Hypermiling: Drive Like a Girl: "Google's RechargeIT project demonstrated this in typical Google style - with technology, mounds of data, and a little friendly competition. They converted a fleet of Priuses and Ford Escape hybrids to plug-ins and then set their drivers out on the road to test the average fuel economy. The news was great! The converted Prius really DOES get 100 mpg or so in real-world conditions. Cool! Then...
...after the 'project' was over, they used the same fleet of Priuses and Escapes as errand-running cars. And what happened? Those same cars got really bad fuel economy comparatively, about half what they'd done in the 'project'. Seattle City Light got about the same results; a grouchy Seattle Times columnist made much of it here, along with Consumer Reports' stab at the Hymotion Prius conversion kit. CR's resulting opinion? You'd never recoup in gas savings the 11K it costs to do the conversion, but they kinda dug it, anyway."
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