Would you buy a Hybrid Motorcycle?

[sbiker73]

Wrong. The Prius gets 45 MPG on the freeway and 48 MPG in the city. Very good gas mileage figures for sure but definitely NOT 60 MPG.

thats funny. i own a 97' GEO Metro and i get an AVERAGE of 40-42 MPG as long as i keep it right at 65 on the highway. If i really take it easy on the car I get 45+MPG.

All that for $2,500 OTD and i dont have to look like some urban dwelling pseudo tree hugging D-bag.

 

[Dr_SLO]

i own a 97' GEO Metro and i get an AVERAGE of 40-42 MPG

I need a new bike if economy is where it's at. I get 30 mpg at a sedate pace

 

[Grease_Monkey]

Ok. I'll bite.
Hybrid batteries are good for about 100,000 miles. Your driver would make a little over 33.3 trips saving $200 each time (more savings as average gas prices rise). So that's $6,667 saved in fuel.

Now pay the piper. The Prius battery pack is around $1,000 (plus a few thousand installed). You can absolutely bet a hybrid consumer truck battery is at least twice that size, so it's $2,000 (plus a few thousand installed). I'll be generous and say the battery installation is $1,000. So, after you've driven 100,000 miles, you now have to pay $3,000 to replace your battery pack.

Your net savings at 100K miles is around $3,667 (fuel - batt pack). Now what was the price premium you paid for the hybrid truck over a conventional truck? Oh, $3,000. Did you finance that money? You probably did, in which case you paid interest on it to your bank.

At 100K miles, that hybrid truck will cost you MORE than a conventional truck at current gas prices.

Buy a diesel and get 16MPG vs gas @ 10 or hybrid @ 12.

Oh, and if you're talking big rigs, hybrid is a joke. Big rig diesel engines go 300,000 miles before major service because they're big, low-revving engines.

Don't believe the hybrid hype.

I have previously stated that the batteries are the weak link in the Hybrid design.

Trust me, everyone was quite skeptical of Electronic Fuel injection, ABS, and automatic transmissions. And, in the beginning all three were not the most reliable systems. But through advances in technology they became the standard in most, cars. Volvo is even designing a car that has electric motors at all 4 wheels, which would allow for almost 100% regenerative braking.

 

[Vane]

Oh, and if you're talking big rigs, hybrid is a joke. Big rig diesel engines go 300,000 miles before major service because they're big, low-revving engines.

the diesel engine I'm going to be using redlines at about 2600 rpm arty

 

[reckon]

thats funny. i own a 97' GEO Metro and i get an AVERAGE of 40-42 MPG as long as i keep it right at 65 on the highway. If i really take it easy on the car I get 45+MPG.

All that for $2,500 OTD and i dont have to look like some urban dwelling pseudo tree hugging D-bag.

I had my room mates geo metro up to 49mpg highway and 47 city, for roughly 48mpg, normal driving, normal conditions. I used a K&N filter, typhoon intake, header, and a 2" exhaust system w/ flowmaster "can" & no re-map or we probably could have squeezed another 4-6MPG highway.

his car ran him $1800, the mods were about the same, so roughly $3,500 to get nearly 50mpg,....and the thing wasn't THAT slow either, it would get up to speed quick enough to get tickets!

so if a guy with $1700 extra, about 35 hours labor and a garage can get almost 50mpg,...why can't toyota?, or honda? with their trillion dollar R&D shit?

or anyone?

a fuel cell motorcycle?,...that I'd be more interested in, because hydrogen makes a bigger BANG than gasoline, so they'd probably be that much more efficient/quicker

as long as you don't "hindenburg"

 

[Grease_Monkey]

yes but a Metro is a 1300cc 3 cylinder gutless wonder. The Prius and Honda hybrids are 1500cc and 1600cc respectively. so more displacement, and the same fuel economy, that means those vehicles are producing more energy with the same amount of fuel.

The V-6 Honda Accord Hybrid does not only get better fuel economy than the non-hybrid, it actually has more Horsepower, due to the extra power supplied by the electric motor.

 

[sbiker73]

yes but a Metro is a 1300cc 3 cylinder gutless wonder. The Prius and Honda hybrids are 1500cc and 1600cc respectively. so more displacement, and the same fuel economy, that means those vehicles are producing more energy with the same amount of fuel.

The V-6 Honda Accord Hybrid does not only get better fuel economy than the non-hybrid, it actually has more Horsepower, due to the extra power supplied by the electric motor.

thats a 1000cc 3 cyl gutless wonder buddy!

i think the point is that you can get the same economy by KISS and ditching the battery and tech. also, $2K is well in the price range of everyday people.

 

[MOTOSAM]

i would jump on a diesel moto

 

[reckon]

yes but a Metro is a 1300cc 3 cylinder gutless wonder. The Prius and Honda hybrids are 1500cc and 1600cc respectively. so more displacement, and the same fuel economy, that means those vehicles are producing more energy with the same amount of fuel.

