Cheap Gas Car Blog

Nissan’s New FR Hybrid Gives Prius Run For Money

Nissans new electric vehicle will go further on a tank that Toyota’s Prius electric vehicle.

Nissan’s test vehicle is based on their current Skyline car, and it packs a Li-ion battery system, with the transmission integrated with the electric motor and two clutches, and is slated to be mass-produced, though not in the skyline offering, by the year 2010.

The new hybrid has a specially manufactured electric motor-integrated transmission, allowing the car to become a pure electric when using only the electric motor, and also using energy that was recouped from the braking system as well.

The gas engine can be used to recharge the battery packs, even when the vehicle isn’t in motion.  Once the gas engine is engaged, it will run in the leanest most fuel-efficient manner possible.

Overall, it seems as thouh the motor will provide a charge comparable if not further than the charge given by the Toyota Prius, while maintaining the energy in the battery packs for a longer distance and time.  If true, it seems this could be a great hybrid once it hits the market in 2010.

Ten Best Ways to Increase Fuel Mileage

Get the best mileage for your car, and follow these easy to use tips to save money.

Accelerate Slowly

You use alot less fuel when you go easy on your gas pedal.  Each time you floor it, your throttle opens up and unneeded fuel is being burned off, so accelerate slowly, and you’ll increase your fuel mileage.

Keep a Constant Speed

Constantly changing your speed eats alot of extra fuel.  Make sure to use your Cruise Control if you have that option, except on a long hill.  Try not to use too much fuel to get to the top of a hill, and once you’re over the crest, use any downhill sections to save you from using the gas pedal.

Brake Less

Each time you use your brake, your fuel mileage will go down once you accelerate again.  Use your brakes only when you need to, and plan your drive so that if you see a red light ahead, let the vehicles rolling resisitance and drag slow your vehicle down instead of your brakes. 

Watch Tire pressures

If your tires are underinflated, you increase the drag put on your vehicle, causing more fuel to be burned than neccessary.  Always check to make sure your tires are properly inflated.

Don’t use A/C

Your air conditioner uses extra fuel to keep you cool.  If you are driving within the city, it’s more fuel-efficient to unroll your windoes to keep cool.  Once at highways speeds, the drag caused by the windows being unrolled is more than using the A/C, so you need to decide what to do.  Secondly, turn your A/C off a minute or two before your destination.  Why keep your car cool when you won’t be in it?

Don’t Idle

Idleing burns more fuel than starting your engine again.  So don’t sit in fast food lineups, park your car and walk in.  Or turn your engine off while you are waiting, the fuel savings will add up.

Don’t Carry Unneeded Weight

Every extra pound of weight you carry in your car causes your engine to work harder and burn more fuel for every mile you drive.  Get rid of any extra weight you are carrying around and you’ll save some gas money.

Perform Regular Maintenance

Make sure your transmission fluid is topped up, and same with your engine oil.  Failing spark plugs are a major fuel abuser, so make sure your motor is constantly in good running order and perform maintenance according to your cars vehicle service guide.

Slow Down

Keep your car at a constant speed whenever possible, as this avoids the ‘ gas / brake / gas / brake ‘ cycle that eats most of your fuel.  Keep a great awareness of the route ahead of you and try to not use your brakes and not to accelerate suddenly, and you’ll keep your vehicle at a constant speed and your fuel won’t leave you as fast either.

Use Overdrive

Whenever it’s possible at the higher speeds, using your car’s overdrive feature will help use less fuel and increase your mileage as well.  Again, referring to an earlier tip, make sure you perform regular maintenance on your transmission and keep it running in tip top shape.

Once you’ve followed these tips, you should be able to significantly increase your gas mileage.  Some of these tips are referred to as Hypermiling,  and this keeps every extra drop of gasoline in your gas tank, rather than out in the atmosphere.

Compressed Air Car May Be Reality

New York company will build compressed air car for under $18,000 by 2010

Compressed air could would be the first mass produced vehicle of it’s kind, acheiving up to 106 miles per gallon.  The car is expected to be ready by 2010, and at a price tag of $18,000.  It would be a six seat model, and reach speeds up to 90 miles per hour, with a fuel range of more than 800 miles due to its dual energy engine.  The motor will be a fuel compressed air combination, with one or more storage tanks of compressed air as well as a tank of fuel wich would be atleast 8 gallons in size.    The car will run on compressed air at speeds under 35 miles per hour, and any speed above that, an external combustion engine that runs on a combination of gas, biofuel, or vegetable oil would be used.

An onborad air compressor would refill the tank while the car is runnin, or the cars owner could plug it into an electrical source and have it refilled within 4 hours.

Nissan to Unveil New Electric Hybrid

5 Door hatchback model to be first of four new electric hybrid models over four years.

Look out for the 2008 Paris Auto Show, as this is when Nissan plans to show off a prototype of it’s new electric hybrid car, priced at from under $20,000.

Nissan wants to make electric hybrids a major part of it’s sales line, dedicating 10 percent of all sales to these cars.  They want to do this by unveiling four different electric hybrid models between now and 2012, boosting sales of their electric hybrid vehicles to five hundred thousand per year.

