leaf S lease is $99/month. Many folks get these and use the money saved on fuel for the lease payments.

Lots of misinformation going on with leases. Sure, I can get a Lexus for $49/month for a 36 month lease, if only I put down a $16,000 down payment. I'm looking to put no more than $1,000 down. The Leaf is going for $199/month if you put down $1800. Over 36 months, that means it is closer to $250/month, and certainly not $99. As for the Leaf, not a big fan. Not a good looking car in my opinion, and if you have "range anxiety", it isnt the car for you. Try driving up to Sacramento from LA in the Leaf. You can in the volt, but unlikely in the Leaf.

justme says

no, it does not matter that you think California power has lower CO2/kWh than Ohio (or whatever) because "we" use more natgas and "they" use more coal. There is pretty much a national grid and therefore electrical energy is a fungible commodity.

From my understanding, it really isn't a national grid. We get most if not all of our power from Diablo Canyon and San Onofre (when working) nuclear plants, natgas, and hydroelectric from the Pacific Northwest. We dont have coal power plants. The LA region is taken care of for the next 25 years or so with the existing natgas and the three new ones coming online over the next 2-3 years, even with San Onofre Units 1 and 2 being down.

As for VW, I would second one of the posters above. You wouldn't get me in one of their cars. Had a 2003 Passat. Absolute piece of junk, and the dealer and manufacturer were worse than the car. I have lots of stories about that car.

justme says

Undoubtedly, lots of uninformed and misinformed people are going to get their shorts in a twist over what I'm saying here. May I respectfully suggest that you do the math, considering that nearly 70% of US electrical grid mix is from fossile-fired power plants, including about 45% from COAL. That's right, your shiny new Tesla model S, runs on 45% COAL, and with a thermal efficiency of less than 33% to boot.

No, some of us aren't going to get their shorts in a twist, but I will say I and many others are growing tired of constantly having to correct those who obviously lack an understanding of this particular issue.
A popular, and typically right-leaning assertion is that electric cars use more fossil fuels due to their use of electricity, which comes from plants.

Well, to nip that assertion in the rear, there's a BIG difference between numbers of huge, very strictly controlled, and constantly monitored powered plants versus untold millions and millions of privately owned and questionably maintained cars throughout the country, where in many states you don't ever have to have the car smogged. I grew up in the rural South and as long as the car rolled and had seat belts, you were good. Can't tell you how many people I knew driving around in pieces of crap that smoked like chimneys. The bottom line: The argument that electric cars are dirtier due to using power plant power holds no water: The power plants themselves are more regulated and in turn- cleaner than the overall conventional car fleet on the road.

Second of all, coal is constantly also mentioned in these sorts of arguments. Actually coal plants are going offline at a rapid rate because of the abundance of natural gas, which as we all know burns rather cleanly and is ridiculously plentiful- as in the US will be the single largest producer of it soon, it not already.

As far as overall electric power consumption by cars, well for one thing electric cars make up a TINY percentage of the overall vehicular fleet. The average electric car charger uses about the same amount of power as a conventional household refrigerator. So its not like they use a gargantuan amount of power to start with nor are there enough to make even make a neglible blip in current energy usage.

But taking that argument even further, assume that yes- everyone goes out and buys an electric car tommorow. Will that have a huge impact on the grid? Probably not. Why? Because even in the last 5-6 years the appliances and devices in the home have changed dramatically and use a LOT less power. A few examples: TV sets, mobile devices, and refrigerators.

1: TV sets. Most are now LED flat screen. These use very little power over their CRT predecessors which used a Cathode tube that had to be 'fired' with an electron gun at around 10,000-20,000 volts of current generated by a heat-sucking flyback generator.

2: Mobile devices: These have replaced the old tower computers in a lot of homes and again- use a tiny amount of power in comparison

3: Laptops and PCs: They use cooler running CPUs which require less energy

4: Refrigerators: Their efficiency doubles every 10 years. The main energy hogs in fridges in the past was the heated defroster mechanisms which have become many, many times more efficient

5: Light bulbs: Most houses now use either CFL or now LED bulbs, both of which use a fraction of the power of older incandescents,

So you add all of these up and energy consumption per household has dropped dramatically, which of course would easily and likely offset any additional usage incurred by an electric car charger.

If you do a lot of highway driving, I'd second a VW TDi of some sort.

True, they have had spotty reliability but I believe they're also covering scheduled maintenance for 2 years.

Facebooksux says

True, they have had spotty reliability but I believe they're also covering scheduled maintenance for 2 years.

My Mother in law owns a VW TDI and that thing has also been a POS.

As far as a car I would consider:
Chevy Cruze Eco or Chevy Volt.
I drove a Chevy Cruze eco on a trip and it was seriously getting around 45MPG the entire time. It was also pretty fun to drive. They are fairly inexpensive too. A diesel Cruze is going to be sold by this summer.

edvard2 says

As far as a car I would consider:

Chevy Cruze Eco or Chevy Volt.

I drove a Chevy Cruze eco on a trip and it was seriously getting around 45MPG the entire time. It was also pretty fun to drive. They are fairly inexpensive too. A diesel Cruze is going to be sold by this summer.

I dig the diesels!

One product I'd love to see more of are microvans similar to the Mazda 5. When you have kids sliding doors are AWESOME! Hel;l even without kids being able to fully open the rear doors in tight parking spaces is

Ford almost had me with the CMax but they only brought over the conventional rear door model.

