Chairman Bill was asking about the hybrid and whether it really saves fuel.
Hard to tell because my 'normal' cars never gave me mileage details and I was too disinterested to figure it out.
The daily run for the car is only about 10km each way to work. Abt 6miles. And I have found that that is not really enough to get full benefit as petrol engines use less fuel once they warm up. It tends to run out at 7.2 litre/100km (abt 39 miles to the imperial gallon, 32 miles to the US gallon.) On a longer freeway sort of run it is down at about 5.5 litre/100km (51/42).
It doesn't use the engine to charge the battery. When the car is coasting, down hill say, the charger hops in a little and it participates strongly when braking. Acts as a type of engine brake.
The electric motor assists during acceleration.
The wierdest thing is that the engine stops when you do. Stop at the lights and the engine turns off; when you take your foot off the brake, it restarts and is up and running before you get to the accelerator. I am assuming that it is the electric engine that powers this start up.
The engine shut down is OK at the lights. It is wierd when you are waiting to turn against on-coming traffic. There you are in the middle of the intersection, waiting to turn, and your engine turns off! An act of faith that it will start and get you oput of there!
Has so far.
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