Can hybrid cars perform well on motorway?

[davidhill]

Do you get frustrated by the speed and performance of hybrid cars on the motorway?
I am considering buying a Honda Civic Hybrid 1.4, but am a bit concerned about its performance and safety on the motorway (60% of my daily drives are motorway).

Any experience to share?

[The Citrus Smoothie]

Hi David

How many miles do you expect to drive each year? If you are on the motorway for 60% of the time your intended car might rack up to a lot of miles. If that is the case, then a Civic hybrid may not be the answer as it is better suited for higher MPG around town. However a first generation Insight has great MPG both in town and on the motorway...

All cars less than 10 years old (when designs generally changed from just crumple zones to a rigid central passenger shell as well and airbags became more standard) are as safe as they are going to be, unless they only got 2 stars at NCAP.

If you do more than 10,000 miles a year, and need four or five seats, I would suggest a small capacity diesel for economy and practicality. I can recommend an A2 TDI as long as you don't mind a firm ride. With any second hand car go for the best condition first before other considerations such as options and colour. Hope this helps

[E27006]

Some of the Cars at my place of work:

Ford S max diesel, Ford Mondeo diesel, Skoda Superb diesel, all three owners tell me average fuel consumption of 53 mpg on long motorway trips.

All the above cars easily cruise at illegal speeds.

Regarding NCAP safety ratings, they are not uniform in assessment, they weighted according to size of vehicle, i.e. small /medium / large cars etc, an NCAP 5star 1.2 litre hatchback may well be less safe to the occupants than a NCAP 3 star large car

Quote from NCAP website:

Euro NCAP’s frontal impact test simulates a car crashing into another of similar mass and structure. In real life, when two cars collide the vehicle with the higher mass has an advantage over the lighter one. Generally speaking, vehicles with higher structures tend to fare better in accidents than those with lower structures. Therefore, ratings are comparable only between cars of similar mass and with broadly similar structures. Euro NCAP groups cars into the following structural categories: passenger car, MPV, off-roader, roadster and pickup. Within each of those categories, cars which are within 150kg of one another are considered comparable.

[Cobb]

I run i95, i64, i295, i264, i664, and 195 with no problems with 1.3 and the IMA. I try to keep it under 70, but it will do over 100.

[retepsnikrep]

Gents i think the original message is spam due to links in the signature. I have e-mailed the author if he does not respond his threads and posts will be deleted. Peter