AGE/SMH comparison of Ecoboost, traditional petrol. LPG and Hybrid

[XR Martin]

Originally Posted by AWD Chaser

I see that it's not noted that you can't fit a tow pack to the Camery hybrid...

Actually the new model can have a towbar.

[Crazy Dazz]

Originally Posted by Nikked

Who the hell, goes and buys a car on the basis of "volumetric energy density"?

No one...


They look at the efficiancy...

Er, no. Nobody considering an LPG option looks only at km/l, you look at the cost. LPG and PULP are two different products so comparing litres & litres is irrelevant.

I love how they proved that a full-sized 198kw/409nm Falcon was cheaper to run than the hybrid, but still gave the Camry “number one ranking.”

Proves what I have been saying all along. If you want to save money on running costs go for the eColi. EB is a gimmick.

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by RPI

How long do the batteries last in a Hybrid and how much will they cost to replace?

Camry Hybrid has 8 years or 160,000k warranty on batteries.

[XR Martin]

No mention of the cheapness of the Camry interior?
I got in a base model the other week and couldnt stop cringing. The fake stitching on the dash is just hideous. And then theres the plastic pieces that joins the lower part of the dash to the centre console, not only does it not even fit properly, it has more fake stitching on it and is even nastier than the dash.

[PoweredByCNG]

I think the article sums things up fairly well. If you want a "driver's" car, get the Falcon LPi. If you want an A to B appliance for suburban work, get the Camry Hybrid. For me, I'd take the Falcon any day.

Yet another journo revealing that the Commodore LPG is a terrible product...

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by PoweredByCNG

Yet another journo revealing that the Commodore LPG is a terrible product...

The motor specs say it all. Only 320nm of torque and the weight is up by 56kg. Also they couldn't get it to reach Holdens claimed economy figures and it used more then the EcoLPi.

[prydey]

Originally Posted by Crazy Dazz

Proves what I have been saying all along. If you want to save money on running costs go for the eColi. EB is a gimmick.

ecoboost is eligible for any fleets with a 4cyl only policy. horses for courses.

[PoweredByCNG]

Originally Posted by vztrt

The motor specs say it all. Only 320nm of torque and the weight is up by 56kg. Also they couldn't get it to reach Holdens claimed economy figures and it used more then the EcoLPi.

To be fair, the Commodore LPG would perform approximately on par with the previous generation VE Commodore (i.e. MY09 and older) with the base 175kW-180kW 3.6L Alloytec (port injected) V6. The fact that the LPG engine has a torque curve that peaks at 2000rpm instead of 2800rpm would negate the 56kg weight increase.

GM Holden didn't have a great engine platform to start with, so by pairing that with an inferior LPG fuel system, they created a double-negative for themselves.

Edit: Completely forgot about the new 6-speed auto on the LPG Commodore. This single new feature would increase performance and driveability over the old VEs mentioned above.

[Resurrection]

Originally Posted by Statler

The link is to a weekend article comparing the following cars in real world situations:

Ecoboost Falcon
Petrol I6 Falcon
ECOLpi Falcon

SVI LPG Commodore

Hybrid Camry

It makes interesting reading

http://theage.drive.com.au/motor-new...511-1yg69.html


cheers
Statler

Why wasn't the 3.0 V6 Commodore included in the test? They should have tested the following:

Camry (4cyl), Falcon EcoBoost, Commodore 3.0 SIDI (small capacity)
Aurion (6cyl), Falcon petrol 6, Commodore 3.6 SIDI (standard petrol engine)
Camry hybrid, Falcon EcoLPI, Commodore LPG (alternative power sources)

Good article but it could have been better. The sad thing is Falcon will still be outsold by the Commodore.

[Crazy Dazz]

Originally Posted by prydey

ecoboost is eligible for any fleets with a 4cyl only policy. horses for courses.