The V-6 Honda Accord Hybrid does not only get better fuel economy than the non-hybrid, it actually has more Horsepower, due to the extra power supplied by the electric motor.

dude, do the math, will ya?

300 more cc's displacement for a TON MORE extra weight? you obviously have never driven a metro, and they are only 1000cc triples, not 1300cc.
and the six banger accord has a MUCH larger gas motor, which is why it's "faster"

the point is not that a "prius is faster" (which they are, but not by much), as NO ONE buys a prius, because of the performance, they THINK they are saving money, or the environment, or some crap, but none of it is actually true.

the point is that hybrid technology is a joke, it pollutes MORE (the batteries AND gas), costs more to operate, and only slightly better acceleration than a non hybrid gasoline powered car, and then ONLY because it's running BOTH motors at once.

so a hybrid motorcycle would be heavy & expensive as well.

I could just buy a harley and get that

 

[moto-rama]

Only if they call it

The Priapus

 

[Vane]

The greek god of humongous phaluses. once killed a donkey with his pen0r.

 

[goodness-707]

Wrong. The Prius gets 45 MPG on the freeway and 48 MPG in the city. Very good gas mileage figures for sure but definitely NOT 60 MPG.

I've got a 2008 prius with a few thousand miles on it now. 60 MPG is no problem if I drive chill (or am forced to during a morning commute). I have yet to have a tank that averaged as low as 45. 52-56 MPG average over a tank is about average. A couple of months ago I broke my foot and had to drive to work for a few weeks. In the slow commute grind I averaged about 62 MPG.

Oh, and I have driven a Geo metro; there is no comparison. The prius aint a Lexus, that's for sure, but comparing it to a metro... sheeeeit, gimme a break. That comparison is almost retarded enough to be in a campaign season stump speech.

Y'all could stand to get a little more creative with the anti-prius FUD. The old stuff is getting a bit worn & tired.

 

[V4]

I just want a hybrid motorcycle so I can ride in the commute lane at 10mph less than the speed limit in front of hybrid cars ...

I live on revenge...

 

[kyles here]

i had a coworker that was getting 53 in his prius. how about the camry hybrids....a whopping 34mpg. i get 32 in my girls ford fusion

 

[barts]

What's w/ the anti-Prius spew? I drove mine from Menlo Park to Sacramento and back at 75 mph, and averaged 47 mpg. Yes, I'd love a turbo-diesel MiniCooper like I saw in London last week, but we need to get our emissions specs recalibrated to grams per mile rather than grams per gal first...

 

[sixtytwo]

So, if I take the emissions crap off and run it straight pipe, will it still do what I expect it to do when I rev it?

OH WAIT all it's going to do is run its electric motor because it's stopped, and that doesn't make loud noises at all!

Obnoxious people like me obviously can't live with a bike like that.

 

[Grease_Monkey]

Okay Hybrids are not for performance. They are about optimizing the energy stored every atom of the hydrocarbons that make up conventional fuel. Most newer cars only use 25-35% of the available energy. A hybrid uses the energy usually lost as heat by the brakes and stores it in batteries to be used to later to propel the vehicle.

take your 1000cc metro, and add a hybrid system and your 42 MPG will definitely increase, period. Yes the batteries are dangerous, and cost money, but i have already said, many of times, that the only thing holding hybrids back right now is battery technology.

 

[hayabusafiend]

What's w/ the anti-Prius spew? I drove mine from Menlo Park to Sacramento and back at 75 mph, and averaged 47 mpg.

Because hybrids don't make economic sense until they reach 100K miles.

At current gas prices, it'll take your Prius 4.7 *years*, driving 12K miles/year, to BREAK EVEN for the price premium you paid over a comparably sized gas engine car.

It's something like 7 *years* to BREAK EVEN for the hybrid Ford Escape.

The math for hybrids doesn't make sense unless you drive a lot, and I mean a whole lot. Let's say you drive 24K miles/year and gas prices average within a few percent of $4. The Prius price premium will break even in 2.35 years (with 56K miles on the car). I'm okay with that. You now end up in the black for about $2K/year in fuel.

You now have 1.8 years before you hit 100K miles and have to spend $2K-$3K for a new battery pack. In that 1.8 years, you saved $3,600 in fuel just to spend the majority of that on a battery pack.

At 100,000 miles, in 4 years, your net Prius saving is an estimated $600-$1,600. The upside is you're still saving $2K/year in fuel. The downside is those electric motors now have 100K miles (and a Prius won't get you laid).

I'll buy a turbo diesel.

 

[Grease_Monkey]

I'll buy a turbo diesel.

How about a turbo diesel hybrid?

Yes I agree it is not cost effective right now.

Put it to you this way, DVD's first came out the players were like 400 bucks. but now you can get one for less than 20.00 VHS tapes used to cost 15 buck now you can get a bundle for 50 cents. Hybrid systems are going to be as standard in a car as Air Conditioning, in a few years.

 

[Caddywumpus]

I drive sub 10 miles a day usually.