Hybrid Gas Comparison (Long)

When I first bought my hybrid—or even ahead of time, when I was just thinking about it—a lot of people told me that they’d heard hybrids don’t actually save that much on gas. That the fuel consumption was pretty much the same as a normal Civic. Well, luckily for me, I was able to look back in my bank account, and see how much money I’d spent on gas with the previous car, for the last 90 days that I had it. And then I tracked how much I spent on gas for the new car, for the first 90 days.

And to all of the naysayers out there, I have only this to say: You were right. I only saved 23%, which is much less than I’d been hoping.

But before I continue, and get to the list of numbers that you’re all dying to see, let me just get this out of the way: I don’t regret buying the new car. In fact, I still love it. It’s a great car to drive, and it does still save me money, even if it’s not as much money as I was hoping. Sure, some of the lustre has come off, since I’m not saving as much as I’d hoped, but still, I love the car.

Now back to the numbers. First off, I guess I should share the money I spent on the two cars. Unfortunately, there is no way to find out how many kilometres I drove for the 90 days in question, in the previous car, so this isn’t really a pure “apples to apples” comparison; it’s just how much money I spent on each car, on gas. That being said, I’m fairly sure the number of kilometres for each car is probably comparable.

Cavalier			Civic Hybrid
Date	Gas	# Days	Date	Gas	# Days
May 14	$53.69		August 12
May 15			August 13
May 16			August 14
May 17			August 15
May 18			August 16
May 19			August 17
May 20			August 18
May 21			August 19
May 22			August 20
May 23	$49.47	9	August 21
May 24			August 22	$32.29	11
May 25			August 23
May 26			August 24
May 27			August 25
May 28			August 26
May 29			August 27	$29.22	5
May 30			August 28
May 31			August 29	$28.01	2
June 1			August 30
June 2			August 31
June 3			September 1
June 4			September 2	$35.07	4
June 5			September 3
June 6			September 4
June 7	$47.48	15	September 5
June 8			September 6
June 9			September 7
June 10			September 8
June 11			September 9
June 12			September 10
June 13	$50.88	6	September 11
June 14			September 12	$35.74	10
June 15			September 13
June 16			September 14
June 17			September 15
June 18			September 16
June 19			September 17
June 20			September 18
June 21			September 19
June 22			September 20	$37.12	8
June 23			September 21
June 24			September 22
June 25	$52.03	12	September 23
June 26			September 24
June 27			September 25
June 28			September 26
June 29			September 27
June 30			September 28	$34.41	8
July 1			September 29
July 2			September 30
July 3	$46.33	8	October 1
July 4			October 2
July 5			October 3
July 6			October 4
July 7			October 5	$33.80	7
July 8			October 6
July 9	$47.09	6	October 7	$33.11	2
July 10			October 8
July 11			October 9
July 12			October 10
July 13			October 11	$30.02	4
July 14			October 12
July 15			October 13
July 16	$33.64	7	October 14
July 17			October 15
July 18	$48.01	2	October 16
July 19			October 17
July 20			October 18
July 21			October 19
July 22			October 20
July 23			October 21
July 24			October 22
July 25			October 23	$34.27	12
July 26			October 24
July 27			October 25
July 28			October 26
July 29			October 27
July 30			October 28
July 31			October 29
August 1	$49.18	14	October 30
August 2			October 31	$35.26	8
August 3			November 1
August 4			November 2
August 5			November 3
August 6			November 4
August 7			November 5
August 8			November 6
August 9	$43.21	8	November 7
August 10			November 8	$35.48	8
August 11	$44.23	2	November 9

The “# Days” columns are how many days it was between fillups.

So how do those compare? Let’s take a look:

Cavalier		Civic
Total:	$565.24	Total:	$433.80
Average Fillup:	$47.10	Average Fillup:	$33.37
Average Days Between Fillups:	8.09	Average Days Between Fillups:	6.85
Savings:			23%

I tried very hard to come up with a good graph, that could compare these numbers. (I know how much my blog readers love graphs.) The best I could come up with was this, where the red line represents gas spent on the Hybrid, and the blue line represents gas spent on the Cavalier:Or maybe this works better, where again, the red area represents the Hybrid, and the blue area represents the Cavalier:What you’ll notice, if you look at the numbers, is that I’m filling up the hybrid every 7 or 8 days, on average, except for some occasions where I’m filling up after only 2 or 3. This is because the mileage is much better in the city than on the highway; when I had to take long trips, that involved a lot of highway driving, I didn’t save as much on gas. For example, the weekend that I spent driving back and forth between Toronto, London, and Chatham. On that weekend, I had a fillup after only two days, and then another fillup four days later. (The car has a much smaller gas tank than my old car, which is why I had to fill up so frequently on these trips. I think the mileage would still be comparable to the old car—not less, but comparable.)