As I said, a gimmick.
Specifying a car based on the number of cylinders borders on insanity (or civil service.)
The government supposedly gave Ford money to spend on making the Falcon more economical. Please tell or it wasn’t squandered on the EB.

[FG_Frodza]

Holden claims its new LPG system is more economical than Ford's system. That might be true when quoting official figures (the Omega claim is 11.8L/100km while the SV6 is 12.3L/100km, equal to the XT EcoLPi and 0.1L ahead of the XR6), but it is not borne out by our experiences.

In every segment of our test loop, be it urban stop-start, cruise-controlled freeway stretches, rolling country highways or mountain switchbacks, the Ford was more economical. Again, we have to stress that LPG refuelling can be inconsistent but over time an unarguable trend emerges.

That was the part I found most interesting.

Another example of Holden doing better in tests and Ford doing better in the real world.

[prydey]

Originally Posted by Crazy Dazz

As I said, a gimmick.
Specifying a car based on the number of cylinders borders on insanity (or civil service.)
The government supposedly gave Ford money to spend on making the Falcon more economical. Please tell or it wasn’t squandered on the EB.

ecoboost is a more economical falcon. lpg isn't available everywhere. petrol is. lpg is still perceived by the population at large as being a taxi fuel. petrol isn't. there are many reasons why ecoboost might just work just as well, if not better than ecolpi.

i have a fg xr6. they say their test was approx 200km of city and 1000 km on the highway. they average 10L/100km. given my own experiences with my own car, this tells me a little about how they drove it. i would suggest when you drive cars a certain way, the smaller engines are always going to use more fuel than normal.

you seem very keen to see ecoboost fail for some reason. like so many on this forum, do you have a grudge against falcon? no one is forced to buy any particular fuel. the beauty of falcon is, you have a choice of 3 different drivelines now. they have every base covered.

[whynot]

Originally Posted by Crazy Dazz

As I said, a gimmick.
Specifying a car based on the number of cylinders borders on insanity (or civil service.)
The government supposedly gave Ford money to spend on making the Falcon more economical. Please tell or it wasn’t squandered on the EB.

Just to clarify, the government and some large non-government fleets do not have cylinder restrictions as such. They often specify minimum greenhouse gas ratings of, say, five stars. If a manufacturer can make a theoretical 7l, 400kW, V8 with a six star rating, it would be on the government list.

I haven’t yet driven the Eco Boost, but the technology seems very promising.

The power and torque is not all that far behind the trusty Barr 182, and easily exceeds the output of the previous generation I6 and V8. Interesting comment in the latest Wheels magazine that basically stated that unless one needed to tow over the 1600kg capacity limit, the EcoBoost is a better buy than the I6.

Looking at the engine technologies coming through from Ford, I don’t think the government money was squandered.

[Nikked]

Originally Posted by Crazy Dazz

As I said, a gimmick.
Specifying a car based on the number of cylinders borders on insanity (or civil service.)
The government supposedly gave Ford money to spend on making the Falcon more economical. Please tell or it wasn’t squandered on the EB.

Like what, a hybrid?

[Joe5619]

Originally Posted by Crazy Dazz

Er, no. Nobody considering an LPG option looks only at km/l, you look at the cost. LPG and PULP are two different products so comparing litres & litres is irrelevant.

I love how they proved that a full-sized 198kw/409nm Falcon was cheaper to run than the hybrid, but still gave the Camry “number one ranking.”

Proves what I have been saying all along. If you want to save money on running costs go for the eColi. EB is a gimmick.

How in gods names is EB a gimmick??? That would have to be the dumbest thing I've read on this forum yet!!


It is a great engine providing great fuel savings in Falcon using normal pretol!! Private buyers dont want LPG or Hybird, so EB wins in my opinion!!

[aussie muscle]

Originally Posted by XR6 Martin

No mention of the cheapness of the Camry interior?

i guess after calling falcon and commodore out on the 'cheapness' they ran out of things to gripe about, so left out the plasticy camry interior.