I really liked the design of the new Ford Fusion. But it looks like not many are getting the EPA mileage of the hybrid. I did drive the 2012 model as a rental and really liked the feel of the thing.

APOCALYPSEFUCK is Shostakovich says

New Renter says

edvard2 says

As far as a car I would consider:

Chevy Cruze Eco or Chevy Volt.

I drove a Chevy Cruze eco on a trip and it was seriously getting around 45MPG the entire time. It was also pretty fun to drive. They are fairly inexpensive too. A diesel Cruze is going to be sold by this summer.

I dig the diesels!

Rented a Fiat diesel a couple of years back after some work in Sicily and the little guy rocked. Roomy and quiet, it was a neat piece of kit.

How many bodies were you able to fit into the trunk?

Waitingtobuy says

Lots of misinformation going on with leases. Sure, I can get a Lexus for $49/month for a 36 month lease, if only I put down a $16,000 down payment. I'm looking to put no more than $1,000 down. The Leaf is going for $199/month if you put down $1800. Over 36 months, that means it is closer to $250/month, and certainly not $99.

Most of the leases have their advertised prices at 2000-2699 as the down, even more on the luxury vehicles.

New Renter said: One product I'd love to see more of are microvans similar to the Mazda 5.
Are you some kind of socialist? You belong in Europe where they actually release those types of vehicles.
Seriously, though, I am convinced that the first automaker to offer a hybrid or diesel in this form factor will clean up. The best you can do now is a Highlander hybrid for a gas friendly people hauler. (Perhaps Toyota is afraid of cannibalizing Highlander sales so that's why they refuse to release the 6 passenger Prius v in the US).
I know someone who's contemplating a new Transit Connect. They'll be able to seat 7, but in a smaller form factor than an American minivan.

Well, apparently Ford will start selling a full sized version of their Transit vans in the US soon. These are about as big as the old econoline vans yet have a turbodiesel engine that they claim will get around 30+ MPG. Not bad considering how large it is.

EBGuy says

(Perhaps Toyota is afraid of cannibalizing Highlander sales so that's why they
refuse to release the 6 passenger Prius v in the US).

A six seater Prius? I remember when I drove a Geo Metro and crammed 5 people into it and went up a steep hill in San Francisco and the car stopped mid way. When two people got out, I could go on to the top!! Prius is what 99 HP??

lostand confused says

A six seater Prius? I remember when I drove a Geo Metro and crammed 5 people into it and went up a steep hill in San Francisco and the car stopped mid way. When two people got out, I could go on to the top!! Prius is what 99 HP??

Had to be better than the Chevy Aveo I rented on vacation one time. The car was already falling apart when we parked at the hotel the first night. It had maybe 75 miles on the clock total ( brand new) and pieces of the interior were coming off. The engine was so weak in the thing that when we went up hills on the freeway, it would NOT go over 50MPH, even floored. The real kicker is that it actually got pretty bad fuel economy despite the crappy little engine. I think we managed maybe 25MPG the whole trip.

CL says

Most of the leases have their advertised prices at 2000-2699 as the down, even more on the luxury vehicles.

If you are leasing for two years, that adds $100/month on to the car. If for three, $80+.

As I said, most decent hybrids that aren't stripped down are anywhere between $275-$400/month with $1K down.

I currently have a 2012 Prius. I fueled up today and it cost me $34.93, I drove 472 miles on my previous tank of gas.

My next purchase will probably be around 2020 if there is a compact that is around 22k that gets 150 mpge that has 250 mile range.

lostand confused says

EBGuy says

(Perhaps Toyota is afraid of cannibalizing Highlander sales so that's why they

refuse to release the 6 passenger Prius v in the US).

A six seater Prius? I remember when I drove a Geo Metro and crammed 5 people into it and went up a steep hill in San Francisco and the car stopped mid way. When two people got out, I could go on to the top!! Prius is what 99 HP??

The gas engine is 98HP/105 ftlb. Its assisted by the electric motor which on its own puts out 80HP/153 ftlb. The output of the two together is listed as 134 HP/154 ftlb torque. This is a factor of the very different way the engine and motor operate at different speeds. From a standing stop most of the torque will be coming from the electric motor. I'd think it'd handle hills with a full load just fine.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CEgQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpressroom.toyota.com%2Ftoyota%2F2012%2Btoyota%2Bprius%2Bv%2Bproduct%2Binfo.download&ei=u8GBUajQFIHliAL3-IG4Bw&usg=AFQjCNHi9iPdssTAhXubJNG2UUb6RiawgA&sig2=WjswVq1O7VclbSYqZyRK0Q&cad=rja

l & c said: A six seater Prius?
The Prius+ in Europe.

EBGuy says

l & c said: A six seater Prius?
The Prius+ in Europe.

But still, I wonder if it can handle midwest size folks. Six 250+ pound folks. Perhaps it can, as new Renter pointed out, but I don't know!!

lostand confused says

EBGuy says

But still, I wonder if it can handle midwest size folks. Six 250+ pound folks. Perhaps it can, as new Renter pointed out, but I don't know!!

Strap 1 or 2 to the roof and hood and you're good to go!

lostand confused says

I am still scratching my head-I am willing to pay cash, but you give me a loan at zero percent interest and a discount/rebate for that? WTF?????

Now, if only I can find someone who will give me a zero percent mortgage!

Well, the dealer is rational here: he makes 'more' money off by financing and other rebates. If you pay in cash, he makes less.