Comments on: MPG Wars: 1989 Honda CRX HF vs. 2009 Toyota Prius

By: mike

mike — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 03:23:41 +0000

Oliver brings up a good point. Why not start with a very light car and build an interior cage much like a roll cage or crash cage. This could be hidden from view with some smart use of plastic trim pieces and could be relatively lightweight.

I always see commercials saying which unibody flexes at what points better than whoever else’s car. It doesn’t make sense, that thin steel is still going to be smashed to bits when hit in an odd position no matter if you have a full frame suburban or yaris or whether you have airbags or not.

I say build the car first then build the safety cage to fit inside the car, this would also limit the rampant ugliness in jelly bean cars today. Please don’t let wind resistance matter more than my car looking like a slick terd! (The new 370z comes to mind, it looks like crap, literally)

By: Oliver Kuttner

Oliver Kuttner — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 00:57:57 +0000

I really appreciate the article and take this opportunity to ask those interested at our project at Edison2Com. we are developing the car in the other direction to less is more as a simple yet safe platform. Here I will differ with the author in saying that it is not the safety that makes the light car impossible. For that matter there is a study which compares highway deaths per 100,000 vehicles sold and it comes out with the finding that the ill handling heavy SUVs fare much worse (because they are in more accidents (with the exception of a few teen marketed cars like the Dodge Neon.
If weight made safety impossible then how do racing cars offer such safety in more demanding situations…. I know many reasons including belts etc.
The point of the article is correct we need to go to less weight. We need to solve the obstacles. Some of this we are attempting to do.

By: Dustin May

Dustin May — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:02:16 +0000

The number I used is from fueleconomy.gov, the EPA’s website for comparing the fuel economies of different cars. The EPA cycle changed a few years ago, and they adjusted vehicles older than that to bring them in line with their expected performance on the new cycle, based on baseline tests run with various vehicles.

As always, your mileage may vary!

By: Lyn

Lyn — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:02:40 +0000

The 1988 Honda CRX HF got 60+ on the highway not 50, and it was never rated for 50 mpg highway, it was rated for 54 but got much much better. Honda was crazy for discontinuing the car, It had guts, styling, fuel economy that still to this day can’t be beat

By: Oscar

Oscar — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:23:58 +0000

I realy love te article, i own a CRX Im trying to keep it because the gas millage that car does is good and its a realy fun to drive it. I was thinkin why they dont make another CRX not CRZ, not insight (i dont know why all the hybrid cars look so ugly),they should do a light weigh turbo Diesel CRX, thats a realy good idea, without luxury stuf (like old times optional Luxury), with all the safety matters.

By: Dave W

Dave W — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 05:26:55 +0000

Great article!! I have been thinking about my old crx. I am 6 foot four and 300 lbs I fit easily. I was shocked by the gas prices of last year. If I get the HF model and add synthetic oil, bosch platinums, KnN filter and maybe a good muffler and header($300-400), I should be able conservatively to get 55 plus on the freeway. I have seen lightweight pulleys that claim to drop 1 mpg per pulley, there are three for the crx, which conservatively I would say might get me to 57 plus mpg. Then if I add lightweight seats ($400 at least) I maybe able to get to 60 mpg. The seats are expensive though for a max of 80 lbs less. Good point, why are all these new cars getting such crappy gas milage? The prius is a joke!! compared to a stock crx hf and some cheap mods. Why cant someone produce a crx type vehicule with a carbon fiber body or fiberglass(vw manx fiberglass bodies that sat 4 were $1500 or less) as a technology or cutting edge car for those of us that like to save money on gas?

By: Mike McCloskey

Mike McCloskey — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:55:17 +0000

i still have an 89 crx it still getts over 50 mpg on regular gas. my problem with this is other small cars arent doing well compairativly. the yaris only gets 34 on the hwy and weighs 500 lbs more than my crx. this means that over the last 20 years there has been no improvment in the auto industry. i would think that large companys with r&d teams could make some headway over 20 years its pathetic.

By: Personne

Personne — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:27:34 +0000

“The 3 cylinder Smart car available in Canada is a diesel – not gasoline.”
I beg to differ, since my wife owns a gas-powered 2008 ForTwo (super unleaded only) which replaced a 2005 diesel-powered one.

As you can expect it is more responsive and a bit less noisy, though I didn’t mind the first one as we never once experienced trouble starting it in the winter. It’s hard to make direct comparisons between the two because diesel prices skyrocketed and never came back down to the lower figures we used to see when we drove oil; suffice it to say that the curent one drinks exactly half of what my 3l V6 Mazda Sportwagon does.

Mercedes plans to bring back the diesel in 2010 after passing conformity to the the new emission requirements – which barred the older version imports.

By: Eric Johnstone

Eric Johnstone — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:41:27 +0000

The 3 cylinder Smart car available in Canada is a diesel – not gasoline. To compare with the US 4 cyl gasoline engine is not a fair comparison either. As I understand it, the US has tougher particulate emission standards than Canada or Europe, which makes it difficult for car makers to sell diesel engines in this country. There is also the cost of diesel, which has been very expensive in the last few years, offsetting the cost per mile. I don’t know how the diesel Smart car performs compared to the gasoline engine, but I believe you will find people that would gladly trade performance for mileage. The people that want performance would not buy a Smart car anyway – gasoline or diesel, so I think that point is moot.

By: ndpara

ndpara — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:40:40 +0000

Good point, however look at the Smart car up in Canada, 3 cylinder turbo diesel that gets 60-75 miles pr gallon, yet the same car sold here in the states only gets 30’s to 40’s. Why you may ask, no one will ever really know the truth, the cars sold in the states have a 4 banger gas engine. Is it because we are a greedy country the needs more horsepower. So many answers so little time, you decide.