This is about the ninth review of the falcon that complained about the interior. maybe it's an area that Ford need to look at.

[sudszy]

Originally Posted by flappist

What a load of crap.

Per Kg? Well that makes Hydrogen the most efficient fuel, shame you need a truck to carry the tank.

Why not use Uranium, a Kg of Uranium will provide HUGE amounts of power and run your car for centuries although the size and weight of the car might be a bit of a problem but it would be efficient.

Liquid fuels are measured in litres not kilos.

The operating co-efficient of a motor vehicle is measured in DOLLARS nothing else, never has been and never will be.......

wow a bagging from this person....how unexpected.

Liquid fuels are all measured in kilos? really? and you have an aviation background?

And your strawman attack:
Nope, the point wasnt about that we should choose lpg based on its better energy/kg ratio so we could have a lighter car, the difference is more than offset by the weight of an lpg tank. The point was that more often than not lpg is labelled as inefficient simply because it per litre it has less energy.


No Im not advocating changing buying fuel to the kg.

But can you see the problem, if we were buying fuel by the kg, our journalist would be claiming lpg was more efficient

The simple point I made is that lpg is a more efficient fuel than petrol when we look at the % of energy available in the fuel that is converted to useful work done by the motor when the motor is optimisied for lpg. People understand diesel engines are more efficient for exactly the same reason?


Simply I cant take any supposed expert on motoring seriously if they dont know the difference between fuel consumption and fuel efficiency and would limit anything to be learned from the article to which cars had the best cup holders.

[PepeLePew]

On EB I think it was Flappist was saying Qld government have a 4 cyl policy which EB would satisfy rightly or wrongly?

[sudszy]

Originally Posted by Nikked

Who the hell, goes and buys a car on the basis of "volumetric energy density"?

No one...


They look at the efficiancy...

Strawmen is the flavour of the day it seems. No I didnt advocate listing that for consumers.

As Flappist has said, one should look at the dollars needed to run the car. some people think that means "efficiancy",.
Well perhaps looking at the fuel CONSUMPTION and the price of the fuel to get a good idea, fuel efficieny is never listed by the manufacturers or on the aus gov website: http://www.greenvehicleguide.gov.au

it would appear its a term only misued by motoring journalists.

[krzysiek]

I'm not following this whole debate here, but I will chime in.

When people go to buy a car, they look at the cost of running it.

That's why I bought an ecoLpi. It uses more L/100KM than Petrol but the costs to run it for the 100KM are substantially less. Complain all you want about the usage per 100KM or get into all the scientific stuff you want - at the end of the day, my LPG falcon is cheaper to run than your Petrol Falcon.

That's what people are looking at and that's why, in the case of this article, the EB got filtered out quick smart. It is efficient if comparing standard petrol variants against it. But when you compared vehicles in relation to running costs, it can't beat out the LPG or the Hybrid and that's why it got tossed out.

No one is saying it is a **** car. We're talking about running costs. Personally, if there was some type of other fuel available but the car would use 50L/100KM - I'd still buy it if it was cheaper to run than the alternatives. In the end, to me, on a personal level, running cost is what matters. Very simple idea, yet a lot of people seem to over complicate it.

[NX74205]

Originally Posted by prydey

ecoboost is a more economical falcon. lpg isn't available everywhere. petrol is. lpg is still perceived by the population at large as being a taxi fuel. petrol isn't. there are many reasons why ecoboost might just work just as well, if not better than ecolpi.

... such as a bigger boot and a spare tyre.

I'd choose EcoBoost over LPG any day of the week.

[Polyal]

Originally Posted by NX74205

... such as a bigger boot and a spare tyre.

I'd choose EcoBoost over LPG any day of the week.

And isnt it wonderful that we even have a choice!

People need to stop nitpicking little things about each option, there are -/+'s for all cars, all products, select what suits you but dont bag something else because its not your cup of tea.

