Steve's Road To Green

Steve’s 2012 Lexus ct200h, the road to green…

So last Sunday, February 19^th, we went into the Steven’s Creek Lexus dealership and walked out with the latest hybrid in stock, the CT200H.

It took me some time to settle on this particular vehicle. My main interest is in saving fuel costs due to my normal commute distance that can reach a round trip of ~120 miles. I considered at first a fully electric and places $500.00 deposit some years ago, a bet really, on a now defunct Aptera. It’s claims were 300 miles on a single charge, which would have given me the range I needed. The only other vehicle with full electric that would suffice is the Tesla but I find it rather impractical to spend the $50,000+ expense. Really, the ROI on that is far too long and I love the earth but really…

So what I ended up doing to help me figure it all out was to, using the Consumer Reports data, http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/most-fuel-efficient-cars.html, took the top 23 most fuel efficient vehicles and built my own spreadsheet to compare based on my data. I used variables that included Mileage (city, Hwy and overall), length of loan, average yrly miles, Fuel PG, yrly fuel cost, that x6 (length of loan), MSRP, int % on loan and down payment. This gave me a great idea of the total TCO of the vehicles. What this did not account for however, is the comfort so the test drive and dealership visits were still as must.

We spent nearly 3 months slowly investigating these vehicles, well armed with our data. Of course, there were some that immediately fell of the list. Vehicles like the Mini Cooper due to its TCO of $37,400 or the VM Golf TDI in at a TCO of a whopping $37,500. There were others off the list because of lack of desired fuel economy, 33 just does not cover it for me Mr. Mazda. The Prius was always in the running but just did not have some of the features I desired. To be totally truthful I wanted a little luxury after driving the Saturn SL2 for nearly 15 years. Of course I’m not terribly demanding so we settled on three cars to choose from, the Prius V, the Jetta TDI and the CT200H.

After comparing these three the Prius fell of due to the lack of luxury and the TDI lost due to cost of diesel, lack of luxury, service costs and poorer mileage. The winner…Lexus CT200H!

Yes, the Volt was on the list but TCO came in $9000.00+ higher than the CT200H.

So, after running for a week I have accomplished a 46.6 MPH on average. Incredible considering the skyrocketing costs of fuel in 2012. Now I expect of course that mileage varies, but I am hoping I can settle on an average between the 46 and 55 range. To do this I will have to continue to dramatically change my driving habits. Slow take offs, slow deceleration and plain old calmer driving is what it takes. This will be good for my health as well I think by reducing my stress.

What Lexus has done to help me through this though is pretty cool as well. The instrument cluster changes with hybrids. You get to see and monitor real-time, your success. On the left, when driving in normal or ECO mode, there is a display that shows me how economically I am driving.

 

When I keep the dial below the “ECO” word I am running in EV MODE. Above it and the vehicle manages the best economy with performance between the gas and electric motors. Now getting into the POWER range all bets are off. You trade ECO for POWER, which comes in handy when merging onto the freeway or passing, both of which I do now very carefully. Hardly passing at all really.

To provide the user even great control and options there is a dial on the center console and an EVmode button.

ECO mode lets the car govern itself to assist in controlling the amount of torque applied to the acceleration, thus making in smoother and saving fuel. It also minimizes the operation of the AC and heating to reduce energy consumption of those components.

NORMAL mode is when the gas engine is primarily used but will be supplemented when possible by the electric motor. An example of this would be, as mentioned earlier, the speed of the vehicle slows enough to place the needle below the “ECO” word on the instrument panel.

SPORT mode replaces the ECO indicator with a tachometer, essentially giving you better performance rather than efficiency.

Another cool indication that helps you be aware of your habits is the glow of the instrument cluster. When driving efficiently the light glows a vibrant blue. In contrast, when driving in SPORT mode everything turns bright red. This is a great simple way to help you be aware.

Knowledge is power, and this is one of the great advantages the new CT200H provides me while driving. I knew to get the most efficiency out of this vehicle I would have to change some of my own bad habits. I was a little concerned, knowing myself well enough about how good I am at breaking bad habits, that my greatest challenge would be myself. Rest easy Steve, I said to myself the other day, as this car is going to help you get through this and become a more aware and efficient driver.

I love my new car.

Next time I’ll tell you how well the Bluetooth works!

Cheers,
Steve