Insane MPG

[culzean]

It will be interesting to see how these new Jazz models operate in winter, the petrol engine may be needed even more to heat up the cabin and help defrost the windscreen plus the impact on MPG.

The new jazz appears a very expensive car to buy and run compared to the claimed savings from slightly higher MPG of 60 to 70 in real world driving. The purchase price and insurance group seems very high plus all the technology and batteries to keep maintained as it gets older. I think road tax is still £140 due to it running on petrol not full EV.  It would take a long time to recoup the extra £10k purchase costs compared to buying an ordinary petrol car with an efficient engine that can get near to 60MPG giving similar figures. It also depends on your driving if you do lots of low speed local journeys but motorway driving has no benefit over normal cars.

I agree, £10K will buy an awful lot of petrol and difference between 60 and 70 mpg not that much.  We are ( and have been for a while ) in the territory of diminishing returns on economy, where there is an increasing amount of complex tech ( = money ) thrown at systems to get small increases in efficiency, this is reflected in the cost of new vehicles and an ongoing cost of ownership as the car ages ( but I guess we are reaching the point where just like most other high tech things they will quickly become obsolete long before they wear out ).

[Jocko]

That is why I don't really see the point of Hybrids. A PHEV may be fine if you use it on battery for most of your daily driving but until I am able to go full BEV I will stick with a normal petrol car. I love the idea of the new Jazz transmission but the cost puts it in a league of its own. A brand new Mini starts at about £16K.

[richardfrost]

That is why I don't really see the point of Hybrids. A PHEV may be fine if you use it on battery for most of your daily driving but until I am able to go full BEV I will stick with a normal petrol car. I love the idea of the new Jazz transmission but the cost puts it in a league of its own. A brand new Mini starts at about £16K.

I agree with this. I do have a Toyota RAV4 Hybrid right now but the difference in cost over the standard model was relatively small at the time (bought it at one year old). The cost of the new Jazz does seem excessive, but the car is desirable to me, since I no longer need the size of the car and the 4x4 capability. Hence I may consider a short term lease of a Jazz.

On the other hand, the Mrs and I still talk about how good a car our Jazz Mk2 was and I still entertain the thought of getting a late model one of those for cash and running it until BEV becomes practical.

[JimSh]

I've got an inverter driven aircon / heat pump for my conservatory (the equipment does both functions depending on whether the Heat or Cool button has been pressed) and on a cold day it draws about 600W and is more effective than a 2kW electric heater. Heating a car should require somewhat less than 600W.

I live and learn.
Been doing a bit of reading and a bit of thinking and your idea would make sense.

[madasafish]

That is why I don't really see the point of Hybrids. A PHEV may be fine if you use it on battery for most of your daily driving but until I am able to go full BEV I will stick with a normal petrol car. I love the idea of the new Jazz transmission but the cost puts it in a league of its own. A brand new Mini starts at about £16K.

I agree with this. I do have a Toyota RAV4 Hybrid right now but the difference in cost over the standard model was relatively small at the time (bought it at one year old). The cost of the new Jazz does seem excessive, but the car is desirable to me, since I no longer need the size of the car and the 4x4 capability. Hence I may consider a short term lease of a Jazz.

On the other hand, the Mrs and I still talk about how good a car our Jazz Mk2 was and I still entertain the thought of getting a late model one of those for cash and running it until BEV becomes practical.

am doing that.

Early adopters of new tech pay high prices for half baked solutions...
Waste of money.. And then someone comes along with a gamechanger that makes all others obsolete overnight - see Iphones.

[richardfrost]

And then someone comes along with a gamechanger that makes all others obsolete overnight - see Iphones.

I do believe that.
I think petrol and diesel are like VHS and Betamax.
Hydrogen Fuel Cell is probably V2000.
Hybrid is maybe DVD
BEV is probably BluRay.

What we are waiting for is the Netflix of motive power sources.
I think it will be in the form of pump-refillable tanks of ion loaded electric 'fuel' or some type of wonder battery.

[John Ratsey]

I've noticed that there are two coolant caps, so two systems I assume.

The silver coloured box (on right hand side of engine when viewed from the front) containing all the power electronics has its own cooling system.

