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Read other letters about this article
Referring to his 1999 Saturn:
"summer...43 MPG regularly on the interstate.
In the winter, with different gasoline formulation, I get 46 MPG.
In the city I get between 30 and 33."
Those are good numbers, but not as good as my 1980 Rabbit Diesel.
"Why is everybody bragging about hybreds when they don't get as good a mileage as a 1999 Saturn 5-speed?"
Which numbers are you looking at?
The Prius hybrid in the Southgate Motor Pool gets about 42 MPG *city* in the summer with ethanol-diluted gasoline. About the same on the highway, but a hybrid doesn't really have an advantage for highway cruising.
The big advantage of hybrids is in stop-and-go, lower-speed driving, because it can recover a lot of the energy other cars waste heating up the brakes. And it doesn't waste energy idling for long periods.
I don't know what happened to Saturn. Until last year the SMP included a 1994 Saturn SL that was a really good car. Economical, reliable, simple. Guess GM couldn't leave success alone?
