BMW M3 more economical than a Prius!
Posted by johnb | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on 24-06-2008
Tags: general
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Top Gear returned to our screens on Sunday night with many stories about the current fuel prices. In one of the stories the fuel economy of a 4 lt BMW M3 was pitched again a 1.5lt Toyota Prius. Each car had to do 10 laps of the track, the Prius was at full bore whilst the BMW had to remain behind the Prius – it turns out that the BMW is more fuel economical than the Prius! Not to mention the enormous distances the materials that go into the Prius travel.
I hate the prius-hype but this test was a very stupid test
ok sure the prius is crap but….
The BMW was slip-streaming all the way. I love top gear and clarkson’s ability to cut through perceived wisdom but its not the best place for balanced journalism.
This comparision was unfair! The Prius was never designed to be economical racing around a track. The prius saves petrol by a) stopping the engine when at rest – i.e. traffic lights and bad traffic. b) By regcharging the electronic motor whenever you hit the brakes. The Prius is not a race car but any car at full bore burns a lot of petrol – fact is the prious is designed to perform at normal road speeds. I drive one of these in the states in all sorts of conditions and I easily get 50 MPG and I am a bit of the lead foot. Also, as a happy by product of the hybrid engine, it’s a great car for drive by shootings because at low speeds it’s silent. Perhaps that can be Top ‘I hate the environment’ Gears next assignment.
See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/prius/efficiency/0,,1128683,00.html
I’m still not totally sure what the point of that clip was… I guess it was the last spoken line, it’s all about how you drive it…
I’d say my wife’s 50mpg with her Prius is pretty good for these days. To get 17mpg, they must have really tortured that poor thing!
Ok… this is dumb.
Lets do the same exact test with both cars driving back and forth from a home to work with a distance of about 10 miles. Now, lets do that test during standard commute hours. I wonder which car will win the gas test there?
I am so tired of big companies bending marketing to make general claims that are just outright lies. Like when Apple insinuates that they are the first ones to put webcams in their laptops, ugh, makes me embarrassed to be an Apple owner.
Well, whatever. Just teaches you that you cannot believe marketing at all.
All this stuff is so subjective. Someone suggested the government ministers should use Prius type cars. Then someone else pointed out that car wouldn’t even move after they had installed bullet proof glazing and a bomb proof under pan! As a note if i drive my new diesel V8 range rover at 55mpg it will just struggle up to 39.5 mpg. even round town i get 27mpg so i’m not crying!
m3 beats prius……….. on efficiency.. lol
I really hate this Prius bashing
what people fail to realize is that most petrol or diesel cars are at the
end of there development curve they will not be able to squeeze much more efficiency out of them.
The Prius is near the beginning of the development
The next Generation of batteries are 7 times as powerful as the Prius.
The sooner we get rid of dirty smelly cars the better.
THE BIG REASON CAR MAKERS DO NOT WANT TO HAVE ELECTRIC CARS IS THAT THEY USE VERY FEW PARTS AND DO NOT GO WRONG
as GM discovered with the EV1 so they built the Hummer instead much more lovely parts to sell everyone.
Roll on the all electric car.
The Prius is just a stepping stone on the way to a all electric car please use it to step
and do not push it to one side.
You guys really aren’t getting this!
This clip isn’t about which is better, Prius or M3, or about which one is more economical…it’s about how you drive!
The point he was making was that there’s no point selling your existing car to get a more efficient diesel because everyone’s doing that and so you’ll existing car will be worth about £2.50.
All you need to do is adjust your driving style and you’ll save money on fuel immediately…it’s not the car you drive, it’s how you drive it.
That’s the whole point of this demonstration!