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http://cars.about.com/od/chevrolet/gr/2011-Chevrolet-Cruze-Eco-Test-Drive.htm
Guide Review - 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco test drive
The Cruze Eco uses every fuel-saving trick in General Motors' arsenal. Though GM's new 1.4 liter turbocharged engine (link goes to photo) is the star player, much of the grunt work is done by the Eco's improved aerodynamics, which include a belly pan, shutters to close off the lower grille, even small plastic spats to direct airflow around the tires. The alternator is programmed to charge only during deceleration and the air conditioning compressor is designed to reduce drag on the engine. But the Eco's ace in the hole is its 6-speed manual transmission, which has overdriven 5th and 6th gears. (Most manuals only have overdrive in top gear.)
Results: EPA fuel economy estimates of 28 MPG city and 42 MPG highway -- with the manual transmission, that is. The Eco is also available with an automatic, but it lacks the double-overdrive gearing and it weighs 200 lbs. more than the manual. Its EPA fuel economy estimates are 26 MPG city and 37 MPG highway -- not much better than the standard 1.4 liter Cruze, which is rated at 24/36.
Does the Eco work? It seems to. I haven't yet had a chance to use a Cruze Eco as my daily driver, but I did take a highway trip from Los Angeles to downtown San Diego and back, about 140 miles each way. On the way down, with two occupants, luggage in the trunk, and Autoblog's Zach Bowman at the wheel driving 70 MPH, we averaged 41.8 MPG -- and that included getting on and off the highway several times, since we kept getting lost. (How can a big city like San Diego be so hard to find? Honestly.) Returning to L.A., flying solo and armed with better directions, I set out for the freeway and set the cruise at 65 MPH. At the end of the trip, my door-to-door fuel economy was an astonishing 45.8 MPG. That's hybrid territory! I wasn't hypermiling, and I didn't even turn the A/C off -- all I did was drive the speed limit. Brilliant.
Here's the ironic thing: I'd buy the Cruze Eco in a heartbeat, but not because of its fuel economy. Buying an Eco is the only way to get the 1.4 liter turbocharged engine with a manual transmission, and it's fan-friggin'-tastic. The engine is a bit sleepy with the automatic, but the manual really wakes it up -- it's so lively and responsive in the lower gears that you'd never guess it's the high-MPG model. The double-overdrive transmission makes it necessary to downshift to 4th or even 3rd to pick up speed when cruising, but so what? We don't buy stick-shifts so we can avoid shifting. And at $18,895 with air conditioning and a nice stereo, the Cruze Eco is a pretty good deal -- although you'll want to add cruise control, which is a $525 option.
With more power these engines should be a hit.
I hope the Miata gets some variation. That would address my complaints about the lack of range.
Listening to talk radio while gazing at the universe last night, I was reminded of a potential alternate energy source that I left off my list yesterday. It may not thrill environmentalists as it is still a fossil fuel, but it's in abundant supply. I'm talking about Natural Gas.
Lots of infrastructure changes needed, of course, but for the US it might make sense.
The talk host I was listening to was Dr Bill Wattenburg on KGO out of San Francisco. He is quite an accomplished scientist and engineer, as a quick check of wikipedia will no doubt show. One thing I remember him saying last night is that, when one includes natural gas, the USA has THE largest known stores of fossil fuels in the world. He was also railing against folks who are causing us not to obtain our own fuel, etc etc, but in that regard, he was just parrotting what I said yesterday
I think then you'll be getting 50 mpg on the highway in a car that can hold 4.
But that Cruze right now is already an awesome car it sounds like. Why wait? Drive the future today...
Yeah, definitely.
Just for kicks, I just looked into the logistics of trying to take an airplane out on my annual Ohio amusement park pilgrimage, versus driving. The closest airport I found is in Cleveland, about 50 miles away. Only takes about 1 hour and 10 minutes of flying time, but I figure add 1 1/2 hours up front (driving to airport plus checkin), maybe another hour by the time we got our baggage and a rental car, and then another hour to drive out there.
So, about 4.5-5 hours, total. FWIW, driving out usually takes 8-9 hours, depending on traffic and # of pit stops. So flying might save 3-4.5 hours. But the real killer is the price. I booked a theoretical trip of 8/13 through 8/17, and it was $605 per person! Of course, that's because I picked a last-minute timeframe. But even if it was only, say, $200 per person, that's $600 for three people, plus luggage and whatever other fee they might tack on.
FWIW, I think the fuel bill for that whole trip we took back in June was only around $220-230, and that was for around 1100-1150 miles total. (DC to Sandusky, then down to Cincinatti, then back to DC).
