3 months with a Civic Hybrid
I've been driving a Honda Civic Hybrid for the last 3 months. I
bought it at the end of May and have put about 6,000 miles on it.
This, after buying a regular Civic in 2006 and driving it for 3 years.
I'm fairly happy with it, but it has some glaring defects.
Let me start out by saying that it's a pretty good Civic. Not as
peppy as the conventional one, but pretty good. All the basic car
features are well thought out. It's got some nice touches, like a USB
port that can play music from iPods and thumb drives, or charge other
USB devices.
That said, there are a lot of notable shortcomings. Perhaps the most
trivial is that iPod interface. The UI is horrible, lacking a lot of
the niceties of the native interface. You do everything through the
dashboard controls, and you wait several seconds for it to respond
after every input. Nasty. It also doesn't have any "normal" way to
play podcasts. Kind of odd, given that commuters are the biggest
audience. I've actually switched to pulling sound off my iPhone via
the headphone jack because the digital interface sucks so much.
Everything else... is a problem with the Hybrid part of the car.
It does get better mileage than the conventional Civic, but half of
the improvement relies on having really light traffic and me being
super careful to conserve fuel. If I do that, I can consistently get
around 41-43 mpg. If I drive it like I drive my other
Civic, I get 38mpg, vs 31mpg in the conventional car. That's not a
very big improvement. The best I've managed over a longer distance
was 48mpg driving from Austin to Houston. Add in some bad traffic
and mileage drops to the mid-thirties in a heartbeat. Lower if the
percentage of time stuck in stop and go gets up over 30%.
Now, if it just got 40mpg and that was the limit, it wouldn't be too
maddening, but the hybrid system seems to be pretty brain dead. It's
as though the designers were struggling just to get it to work and
didn't have time for polish. Or bug fixing.
First, it flat doesn't do anything with the electric system below 10
mph. Creeping forward in traffic? Gas engine. Slowly braking to a
light? Stop charging the battery when you fall below 10 mph. You
certainly don't have to worry about it being super silent as you drive
through the parking garage - the engine's always running.
Second, the rules about when the gas engine will and will not turn off
(called "autostop" by Honda) are kind of wacked. It will only autostop
while the car is in drive, the brake pedal is depressed and the car is
not moving. That means that if you want the gas engine to shut off
while you wait for your burger at the drive through, you better either stand on the
brake pedal the whole time or shut off the engine (and thus the air
conditioner). It also won't shut off if you've been creeping forward
in traffic. That's right - once you creep forward to close that gap,
the engine's going to stay on until you get going at a higher speed
and then stop again. Traffic jams will eat your mileage faster than
hill climbing. It's absolutely crazy - and definitely doesn't fulfill
the promise of hybrid vehicles.
Third, it's almost impossible to predict when the electric engine will
kick in and provide some extra power. Sometimes it does it while
you're climbing hills. Sometimes it doesn't. When it does kick in,
it can provide a noticeable (but not great) amount of power. That's
good, but the net result is still a lot weaker than the gas engine in
the 2006 Civic that also occupies space in my driveway. I think they
could have probably just cut the engine size and gotten that extra 7
mpg with similar power - and left the trunk at full size.
Fourth, you never know when it's going to decide to charge the
battery. Battery almost empty and car sitting at idle? Nope. Gas
engine running, but not charging the battery. Cruising along at 60
mph on a level road, with a half full battery and the dash reporting
that it's getting 40 mpg? Charging the battery. Half full battery
while pulling a very steep hill and getting 15 mpg? Charging the
battery. It doesn't pull this shit all the time (except for not
charging while stopped), but when it does, you can go from getting up
the hill with only a little slowdown to laboriously struggling to the
top.
It's a little bit more car than a Prius, but the Prius costs the same
amount and definitely does a better job of being a hybrid.
bought it at the end of May and have put about 6,000 miles on it.
This, after buying a regular Civic in 2006 and driving it for 3 years.
I'm fairly happy with it, but it has some glaring defects.
Let me start out by saying that it's a pretty good Civic. Not as
peppy as the conventional one, but pretty good. All the basic car
features are well thought out. It's got some nice touches, like a USB
port that can play music from iPods and thumb drives, or charge other
USB devices.
That said, there are a lot of notable shortcomings. Perhaps the most
trivial is that iPod interface. The UI is horrible, lacking a lot of
the niceties of the native interface. You do everything through the
dashboard controls, and you wait several seconds for it to respond
after every input. Nasty. It also doesn't have any "normal" way to
play podcasts. Kind of odd, given that commuters are the biggest
audience. I've actually switched to pulling sound off my iPhone via
the headphone jack because the digital interface sucks so much.
Everything else... is a problem with the Hybrid part of the car.
It does get better mileage than the conventional Civic, but half of
the improvement relies on having really light traffic and me being
super careful to conserve fuel. If I do that, I can consistently get
around 41-43 mpg. If I drive it like I drive my other
Civic, I get 38mpg, vs 31mpg in the conventional car. That's not a
very big improvement. The best I've managed over a longer distance
was 48mpg driving from Austin to Houston. Add in some bad traffic
and mileage drops to the mid-thirties in a heartbeat. Lower if the
percentage of time stuck in stop and go gets up over 30%.
Now, if it just got 40mpg and that was the limit, it wouldn't be too
maddening, but the hybrid system seems to be pretty brain dead. It's
as though the designers were struggling just to get it to work and
didn't have time for polish. Or bug fixing.
First, it flat doesn't do anything with the electric system below 10
mph. Creeping forward in traffic? Gas engine. Slowly braking to a
light? Stop charging the battery when you fall below 10 mph. You
certainly don't have to worry about it being super silent as you drive
through the parking garage - the engine's always running.
Second, the rules about when the gas engine will and will not turn off
(called "autostop" by Honda) are kind of wacked. It will only autostop
while the car is in drive, the brake pedal is depressed and the car is
not moving. That means that if you want the gas engine to shut off
while you wait for your burger at the drive through, you better either stand on the
brake pedal the whole time or shut off the engine (and thus the air
conditioner). It also won't shut off if you've been creeping forward
in traffic. That's right - once you creep forward to close that gap,
the engine's going to stay on until you get going at a higher speed
and then stop again. Traffic jams will eat your mileage faster than
hill climbing. It's absolutely crazy - and definitely doesn't fulfill
the promise of hybrid vehicles.
Third, it's almost impossible to predict when the electric engine will
kick in and provide some extra power. Sometimes it does it while
you're climbing hills. Sometimes it doesn't. When it does kick in,
it can provide a noticeable (but not great) amount of power. That's
good, but the net result is still a lot weaker than the gas engine in
the 2006 Civic that also occupies space in my driveway. I think they
could have probably just cut the engine size and gotten that extra 7
mpg with similar power - and left the trunk at full size.
Fourth, you never know when it's going to decide to charge the
battery. Battery almost empty and car sitting at idle? Nope. Gas
engine running, but not charging the battery. Cruising along at 60
mph on a level road, with a half full battery and the dash reporting
that it's getting 40 mpg? Charging the battery. Half full battery
while pulling a very steep hill and getting 15 mpg? Charging the
battery. It doesn't pull this shit all the time (except for not
charging while stopped), but when it does, you can go from getting up
the hill with only a little slowdown to laboriously struggling to the
top.
It's a little bit more car than a Prius, but the Prius costs the same
amount and definitely does a better job of being a hybrid.