Prius as paddling vehicle

[oopsiflipped]

I drive a prius.

I have put a prospector, a zephyr and an Ocoee on top. Milage went to 8L/100KM.

With a zephyr ususal milage was 6-6.5 L/100KM

I drive with the roof rack on full time and get 5.1 L/100KM 90% highway driving.

what's that in american?

[Bob P]

Google it and you shall know the answer, Grasshopper.

Conversions

[jrsh92]

Even without converting to the actual values in MPG you get an idea... that system is amount of fuel consumed to go a given distance. Unloaded it consumes 5.1 liters, fully loaded with 3 boats (that's some impressive loading-- 2 OC-1's and a full sized tandem? Wow) it took 8 liters. That's about 60% more fuel used which is very significant. On the other hand, if you compare that to the milage a big car designed to be loaded up gets... you get better milage out of the prius unloaded of course, but you probably still burn less fuel than a bigger car when you load the prius down. An SUV's fuel economy might not change much when you put boats on it but you're probably starting off already lower than a fully loaded prius...

[insolence]

8 l /100 km is relatively impressive with 3 boats on the rack, I think

as far as european cars are concerned, I'm not very keen on them compared to their US counterparts - most of modern european cars consume 8 L or more per 100 km without load, if you got a really, really small one (fiat punto or so) it might be 5L without load

Me, I got an 16 years old BMW wich consumes this with 2 people and 2 decked C1 on the rack
with maximum load, thats 5 people including their decked boats and gear, the car needs 10 L/100 km


so, I'm not so sure wether a euro style car would be better than a decent car you can get in the US.....

[TheKrikkitWars]

as far as european cars are concerned, I'm not very keen on them compared to their US counterparts - most of modern european cars consume 8 L or more per 100 km without load, if you got a really, really small one (fiat punto or so) it might be 5L without load

Pardon?
Our Vaxhaul (Opel?) Astra routinely does thousands of miles at 60-65mpg (thats 3.9-3.6l/100km) even loaded up with boats we can still get 45ish mpg with economical driving; Even at its lowest quoted fuel ecomomy 38mpg for urban driving its still only doing (6.1l/100km).

Now the Astra estate may not be huge, but its big enough for me (a 6'4" bloke) to sleep in the back of in a degree of comfort.

To compare the European medium family car with its American compact counterpart the current Chevy Cobalt does between 29 and 44mpg (8.1 and 5.5 l/100km) and thats an improvement on the previous model. This is despite using the same chassis and layout as the Astra (GM Delta Platform).

Now driving a medium to small, light, manual car with a small sized engine may not be as appealing to some; but you certainly can't argue that it's not more efficient or environmentally friendly.

OK tangent over...

[insolence]

I'm sorry theKrikkitwars
should have mentioned I'm talking about a medium size car - such as a VW Passat, for example. By big cars, I understand most pickups, Dodge Durango or personal busses


Me personally I don't mind at all driving a small car - for up to 2 persons you can do anything anyway, and if ever a bigger one should be needed, one can get a rental car.
The only reason I'm currently driving a family car (the BMW) is, it was my parent's old one they offered to me for free when they wantet a newer car for themselves. And being a student with some canoes to transport, I could need it

But many family cars in here do need around 8l/100km and this is quite a lot considering we're not talking the 18 year-old ones but
modern cars wich should actually be more efficient and environmentally friendly right from the start
Especially since not everyone can drive a small car due to various reason, and so cars should get generally more environmentally friendly.
This might not be the most easy task to do, but definitely a possible one.
And the Prius makes a good start, I think