2005 S2000 Confirmed - No changes made versus 2004
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From: LA County
Originally Posted by LiQiCE,Sep 2 2004, 04:01 AM
Thats easy. The car has 2 motors, so it can push out more horsepower... You take the same gasoline motor producing 240 horsepower, and add an IMA motor to drive the rear wheels or assist in driving the front wheels, and you've got extra horsepower. I'm not 100% sure this is how they divided it ... more likely the 3.0 v6 is putting out 200 or 225 hp and the IMA motor is putting out 30-55 horsepower which equals higher fuel economy through the use of IMA and through tweaking the 3.0 v6 to produce less hp.
Haven't you seen anything about the Honda DN-X concept? Its a hybrid all wheel drive vehicle that has the front wheels driven by a gasoline motor and the rear wheels driven by an IMA motor. It produces 400hp from a 3.5L v6 i-VTEC motor combined with an IMA motor. If it uses a similar motor to the new RL, it would mean the 3.5L is pushing 300hp, while the IMA is pushing 100hp.
Just like any other design, Honda can tweak hybrids for performance or for fuel economy.
Haven't you seen anything about the Honda DN-X concept? Its a hybrid all wheel drive vehicle that has the front wheels driven by a gasoline motor and the rear wheels driven by an IMA motor. It produces 400hp from a 3.5L v6 i-VTEC motor combined with an IMA motor. If it uses a similar motor to the new RL, it would mean the 3.5L is pushing 300hp, while the IMA is pushing 100hp.
Just like any other design, Honda can tweak hybrids for performance or for fuel economy.
If this is the case, why would ppl buy a regular accord? If the hybrid can be more fuel efficient, and more powerful.
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From: Potomac Falls, VA
Originally Posted by forsaken,Sep 2 2004, 03:01 PM
Daym, didn't know hyprids can put out more power than regular engines. I always had this mindset that hybrids will always be lower hp than regular gas engines due to compromises done to conserve fuel. I guess not ....
If this is the case, why would ppl buy a regular accord? If the hybrid can be more fuel efficient, and more powerful.
If this is the case, why would ppl buy a regular accord? If the hybrid can be more fuel efficient, and more powerful.
There were estimates, that if you bought the Honda Civic Hybrid, you'd basically have to drive the car for its entire life (I think it was like 250-300k miles) to actually break even on the cost difference of the Civic Hybrid versus the normal Civic. With rising gas prices, this estimate maybe slightly off now though.. and if gas prices continue to climb, hybrid owners will be laughing in our faces
In addition, I'd imagine maintenance costs on the Hybrids could be fairly high since IMA technology is fairly new and most mechanics aren't going to know how to fix it.
Of course, in the case of the Accord Hybrid, one reason to buy it over the standard Accord is the extra horsepower. But using all that extra horsepower translates into worse gas mileage
I think the hybrids are great but at this point in time, they're too new and expensive to make sense to most people. But if an alternative fuel source isn't found, I'd imagine Hybrids becoming more and more common in cars as the technology matures and the prices start coming down.
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From: Longmont, CO
Price difference between a Civic Hybrid and Civic HX (the most efficient gas only model) is $6,970. Difference in mpg is 48 vs 36. Therefore, you'd have to drive about 540,000 miles to make up that difference.
Math:
Assuming that gas is $1.80 per gallon, it'll cost the Hybrid $20,250.00 to go 550,000 miles, and the HX $27,000.00 . That's a ($6,750) difference.
Then again, the high-end Civic EX is $17,010 MSRP and only gets 31mpg. You'd have to drive "only" 180,000 miles to make up the difference there.
(We're lucky gas prices are so low. If we were paying $5 per gal like the Europeans, as little as 65,000 miles would make up the difference.)
Math:
Assuming that gas is $1.80 per gallon, it'll cost the Hybrid $20,250.00 to go 550,000 miles, and the HX $27,000.00 . That's a ($6,750) difference.
Then again, the high-end Civic EX is $17,010 MSRP and only gets 31mpg. You'd have to drive "only" 180,000 miles to make up the difference there.
(We're lucky gas prices are so low. If we were paying $5 per gal like the Europeans, as little as 65,000 miles would make up the difference.)
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s2ksimon
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Oct 25, 2004 02:46 PM