Small cars

Real-world mpg would be a novelty

A useful list, but we all know there are some massive discrepancies between quoted economy figures and test-results..

By Alfamonk on 2 November, 2010, 4:10pm

Suzuki Swift 1.2 68.5 mpg

My wife has a 2008 Suziki Swift diesel. The car travels journeys of at least 12 miles each way and on rural roads (without traffic jams). According to the dash-board display and over the previous 8000 miles, it has averaged 68.5 mpg. We do drive carefully and only travel at around 50 mph, but with figures this good, it makes a nonsense of Hybrid fuel cars that are so much more expensive to purchase in the first place.

By reeppoo1 on 4 November, 2010, 1:27pm

Envious

It is so frustrating to see the rest of the world get to buy these 60 plus MPG diesel B segment cars and the car companies refuse to sell them in the States. I' m refusing to buy a new car until someone brings the first 60 plus MPG car in. {they will get my money} Until then I'll keep nursing my 19 year old Festiva with 248K that gets 42 MPG along.

By Spyder112 on 5 November, 2010, 3:36pm

Give me a Nissan Leaf any day, in Ireland it will cost €1.80 on night tariff to fully charge, from empty. For 60-100 miles. I challenge any diesel to beat that!

Long distance drivers for now, will still have to use Diesel, but there is a very large number of people who can use an electric car and never do even more than 30 miles a day, the so called range anxiety doesn't really apply for many!

There is another way of looking at it. I pay around 75 Euros to fill my A4 TDI automatic, that gets me around 600-650 miles @48-50 mpg, So if the Leaf can travel say, worst case scenario, 60 miles max, that would equal 10 charges of fully empty to full. 60 miles x 10 = 600 miles. That would cost me €18 euros. now that's a major difference! And that's going on worst case scenario where if the Leaf will travel only 60 miles MAX, if it goes for the full 100 miles then that would cost only €10.80.

All these figures are based on the Leaf's charger consuming around 3kw!

Now that would really be an incentive for me in the future to install solar panels and maybe a wind turbine, though here I think wind is better, the payback would be much shorter indeed and I would achieve true 0 emissions driving. Now all we need is for the Irish Government to offer grants for electricity generation. Fat chance!

ICE car taxing, fuel etc. Electric cars are beginning to sound cheaper already! Tax is only going in one direction and that's up! The E.U wants 0 emissions cars, and make no mistake about that, the Leaf and Fluence are coming and the Governments will say we now have no excuse that the alternatives are there. Just you wait and see. And I for one can't wait to get rid of noisy, high maintenance, polluting ICE cars!

By Mad_Lad on 9 November, 2010, 8:53am