That is why I don't really see the point of Hybrids. A PHEV may be fine if you use it on battery for most of your daily driving but until I am able to go full BEV I will stick with a normal petrol car. I love the idea of the new Jazz transmission but the cost puts it in a league of its own. A brand new Mini starts at about £16K.

I agree that the mpg improvement is unlikely to pay back the additional cost of a hybrid if comparing like with like (eg non-hybrid and hybrid Jazz) but the hybrid system also provides responsiveness and acceleration normally associated with a more powerful and thirsty engine so the vehicle moves up a step or more in the driveability league while also being more frugal on fuel.

I had the front seat passenger fealing queasy today after a trip along a bendy road.

[Jocko]

The silver coloured box (on right hand side of engine when viewed from the front) containing all the power electronics has its own cooling system.

I had a look through the manual and there is no mention of that. Just the radiator cap and the Coolant Reserve cap (Page 543). Take it it requires no maintenance or at least no owner maintenance?

[Jocko]

Take it we are referring to the pressure cap on the container to the right of the engine filled with blue fluid (antifreeze solution?),

[JazzMusic]

I had a look through the manual and there is no mention of that. Just the radiator cap and the Coolant Reserve cap (Page 543). Take it it requires no maintenance or at least no owner maintenance?

The caps have different pressure levels. Obviously the electric system needs to be cooled as well.
The SM is very short on explaining the HEV system.

[culzean]

That is why I don't really see the point of Hybrids. A PHEV may be fine if you use it on battery for most of your daily driving but until I am able to go full BEV I will stick with a normal petrol car. I love the idea of the new Jazz transmission but the cost puts it in a league of its own. A brand new Mini starts at about £16K.

Mitsubishi spotted an opportunity in the market to bring in a tax scamming Outlander PHEV to attract business users where they get tax advantages of almost a BEV ( albeit with a limited range of about 18 miles from full charge ) but don't have to bother with the charging of that battery,  but as a couple of blokes I used to work with found out, about 30mpg without battery,  what the hell the company is paying fuel bills anyway and the driver gets tax advantage... and the environment / air quality gets nothing.

[Muldoon]

That is why I don't really see the point of Hybrids. A PHEV may be fine if you use it on battery for most of your daily driving but until I am able to go full BEV I will stick with a normal petrol car. I love the idea of the new Jazz transmission but the cost puts it in a league of its own. A brand new Mini starts at about £16K.

Mitsubishi spotted an opportunity in the market to bring in a tax scamming Outlander PHEV to attract business users where they get tax advantages of almost a BEV ( albeit with a limited range of about 18 miles from full charge ) but don't have to bother with the charging of that battery,  but as a couple of blokes I used to work with found out, about 30mpg without battery,  what the hell the company is paying fuel bills anyway and the driver gets tax advantage... and the environment / air quality gets nothing.

Indeed those Outlanders are the worst of everything - big heavy vehicles with costly tech and batteries that were being completely ignored, all likely more polluting through it's construction, use and end scrapping / recycling than a conventional modest petrol car. What happens to the batteries when they die who knows can you imagine one of these ten years on trundling about just using petrol? The whole SUV craze is ridiculous but don't get me started on that one 

[Muldoon]

Take it we are referring to the pressure cap on the container to the right of the engine filled with blue fluid (antifreeze solution?),

I didn't realise the electric system needed it's own cooling - I suppose it's obvious if high power motors and current involved to propel a car and all the weight. When you look at that photograph and all the complex tech squeezed into the engine bay it explains why the new Jazz is rated as insurance group 19 probably due to cost of repairs even in a modest front end bump.

[JazzMusic]

All hybrids need to cool the electric motor. In former hybrids of Honda it was the same cooling system as for the engine.

Yes, there's a lot of tech in the engine bay. But as with any new car it's a write-off in a medium crash.

The car feels very safe. It's heavy but that weight is needed to protect the passengers. Tough it needs a lot of tech to keep fuel consumption low.

[madasafish]

Just ask about towing with an EV..  The range plummets. Totally impractical at present..

But no-one says so...

And imagine a traffic jam at night in winter being stuck for 12 hours at night.. which happens in parts of the UK.  There will be lots of EVs with frozen batteries and flat auxiliary batteries after using heating...