The lads over at Edmunds organized a “mini” fuel economy marathon by comparing some of the most gas efficient cars available in the North American market: the 2008 Toyota Prius 1.5 Hybrid, the 2005 VW Jetta 2.0 TDI Diesel, the 2008 Smart Fortwo 1.0 and the 2008 Ford Focuse SES Coupe 2.0. The smackdown included tests on the highway and in the city along with measuring the cars’ CO2 footprint. Check out the video after the jump. –ContinuedVia: Edmunds
7 Comments:
the Prius uses petrol right?
Diesel is more expensive than petrol...............................
therefore... which is going to cost you less to run.....?
I hope they "traded places" in the following order during their testing, so that the cars following in the "draft" of the first car didn't wind up with artificially higher fuel economy numbers than the lead car's numbers. "Drafting" other vehicles substantially boosts highway fuel economy, since that is where wind resistance is the greatest source of drag.
Seems pretty clear to me from their summary....the Prius was by far the cheapest to run over the range of driving and only "lost" on the first stage to the diesel Jetta....and then not by enough mpg to justify the extra cost of the Jetta's diesel fuel.
Hence the Prius was the "clear winner" here given all their data?
My '03 Renault Clio dCI Diesel does 65 mpg over a mix trajet. Much better than the Prius.
Being that I can make biodiesel for $0.78 per gallon, and I get 48 MPG out of my diesel Jetta; the Jetta is cheaper to run.
BTW - the 05' Jetta came with a 1.9L TDI-PD engine - not the 2.0L TDI-PD engine from the Passat. The 2009 Jetta TDI-CR is a 2.0L.
Hmmmm, I wonder what the total cost over 100k miles for fuel and purchase cost would be.
My TDI has a lifetime of 55mpg over 76,000 miles, I can't complain. Until Diesel is 2x the cost of gas I am still better off with our TDI.
IMO, since the Fortwo costs about $10,000 less than the Prius you basically get that much gas for free!
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