Hi,

Recently, I learned about a lawsuit for false mileage claims in California involving the HCH and hope that it is soon dismissed. The complaint is this individual didn't get the mileage expected and their lawyers are trying to make it a 'class action' suit. To me, this is frivolous to the point I think our Honda drivers can and should help Honda.

There is merit in asking every HCH owner/operator to send a 'friend of the court' letter to the clerk with a copy to Honda America reporting their performance. HCH owners have 'standing' because they are potentially a member of the class action group. Flooding the court with something along the lines of:

• As a Honda Civic Hybrid owner since <date>, I wish to submit this letter attesting to the performance of my Honda Hybrid Civic.
• Over <xx,xxx> miles I have gotten <yy.y> miles per gallon and recorded these miles in GreenHybrid.com
• I am writing this letter as a friend of the court to help achieve justice.

I can think of a couple of hundred entries in the hybrid database that might be asked to write 'friend of the court' letters countering this suit. It would make sure the court has your point of view. But this also brought up another lawsuit that may have merit.

A hybrid system that lacks the ability to move the vehicle on electric only power is not a hybrid-electric vehicle. To call an auto-stop vehicle lacking electric motive power a hybrid is at best, misleading, and at worse, an attempt to bring hybrids into disrepute. What is sad is GM has a two-mode transmission coming out, a true hybrid, and GM knows what a fraud the 'auto stop' hybrid is. Yet they are introducing another hybrid 'poison pill' with the Malibu.

I have no standing in bringing suit against GM. Only the owners of the recently discontinued Silverado, current Saturn VUE owners and future Malibu owners really have standing. But we have a saying in the South along the lines of "He needed killin'" and that pretty well defines my feelings about marketing calling "auto stop" a hybrid. But it is another example of GM abusing their own customer base.

To treat your customers, knowingly to a fraudulent hybrid claim, invites at worse a lawsuit. At best, it destroys the company's credibility. It simply drives GM's loyal customers to other vendors, building down a once great company.

Bob Wilson

 

Is there an address to send it to?

 

Of course the problem with the "I don't get window sticker fuel economy" argument is that there is never any claim that a person would get that fuel economy.

The window sticker fuel economy is merely what the manufacturer got when running the tests as instructed by the federal government. To see how these tests are run, look here:

http://fueleconomy.gov/feg/how_tested.shtml

(you can also click the 'detailed' test info link on that page to see the new tests).

The window sticker is merely a shopping guideline so that a consumer can determine which cars are likely to get better fuel economy than others.

There are only two ways to get the federally scored window sticker fuel economy when driving your car.

#1 Drive your car on a dynanometer instead of on the road, and make sure you drive it EXACTLY as the profile instructs in the federal testing guidelines. Even then the score is merely an "average" of several sampled vehicles.

#2 Get very very lucky that your average real-world commute happens to be identical to the testing profile of #1.

If you don't happen to fit the exact profile of 'average' then "your mileage may vary".

 

Respectfully I believe your assertions to be false.

When I was considering the purchase of our Vue Greenline, the salesman clearly explained how the technology worked. It was very clear to me that the Vue was a mild hybrid design. I was in no way abused by Saturn or GM as you claim and any lawsuit as you suggest would be equally frivolous.

Regards

 

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this point. Early on, I learned that in Europe it is a common practice to manually stop their engines when at a light or other traffic delay. This is what an auto-stop system does but no one proposes a manual-stop system has made all gas-only cars into "mild hybrids."

To me, the auto-stop looks like an ordinary starter with an automatic start-stop. It is something I could 'retro-fit' to my wife's Echo using the existing battery and alternator. I could probably build-it using a fairly simple circuit or a microprocessor. But that would never bring her MPG up by a significant amount, enough to justify the effort.

Now if the community is happy with auto-stop being labeled a "mild-hybrid" and the consensus is folks are happy with it, I won't stand in the way. But from an engineering standpoint, a "hybrid" is:

The lack of motive power on electricity alone takes an auto-stop out of the range of a hybrid gas+electric vehicle.

Bob Wilson

 

I agree that "mild hybrid" is a term devised to muddy the water and that vehicles of this type should simply be called "autostop" instead. It certainly misled me.

But the above definition of hybrid seemingly excludes Honda Insight, HCH, and maybe HAH because AFAIK none of them will move on electrical power alone. Perhaps a gas/electric hybrid would be "a vehicle that develops significant portions of its motive power from both gas and electricity"?

 

Hmm... did not know that my HCH2 had to be able to start without assistance from the ICE to be considered a hybrid-electric vehicle.

Certainly, its no PRIUS although my FE seems to be "PRIUS like"

Since I sometimes FAS down to the first light, I will change my badge to "hybrid-gravity-with IMA thingy"

 

My understanding is the HCH can sustain a steady speed on electric power alone by setting the valves for low internal drag. This is something the belt assisted units don't claim. As for the Insight and HAH, I don't know enough about them but there is a distinguishing characteristic between the IMA and auto-stop systems.

The IMA systems enhance the low-end torque of the ICE allowing a smaller, more efficient ICE. The auto-stop systems do not appear to augment the low-end torque and a more efficient, smaller ICE. Now if the auto-stop systems increased their power by a factor of five or more, they could cross over into the IMA area. But no one has made that claim.

Bob Wilson

 

I personally wouldn't call a system which only starts/stops the engine (autostop) as a hybrid. I'd call it another fuel saving device of the engine. For example if Ford introduced some kind of "Intelligent" throttle limiter or higher top gear it wouldn't be a hybrid.