The new Nissan electric hybrid, which is still unnamed, will appear in final production form at the Detroit Auto Show in January 2009, and watch for it to be priced around $19,000.  This is along with the fact that the car is expected to get an average of sixty miles per gallon!

Nissan Shows New Electric Vehicle On Wednesday.

Nissan’s New Electric uses Lithium-Ion Batteries, not nickel-hydride like the Prius.

Nissan would like to start selling their new car by 2010 in Japan and the USA, and by 2012 worldwide.  They are betting on using lithium-ion batteries, and making the vehicle purely electric.

The only problem with lithium-ion batteries is that they tend to fail after 2 or so years, whether they are in use or not.  Also, these batteries lose thier charge fairly quickly, causing the engineers to creat protection circuits to fail the batteries from doing so.

If Nissan can pull this off, i’d be nervous holding Toyota stock.

Toyota Launches Prius in India

Toyota Prius will help combat pollution and be an answer to soaring fuel prices.

Though Toyota has no set timeline, they expect to bring the Prius to India before the end of 2008, depending on the ability of the company to train their dealerships about the new technology, as well as stock their parts stores with the appropriate supplies.  Being the first mass-produced electric fuel hybrid, the Toyota Prius sold more than one million units worldwide in April 2008, including more than 590,000 units within the US.

New Prius Gets Solar Panels

Prius spied while doing testing in Desert, gets optional solar panels and bigger motor.

The new Toyota Prius that will be unveiled in January at the Detroit Auto Show was seen by Auto Week while doing testing.  The new version of the Prius is slightly larger, and shows off a newly designed front end.  Along with the front end changes, there will be a new option of solar panels on the roof of the car that will be used to generate electricity to power the Prius’ air conditioning system.  Also, a new motor will be unveiled, one that is 1.8 liter four cylinder, that increases output by 40 horsepower.  Even though the engine will be more powerful, it’s reported to also get better fuel economy, which for the prius, is a win-win situation.

The Top Fuel Saving Vehicles for 2008

Of the top fuel-efficient vehicles, eight are hybrids, the remaining 22 are not.

JD Power has released a report containing the top 30 fuel-efficient vehicles of 2008.  Topping the list are hybrids including the Ford Escape Hybrid, Nissan Altima Hybrid, Honda Civic Hybrid, Toyota Camry Hybrid, Lexus RX 400h, Toyota Highlander Hybrid, Mercury Mariner, and Toyota Prius.

The remaining 22 vehicles on this list were not hybrids, but reflected widely the top cars purchased the previous year, as fuel costs surge.  The 22 others include models such as the Chevrolet Aveo, Chevrolet Aveo5, Chevrolet Cobalt, Ford Focus, Honda Civic, Honda Fit, Hyundai Accent, Hyundai Elantra, Kia Rio, Kia Spectra, MINI Cooper, MINI Cooper S, Nissan Sentra, Nissan Versa, Pontiac G5, Pontiac Vibe, Saturn Astra, Smart Fortwo Convertible, Smart Fortwo Coupe, Toyota Corolla, Toyota Matrix, and the Toyota Yaris.

Also in the report, there was a poll that asked 4000 people whether they were willing to consider purchasing a hybrid-electric vehicle, whereas the respondents agreed in favor at 62%, up from a response of 50% a year ago.

While the willingness to purchase electric-hybrids has increased, most people are feeling more reluctant to purchase vehicles based on flex-fuel ethanol systems, considering that these systems use wheat to create fuel, driving food prices through the roof.

Less people are willing to buy diesels because of the increase in fuel costs, and e85 vehicles because of the increase in food costs, so hybrids are becoming a viable alternative.

2009 Ford Escape Hybrid Shows Big Improvements

A larger gas engine, improved aerodynamics, and better fuel economy.

These are a few new features of the 2009 ford Escape Hybrid.  And not only that, but the Escape Hybrid will now be available in a new Luxury Limited Edition model.

The Ford Escape Hybrid is rated at 34 miles per gallon in the city and 31 miles per gallon on the highway, increasing it’s mileage over the 2008 model year by an average of 1 mile per gallon.  On the other hand, the four-wheel drive model will get 29 miles per gallon in the city and 27 miles per gallon on the highway, acheiving better city mileage because of the use of the electric motor at low in-town speeds.

The new prices for the Ford Escape Hybrid range from $28,305 for the front wheel drive model, to $32,385 for the all-wheel drive limited edition model.

Toyota’s Prius outsells demand.

After selling only 15,000 units of the Prius in 2001, Toyota can’t keep up with demand anymore.

This year, 180,000 units of the Prius have been sold, and Toyota expects the demand to continue even though they are exceeding their production capacity.  Roll along to 2010, and Toyota plans to start building the third generation Toyota Prius in a Mississipi Plant thats currently makes the Toyota Highlander SUV’s.  The third generation Prius will be shown to the public at the Detroit auto show in January 2009, and available for sale shortly after.  The price of the Prius increased $550 this year, and another increase of $500 is planned for the 2009 model year, bringing the base price of the Toyota Prius up to $21,500.