For relatively short trips like this one, I guess driving will always be the better way to go. Unless it gets to the point that gasoline becomes scarce, or private automobiles get banned altogether!
I think a 2.0l SkyActive would be perfect.
The largest reserves of natural gas by far are under Iran and Russia---who said God didn't have a sense of humor?
Not sure I understand your point. :confuse: One reason they're burning lots of natural gas in powerplants is that they have to replace the wind power, which is low in the summer, right when it's most needed. Lots of coal still used for base load.
Well, I was quoting one of the smartest men on the planet, Dr Bill. Where did you get your information?
Russia
Iran
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
UAE
United States
Nigeria
etc etc.
Any reputable source will give you just about the same rankings. Russian and Iran reserves are vastly more than USA reserves, so it's not even close on that point.
But here's one source---there are many others that confirm it:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0872966.html
So I searched and came up with this, which MAY be where Dr Bill got his info, I don't know. Also, this includes coal along with nat gas and oil. I originally thought it was just gas and oil. But coal is a fossil fuel. For those who won't click, this quotes a new report to Congress that says USA has THE largest reserves of recoverable COG in the world with Russia a close second. What's the 100% truth? That's the $64 question.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/10/new-report-says-u-s-has-largest-fossil-fuel-re- serves-in-world
As for Russian estimates. I for one hope they aren't lying. Last thing I'd want is an energy hungry Russia in the next 50 years.
I had totally forgotten about that! And I guess ~4 1/2 hours to get from Toledo to Chicago does sound more reasonable. And ~5 1/2 to get from Chicago back to Detroit.
I'm back home now. Ended up filling up near Macungie, PA, for around $3.799/gal for premium. Unfortunately, the LeMans only got around 14 mpg on that tank. Howver, it did spend a lot of time idling in traffic on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, and just north of the Mason-Dixon line on I-83 I ran into another backup. And I spent some time idling waiting to get into the car show, and some local running around, so that wasn't a pure highway run. Oh, and when I was able to, I did get it up to around 85 mph a couple times, which probaby isn't the most efficient operating range for any engine, let alone a 35 year old Pontiac 350!
If the weather's decent, I'm planning on driving the LeMans to work tomorrow, and filling up on the way in. I'm really curious to see how it did on the way back. It started raining at the car show, around 3:00, and pretty much rained all the way back home. Heavy enough at times that traffic slowed considerably...even the BMWs and tractor trailers, two subsets of traffic that seem most likely to exceed the speed limit, slowed down to overly cautious levels!
I'm curious to see what kind of economy it got on the way back. As of that fill-up near Macungie, I had gone aorund 220 miles, and the gauge was reading around 1/4 tank. But when I pulled into the garage Saturday nite, it was reading around 1/2 tank, with around 196 miles on that tank.
Even though that 14 mpg sounds bad, I'm still glad I drove the LeMans to that show, versus the Catalina. I'm sure the Catalina would have done even worse. And, when it rains, it's not exactly watertight. It leaks a bit around where the roof meets the top of the windshield, and when it leaks, tends to hit you right in the crotch!
It must have been on Rte 15, but I had never noticed it before.
I was a passenger this time when I saw the sign.
Anyway, we're back.
Yeah, tell me about it! I drove my LeMans to work today so I could fill it up and see what kind of mpg I got, overall, on that trip out to the car show in Macungie PA. 93 octane dropped ever so slightly, to $3.979/gal. On Friday morning, when I had filled up the car in preparation for the trip out, it was $3.999/gal.
That's what, about a 0.5% drop? I wish my retirement account had only seen a similar drop over the same period!
Oh, and as for fuel economy? Well, on the trip out, it managed a dismal 14.2 mpg. On the way back, 15.8. A far cry from the 17-18 I had been hoping for! But, in retrospect, looking in the fuel log, it's only broken 16 mpg three different times. 16.1 on the way to the GM show in Carlisle back in 2008, 17.6 on the way back home from that show, and 16.6 on another trip back from PA in 2009.
Incidentally, one reason my Mom dumped her similar '75 LeMans back in 1980 was because the best she could get out of it was only 15-16 mpg. So maybe it was a bit optimistic for me to think I'd be able to do much better, on a consistent basis, at least?
So if someone's making $ on these wild price swings, it isn't enough to make a whole lot of profitability for companies like Exxon. The price drop hurts them badly, as they have the same costs to pump, transport, and refine the oil.
Looks like some of the big money might be in REITs these days. The fed just announced that they're going to leave rates alone, probably for about two years. When rates are low, REITs tend to do well, since they make money on the spread, which becomes greater when rates are lower (3.5% is 16.7% greater than 3.0%, but 8.5% is only 6.25% greater than 8.0%, for example). At the latest glance, two of them, NLY and AGNC, are up about 10% just today.
