my wife and I have a small 2 person (us) cleaning business in Vancouver. We are replacing our gas guzzling VW Van for a more fuel efficient car. We have narrowed are options down to either a Golf TDI, a Passat TDI wagon, a Prius or possibly an Escape Hybrid (the Civic is too small for lugging around cleaning supplies/vacume).

Like good consumers we are researching what will be our biggest purchase in a long time. From reading this website and 2 other hybrid websites, as well as Consumer Reports and Canadian Driver, I get the following picture of hybrids.

1. Most owners seem very happy with their choice. They seem to ride well, are loaded with standard features and the average reported fuel economy for most drivers is pretty close to EPA and sometimes better.

2. On the downside, in Vancouver you pay a lot more for hybrids (almost twice the "hybrid premium" charged in the U.S. - go figure). Some owners say they are getting a lot less than EPA numbers (Consumer Reports article also said this). Responses have suggested reasons for the low numbers and some of the reasons concern me a bit.

The main reasons for low FE seem to be cold weather, short trips, using defrost/defogger or air conditioning, accelleration and hard braking and other driving habits. So the driving habits arn't a big deal, I can change these. But almost all of our clients are within a 6 km (3.5 mile) radius and some people have said you need at least 5 miles to warm up the electric battery for it to work in a hybrid. Will we get any benefit from a hybrid driving such short distances? We also live in a city that averages between 2-10c temperatures (35-50f) in the winter. Is this too cold to warm up the battery (especially for short trips from client to client)? It also rains a lot, so unless we want to get soaked and keep our windows down, we are going to use the defogger.

Given all this I am trying to compare "apples to apples" but I am having a hard time finding out whether diesals have the same problems getting good mpgs in similar conditions. Does anyone out there know?

Thanks for your comments and sorry if you see this posted on other hybrid sites. I'm trying to get as much feedback as possible before we plunk down almost 40k (gulp!).

 

I looked at the VW TDI models before purchasing a 06 Prius. The biggest drawback was the VW quality/repair problems. Consumer Reports as well as others rated the VW very low in reliability. On the other hand, Toyota was rate very high in reliability. That is what made my decision beween TDI & hybrid for fuel economy. Throw on top of that the clean environment factor of the hybrid. As far as the effects of cold on the Toyota hybrid system, in the Ford Escape as well, it isn't that bad. Will you get the epa #s in the winter, not likely. But it will still beat your other conventional choices.

 

The diesel versus hybrid choice was easy in New York State: you cannot buy a new diesel car in New York.

You can buy a gas-hog diesel pickup truck, but sorry, you can't buy a diesel car.

You can buy a used diesel car, but only if it has more than 7,500 miles on it. Go figure...

Harry

 

There's a dumb law if I've ever heard one...