[WPR1]

OK Ford you now have 2 great "eco" products back them up through advertising. Even use your successful racing team FPR to showcase how well these cars drive.
Both the fords smash the oposition in acceleration and handling plus return great fuel economy and are roomy big cars.
Come on Ford marketing!!!

[SM1DY]

There is a review on carsales between the hybrid camry, ecoboost and sidi 3L

$37,235 for the Ecoboost and $39,990 for the Commodore, yet the Falcon is the one with the 'steep' price tag?

http://www.carsales.com.au/reviews/2...mparison-30261

[outback_ute]

Originally Posted by Resurrection

Why wasn't the 3.0 V6 Commodore included in the test? They should have tested the following:

Camry (4cyl), Falcon EcoBoost, Commodore 3.0 SIDI (small capacity)
Aurion (6cyl), Falcon petrol 6, Commodore 3.6 SIDI (standard petrol engine)
Camry hybrid, Falcon EcoLPI, Commodore LPG (alternative power sources)

Good article but it could have been better. The sad thing is Falcon will still be outsold by the Commodore.

They did have a 3.0 Commodore and a 6cyl petrol Falcon on the test too, but wrote those cars up as a separate article. The petrol Falcon got 9.9 or 10.0 (so did the Commodore), which is very close to the Ecoboost.

[Rodge]

Originally Posted by prydey

ecoboost is a more economical falcon. i have a fg xr6. they say their test was approx 200km of city and 1000 km on the highway. they average 10L/100km. given my own experiences with my own car, this tells me a little about how they drove it. i would suggest when you drive cars a certain way, the smaller engines are always going to use more fuel than normal.The beauty of falcon is, you have a choice of 3 different drivelines now. they have every base covered.

I'm with you, they were obviously giving the cars a fair bit of stick. The real benifet of the Ecoboost is effectivly the engine amounts to deplacement on demand so the most benifets are going to be had in cruising mode which is how people drive a heck of a lot of the time IMO.

Be interesting to see a normal run from say Sydney to Brisbane cruising at the normal speed limit.

[sudszy]

Originally Posted by FG_Frodza

That was the part I found most interesting.

Another example of Holden doing better in tests and Ford doing better in the real world.

just putting it out there: we have here is most likely the problem associated with the one combined figure that we get for the fuel usage of all vehicles being a weighted average of city and highway.

To me its a near useless representation put together to cater for the lowest common denominator but has missed the mark and caters for no-one.

If the car is going to be used for mostly urban running, lets see the city cycle or vice versa. A light car with a very efficient engine can be great at city, but poor aerodynamics can make it less than frugal on the highway and vice versa.

The old city/hwy system appeared to show things better. Whilst people may not have achieved the same numbers, it served very well for comparison purposes, certainly in tests if Car A had a better hwy or city fig than car B it would show up that way in real use too.

Regarding the testing, did these journalists really drive these things in city traffic and empty a whole tank to establish a city consumption? Did they do it over the space of ~50 cold starts which can change consumption drastically and is something that the city cycle adr addresses.

any theory that gm has falsified its adr numbers is fanciful, given that they know the competition has the equipment to check it out for themselves and Im sure its probably a big offence to not conduct the test properly.

[RASER]

If i had the have the vehicle that will be bullet-proof and give the least amount of brain-damaged, we all know which on that will be, BigT

The prior model Camry looked like trash inside, have to say they [finally] did a mighty job on this new one.

Having said that i would take the Hybrid Camry running on LPG thanks

But i HATE FWD with passion, so just buy a SUV like everybody else!

[Nikked]

ITT:

Positive article about the falcon gets buried amongst petty arguments about how LPG isn't as good as Petrol, how the EcoBoost is a waist of money...Ford should do this, ford should do that...


Poor old Ford...

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by XR6 Martin

Actually the new model can have a towbar.

It can tow 300kg

You could probably hook up a trailer to it but not put anything in it.