As for oil stocks, I've had Shell in the past, and it would usually return around a 5-7% dividend, depending on the stock price. I had bought some for my uncle in his IRA about a year and a half ago, at $51.91/sh. Even with the big drop in the market, it's around $61.78 right now. So that's about a 19% return in 18 months. Plus the dividend, which is currently 84 cents/sh per quarter.
I guess you need to just be in it for the long haul, but also be a bit lucky as to when you get in. FWIW, not too long ago, it was going for ~$78/share. I had sold off about a quarter of my uncle's stock about 8 months ago, when it had hit ~67/sh, and I thought that was a good return back then!
That's a safety feature, Andre, keeps you from falling asleep while driving in the rain!
According to the EPA estimates (35/33 for the Altima and 16/25 for a supercharged Park Ave), once you also factor in that my Park Ave needs premium, my fuel bill would go down by about half.
I usually have no trouble beating the EPA's estimate with the Park Ave. Even with the old ratings (18/27) I could usually beat the highway rating. Wonder if I'd be able to beat the ratings with an Altima hybrid?
Economically, it wouldn't be worth it. So far this year I've spent about $1050 in fuel for the Park Ave. So if the Altima saved me half, that would only be about $525. About $75 per month. Not a small chunk of change, but only a fraction of what a car payment would be. But, I wasn't thinking economics here. I like the Altima in general, and thought this one was pretty cool. In the end, economics prevailed though, because I'm still driving the Buick!
I'm assuming you have a clean air filter, etc...
That's similar to how the 2009 I looked at was equipped. Leather, sunroof, alloys, all that good stuff. I think the one I looked at only had around 23,000 miles, and was around $21-22K.
$18K for that red one doesn't seem bad to me. Although I wonder if that red might attract too much attention, and be a little "arresting"? The one I saw last year was a creamy white color that was a lot more pleasing to the eye.
I'm starting to find that the older I get, the less I like bright colors. Those pics look like they were taken on a really bright, sunny day though, so maybe that makes the color look louder than it really is?
FWIW, I ran the numbers on my 2000 Park Ave for 2011. As of 7/28/11 (last time I entered a figure into my excel spreadsheet, although I did fill up yesterday)
5586 miles
272.86 gallons of premium
$1,050.03 spent in fuel
20.47 average mpg.
Average price: ~$3.85
I have a feeling that a hybrid Altima or Prius is going to get double the mileage. That would put it at almost 41 mpg combined! Plus, with hybrids, if you do really short trips, doesn't that hurt their economy as well? I know if you do a lot of local driving with stop and go, they get better mpg, but I'm talking about driving 2.5 miles to work, with at the most 6 stops depending on how the traffic lights cooperate, turning it off for about 4 hours. Then driving 2.5 miles home in the same conditions for lunch. Then repeat in the afternoon.
Of course, an all-gas engine won't get very good economy in that kind of driving either, since it spends a disproportionate amount of time simply warming up.
I'm assuming you have a clean air filter, etc...
Yeah, air filter and such are pretty fresh. And that's a good point, about getting the old gas out. In the past year, the car was only driven about 620 miles. And almost 400 of that was just this past weekend, going out to that car show and back.
I'm going to try and start driving it more often. I drove it to work on Wednesday, and again today.
The Prius yes the Altima not likely. Short trips on hybrids do not give it a chance to warm the catalytic convertor for optimum performance. Winter is hard on hybrid mileage. Longer stop and go commutes are the best use for a hybrid. It looks like people are getting about 32-33 MPG combined on the 09 Altima. The 09 Prius close to 50 MPG.
PS
Red attracts cops, white is cooler and less likely to attract attention.
Even if you only wait 10 seconds before you put it into gear and take off, the engine is still going to take a couple minutes to warm up to full operating temperature. So, let's say it takes two minutes.
If your drive to work is only 6 minutes, then 1/3 of that drive is spent with the car warming up. If your drive to work is 20, then it's only 1/10, etc. So, that's what I meant by disproportionate. Not the amount of time you let the car sit in your driveway and warm up before leaving, but the percentage of your trip that involves the car warming up. It's just simple math, that the shorter your trip, the larger percentage of that trip is spent with the car warming up.
Back when I had my 2000 Intrepid, when I lived in my condo, which was about 13 miles from work, it was rare for that car to ever get below 20-21 mpg. But then in 2003 I moved closer, only around 3.5 miles, and mpg dropped to around 18, unless I had some longer trips in the mix.
We moved to a new building last December, and now I'm only 2.5 miles away! Sometimes I'll take a longer way into work, or home, just to give the car a chance at a longer run.