Wow! I may be looking to get my name on the wait list.
Currently drive a 2013 Camry XLE Hybrid. I have a heavy foot and drive in 30+ miles in DFW rush hour traffic each way. I average (currently) 35.6 MPG. I was getting 44 MPG with the 2006 Prius I used to drive. I am just on the verge of too big for the Prius. The Camry is more expensive, but much more comfortable. Also, the Camry has much bigger gas tank, so the range is over 500 miles even the way I drive.
Hybrids are sensitive to temperature. You will get reduced mileage in extreme heat or cold. Some of that can be explained by non-hybrid issues (tires mostly). Some of it has to do with physics and battery mumbo-jumbo. Have to ask S1 to explain that part.
As mentioned earlier, the factory tires get great mileage but they are not good for handling/weather. They also wear faster than better tires. I found about a 4 MPG drop by upgrading to a Pirelli tire after the factory ones wore out (30K miles). Handling is great and the mileage drop is worth it to me given the way I drive.
No way I could handle the Tesla unless I had extra cash to buy it and another car for trips out of town. Texas is too big to drive something that only gets 200 miles to the charge. Yikes!
That is puzzling. Treadwear is usually inversely correlated to handling/traction. It is easy to make a tire that lasts 100K miles if it has poor traction.
It is also easy to make a tire that performs poorly in many areas (treadwear, handling, braking, etc.). Some cars came with original equipment tires that did little well other than fuel economy. Someone who chose carefully when buying replacement tires often could get the same fuel economy but with better performance in other areas. Also, when buying replacement tires, it may be that some years have passed since the original equipment tires were designed, so that the newer designs available then are just better.
I am waiting on my first hybrid–I ordered a Chrysler Pacifica back in Dec and it is finally shipping end of this month. We have kind of grown out of really needing a minivan but we do have 2 kids still at home who like/need to spread out on long trips! It also has a lot of cargo space so will be our large item hauler.
Could the extra weight be an issue with tire performance? My understanding is that hybrids are heavier than their non-hybrid twins because of the battery.
The extra weight of a hybrid’s battery is relatively low, typically 100-200 lbs. It is the all-electric vehicles that are heavy.
The factory tires on a hybrid are likely narrow, low profile tires designed to minimize drag/friction, which in turn gives you a longer range, but they also likely will wear out faster (in general IME, factory tires tend to wear out anyway). Longer lasting tires and/or ones that handle better tend to have longer lives (assuming you don’t play boy racer with them or recreate the chase scene in Bullitt), but they also tend to decrease gas mileage because they are wider and stickier.
This is incorrect. Tires with the best grip have the shortest lives.
The Original Equipment summer tires for my car have a traction rating of AA, temperature rating of A and a treadwear rating of 220. I expect to get 15K miles out of it.
In contrast, if I went with Original Equipment all-season tires, it would have a traction rating of A and a treadwear rating of 520. For my wife’s car, I could get tires with an A rated tire with treadwear ratings of 700.
That is why, methinks, there is an and/or there. It is all about blending the optimum features for your driving, roads and climate related issues. There is not a 1 to 1 correlation between treadwear and traction. My original tires had bad traction and lousy wear (IMHO), but great rolling resistance. My current tires have very good traction, very good wear, and dropped mileage by about 10%. All that being said…it probably belongs on another thread about tires rather than hijacking a hybrid thread.
Some tires are just not very good, while others are better.
For example, there were some VWs in the early 2000s which had three possible OEM tires (a Michelin, a Continental, and a Goodyear), all of which were low rolling resistance for good fuel economy. In both VW forum comments and published tire ratings in Consumer Reports, that Michelin model was one of the best in the tire class, that Continental model was decent, and that Goodyear model was not very good except in rolling resistance. If your VW of that time came with Goodyear tires, replacing them with that Michelin model would keep the fuel economy while improving performance. However, that Michelin model was also the most expensive when bought as replacement tires.
@hebegebe:
It depends on the tires, the low profile tires I am talking about generally don’t wear well IME in real world driving, I used to drive a sports car on Pirelli and Michelin high speed tires and they lasted a long time, there are a lot of factors, but compared to the low profile tires they use on hybrids I will stand by my claim.
Lower profile tires are usually sportier ones.
Most new cars other than the sportiest ones come with low rolling resistance tires in order to help their fuel economy (in EPA testing). However, such tires may be good or bad in other characteristics.
Here is an older tire test from tirerack.com comparing the original Goodyear Integrity tires on a second-generation Prius to various replacement tires in various tests, including fuel economy, dry and wet braking, and dry and wet handling:
https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=121
@Torveaux - I’m a wondering have you tried using a different gas stations gas? With my 2012 Camry Hybrid I get 44 miles gallon with shell regular but around 38 with Kroger gas…