Honda CR-Z

[volospian]

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2010/05/27/review_e_car_honda_cr_z/

I quite like the look of this, but 9.9 to 60mph isn't exactly sporty... Still, a combined 56.5mpg and 0 road tax isn't to be sniffed at. Shame there isn't a "proper" engine option...

[Matblack]

If I squint really hard it looks like a MKII CRX, which is a good thing :)

MB

[Desmo]

Have to say that is a nice looking car :)

[Burble]

I think the front end looks fantastic, very Nissan GTR-esque.

I wonder if there is finally a hybrid that drives well as I know that the Prius is a hideous sack of crap to drive.

[Darrin]

Something I just don't understand about all the hybrids out there. Why is there not a single one of them running a Diesel as the dino powered part? Locomotives have been Diesel-electric hybrids for almost a half a century now.

And considering where an electric motor is most efficient is at low speeds and where a Diesel is most efficient is at high speeds, they compliment each other. Use the electric side in town and the Diesel on the highway. A gasoline engine is only efficient when it's warmed up all the way and is used at a constant power setting. Which a car never does.

[Burble]

A gasoline engine is only efficient when it's warmed up all the way and is used at a constant power setting. Which a car never does.

I think that's why the Prius has a (stepped) CVT gearbox - that would put an approximately constant load on the engine.

[Del Lardo]

Something I just don't understand about all the hybrids out there. Why is there not a single one of them running a Diesel as the dino powered part? Locomotives have been Diesel-electric hybrids for almost a half a century now.

And considering where an electric motor is most efficient is at low speeds and where a Diesel is most efficient is at high speeds, they compliment each other. Use the electric side in town and the Diesel on the highway. A gasoline engine is only efficient when it's warmed up all the way and is used at a constant power setting. Which a car never does.

May have something to do with weight. Diesel engines are heavier than petrols for similar power outputs. In regular cars the extra economy makes it worthwhile but when you are lugging round a pile of batteries as well it may not make it worthwhile. Also on a highway diesels aren't running at high revs (I may have misunderstood what you mean here) but rather 2-2.5k revs with a redline of 5k.

I'm speculating here but I suspect your experience is with lorry (truck) diesel engines and these are very different beasts to the engines fitted to European diesel cars.

[Jonny69]

Something I just don't understand about all the hybrids out there. Why is there not a single one of them running a Diesel as the dino powered part? Locomotives have been Diesel-electric hybrids for almost a half a century now.
I don't understand this either.

Some (fairly lame) reasons I came up with:

-Easier to crank a petrol engine which would make a smoother transfer from motor to engine when it starts.
-A cold diesel needs to warm its glowplugs before it will fire into life. A petrol will just start.
-Black smoke when a cold diesel starts, which you don't get with a petrol. You'd need some big ass soot traps to contain it long term.

I don't think weight is the issue. Diesels don't weigh that much more than petrols in the grand scale of things. Hybrid batteries weigh about 50kg, which hardly registers on a 1300kg car.

I wondered if they are just holding the technology back so they can release a 'next generation' hybrid at some point. That way they maintain a trick up their sleeve rather than unleashing all the technology at once.

[Stan_Lite]

Aesthetically, it's not my cup of tea. Any similarity to the Nissan GTR (can't see it personally) isn't much to brag about either. There's one a couple of streets away that I walk past regularly and, every time I look at it, I can't help thinking they overdid the steroids.

I'm not convinced hybrid cars are as green as the manufacturers would like us to think they are. I'm concerned that developing these engines is slowing down R&D on, what I consider to be the proper future of green motoring, the Hydrogen fuel cell.

[Burble]

I'm not convinced hybrid cars are as green as the manufacturers would like us to think they are.

In my eyes that's an absolute given. There is next to no talka bout how polluting the process of making the batteries is - there are huge areas of Canada that are a wilderness now thanks to nickel mining which is a hugely dirty business. Then the nickel is transported around the world for various stages of processing before it finally makes its way into the car.

I don't doubt that the amount of pollution coming out the arse of a Prius is less than a non-hybrid but over the course of the manufacturing process I firmly believe that the Prius is more damaging.

[Darrin]

I cannot find the link right now for the life of me, but someone did a "dust to dust" comparison of a whole bunch of vehicles, including the Prius and the Hummer H1. From the mining of the raw materials to the final resting place, including the fuel they use in their lifetime.

After everything was said and done, the Jeep Wrangler came out on top as the "greenest" vehicle of them all and the Prius was dead last by quite a margin. Even behind the Hummer, one of the most reviled vehicles by the green crowd.

The process of refining the nickel for the batteries, all the electronics manufacturing, the God amounts of electricity in the manufacturing of the aluminum, etc, etc, etc. Even the recycling process is labor, carbon and energy intensive. The Prius batteries have circled the globe before the car has ever driven a mile.

Whereas the Wrangler falls into the category of a vehicle that never ends. If one gets in an accident, most often times it never makes it to a wrecking yard. It is stripped of every usable part to go on someone else's. I've NEVER seen one in a wrecking yard. EVER. And the Wrangler has been around since 1987. The only parts that don't get recycled are the catalytic converter (illegal to reuse) and the VIN plate. And since almost all of its parts are made of steel/iron, recycling them is quite simple.