Why is the mileage so much better for city driving than highway driving? Well, here are some quick points on how the Honda hybrids work:

• As opposed to some other hybrids, the gas motor is always on, for the Hondas. (See below for the exception to this rule.) When you accelerate—at any speed, not just at lower speeds—the electric engine kicks in, and helps the car accelerate. This way, the gas motor isn’t working as hard.
• When the car slows down, it uses kinetic energy to charge the electric motor’s battery. This means that the car never has to be plugged in.
• When you come to a stop, the gas motor shuts off, so that the car isn’t idling. When you take your foot off the brake, the gas motor comes back on, and by the time you’re ready to push your foot on the gas, the engine is ready to go.

That’s why the hybrid gets so much better mileage in the city than on the highway. With all of the stop and go, including the acceleration, and the fact that the engine can shut off, when you come to a stop, the hybrid technologies shine. When you’re on the highway, and maintaining a relatively stable speed, there isn’t much for the electric motor to do.

So, with this in mind, I decided to play with the numbers in the spreadsheet a bit. What would happen if I had only done city driving, and not taken any trips that involved a lot of highway driving? Then the numbers might have looked a bit more like this:

Civic Hybrid
Date	Gas	# Days
August 12
August 13
August 14
August 15
August 16
August 17
August 18
August 19
August 20
August 21
August 22	$32.29	11
August 23
August 24
August 25
August 26
August 27
August 28
August 29	$28.01	7
August 30
August 31
September 1
September 2
September 3
September 4
September 5	$35.07	7
September 6
September 7
September 8
September 9
September 10
September 11
September 12	$35.74	7
September 13
September 14
September 15
September 16
September 17
September 18
September 19
September 20	$37.12	8
September 21
September 22
September 23
September 24
September 25
September 26
September 27
September 28	$34.41	8
September 29
September 30
October 1
October 2
October 3
October 4
October 5	$33.80	7
October 6
October 7
October 8
October 9
October 10
October 11	$30.02	6
October 12
October 13
October 14
October 15
October 16
October 17
October 18
October 19
October 20
October 21
October 22
October 23	$34.27	12
October 24
October 25
October 26
October 27
October 28
October 29
October 30
October 31	$35.26	8
November 1
November 2
November 3
November 4
November 5
November 6
November 7
November 8	$35.48	8
November 9

(All I did was remove some of the fill ups, that were close to others, and then adjust the number of days accordingly. It’s not by any means scientific, just a “what if” scenario.)

Using these numbers, the comparison works out so that I would have saved about 34% on gas.

Cavalier		Civic
Total:	$565.24	Total:	$371.47
Average Fillup:	$47.10	Average Fillup:	$33.77
Average Days Between Fillups:	8.09	Average Days Between Fillups:	8.09
Savings:			34%

It’s only a coincidence that the average days between fillups ended up exactly 8.09, the same as for the Cavalier.

Still not the 50% that I would have hoped for, but better than I get with a lot of highway driving. If you’d like to see the graphic versions…So that’s how the cars compare. 23%. I only saved 23% on gas.

While I’m posting about the Hybrid, I should mention how the cold affects it. A friend of mine was curious, so I’ll satisfy his curiosity. Remember the three points I mentioned about how the hybrid works? Well in the cold…

• Acceleration is unaffected. As soon as you turn the car on, and start driving, the electric motor kicks in, and starts helping out when you accelerate.
• When it comes to charging the electric motor’s battery, the car has to warm up a bit, before it will start charging. So when you start the car, in the cold, you’ll just be using up juice from the battery, and not replenishing any, for the first little while. (That being said, for any significant trip, the battery will get back to its fully charged state after a while.)
• In terms of shutting off the gas engine, when at a complete stop, this doesn’t happen until the car gets fully warmed up. And even then, sometimes you get a “false stop” when the car is almost warmed up; that is, you’ll come to a stop, and you’ll feel the engine shut off for a second, and then it suddenly turns back on. It’s like the engine is saying, “Can I shut off? Yep. No wait! Not yet!”

Just to round off the post, here are some things about this car, that I’m noticing after driving it for a while:

• The climate control system is great. It has an “auto” feature, where you simply put it to the temperature that you want, and it will take care of deciding when to turn the fan on, and how much, whether the air conditioning should be on or not, whether the air should come out at the windshield, or at your feet, or wherever, etc. It also tries to monitor the humidity in the car, and keep the A/C on when it gets too humid, so that the windows won’t fog up—although I notice that it doesn’t do this quite as well in the winter, so I have to override the “auto” setting and put the air pointing to the windshield, sometimes.
• I’m absolutely loving the fact that the stereo plays MP3 CDs. That’s a very nice feature. (I’m sure all cars have that, these days.)
• It took me a while to get used to the digital readout, for the speedometer, rather than the analogue gauge. (I’d still prefer the analogue gauge, I just got used to the digital readout.)
• I didn’t notice it at first, but the Civic has a lot more room in the back seat than the Cavalier did. This is partly because the Civic doesn’t have the bump on the floor, where the middle passenger would sit. (I’m sure one of my gear-head readers will leave a comment and tell me what that lump is there for, on most cars, but the point is, it’s not there on mine, and my back seat passengers get more leg room because of it.)