Black_6spd

The Federal Gov't has just passed the bill allowing a few hybrids to drive in the HOV lane in my gridlock state of California:
This now presents a dillema for me. With my TSX, I'm getting about 21-23 mpg and my wife spends anywhere from 40-60 minutes on the freeway to work each way.

This roughly translates into:
Weekly gas cost: $40 @2.85 for premium. With oil prices raising to record heights, it will soon be close to $4.00/gal for premium. That translates into around $60 per tank. Ouch.
Daily total time spent in traffic = 2 hours

Over 1 month, thats $240 for gas and 44 hours spent in traffic!

With a civic hybrid (one of the approved cars for HOV), I would be getting over 45 mpg and will cut my wife's commute time in half! That saves me $120 per month in gas and 22 hours in traffic. In addition, my car's monthly payment would be at least $100 less.

I love my TSX, but the price of gas is going through the roof and traffic is getting worse. I have some decisions to make.

Howard911s

I wont get a civic hybrid, cause i just dont like civic, too many darn kids on the steret has them. hybrid or not. HOwever, i say go for a PRIUS! at least it look different, also if it would cut your payment by 100 and save 50% of your commute time i say its worth it..

just dont eye TSX with envy when u go out at night or weekend when no traffic and TSX and other faster car zoom past you... thinking (i could have kept it).....

Black_6spd

On a side rant, it simply amazes me that GM sales for Yukon, Suburban, Tahoe, and other cars that get around 12 mpg have gone through the roof from the employee discount promotion. When (not if) gas prices reach $3/gal for regular, these bad boys will be well over $100 a week. I certainly hope the folks who bought them at the "discounted" price takes this into consideration.[/rant]

corey415

You know, this exemption is allowed till 2007 right? What happens if the law isnt renewed once it expires.

virtualbong

In your situation, it seems like it'd be a good move, but lookwise...you're taking a big, big hit.

Howard911s

EXCATLY! one of my co worker said he is gonna buy a 2nd car (hybrid) for commute and save money.. i was like.. dude. how are u gonna save money? u pay for 1 car. 1 insurance , 1 gas, by driving a hybrid and parking your G35 at home, u might have the illusion of saving money at the pump. but dude. now u have 2 payments, 2 gas bills. increased insurance premium....u moron.. he was like. oh yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

CJams

I con't believe your'e considering it either

moda_way

You'd be just as good of to buy a regular Civic vs a Hybrid. The savings (since the Hybrid costs more) are minimal in a year or more. I'd be willing to bet you'll be lucky to see 35 mpg, much less 45 mpg. As for the cost of fuel, at $0.20 difference between premium and regular, at a fillup, you'd see a saving on 14 gallons of a whooping $2.80 and that's assuming you fill up once a week anyway. Combine that over the year and you get about $145.60. If you think you can save on gas... you're better off just buying a less expensive car period.

Howard911s

just a thought. how much does it cost to replace those hybrid battery at 100k? like 5-6 gran? and no data support that the battery WILL last 100K. A reprot on car n driver even said many fire crew will REFUSE to rescue people pinned in a wrecked hybrid fear or being electricuted and or buned by battery acid (who can blame them)..............stick with tsx

moda_way

Yeah, I didn't mention that b/c I couldn't quote an article on it. Hybrids, though interesting, are not saving the money ppl believed they would.

iamhomin

The thought of gas prices rising to $4/gal when the whole population depends on commuting.....

Makes me want to use public transportation.

Howard911s

and the thought of leaving my tsx at some metro station unattended for whole day with transient and day labor prowling around is just.........

ianS

Will the gas saving good enough to offset the lost of selling a 1-2 yr old car + extra cost on hybird? I will pick Primus too if I go for hybird.

Black_6spd

If that HOV law had not passed, you'd have a better option in the regular civic. The same applied to the new Accord hybrid where people were better off getting the cheaper LX with similar gas mileage.

However, gas cost is only half the problem. The regular civic will not be able to drive in the HOV lane and save time as well as money.

Bill Hook

Drive one first. I have a relative who retired and now drives dealer trades 2-3 days per week in SW OH. He has driven the civic hybrid and absolutely hates it, esp. on the highway, for lack of power. I'm not sure if he's driven the Prius, but he mentions that the civic hybrid gets nowhere near the mileage claimed in real world use, and he's no speed demon (which is why he gets to drive Porsches and Maseratis for the dealer group). Try the Accord hybrid also.

Bill Hook

Buy a beater too?

Black_6spd

The Accord hybrid doesn't meet the required criteria for HOV use.
http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/carpool/carpool.htm#a

To my knowlege, only Civic Hybrid, Toyota Prius, Honda Insight, and one other car meet the requirements currently.

Howard911s

lisnted to the news this morning. in CA. ONLYYYYYYYYYYY insight, prius, and civic hybrid qualifies... or if any other ones are 45 mpg epa standard.

Karl O.

A lot of people that buy those big SUVs don't care about gas prices. An extra couple hundred bucks per month doesn't phase them.

One of my buddies drives a Tahoe, he's thinking about trading it in on a H2. He bought the Tahoe for $40k and got a two year loan, it's almost paid off. If you can afford that a little extra for gas doesn't matter.

If you have the cash it just doesn't matter.

Black_6spd

Funny you mention that. I happen to see a very large number of 'huge SUV' owners in apartment complexes, low-income housing, and other dwelling types where a few hundred bucks WILL phase them. In fact, everyone I've spoken with that owns even a smaller SUV is concerned about gas going over $3/gal. To say that someone feels $500/mo in gas is chump change is absurd.

If that's indeed the case, tell them to mail me $200 while they're at it.
Again, good for your friend. To each their own.

A have a friend who owns a house in Laguna and is very well-off financially. She owns a pimped Tahoe with 3 LCD TVs and a 96 civic coupe. Guess what? She drives the civic to work everyday ever since gas went over $2.

As far as I'm concerned, I don't exactly make chump change, either. I'd rather see that 'extra hundred bucks' go to my son's IRA and get a tax deduction.

Tsx536

Just put a "HYBRID" badge on your TSX.

...There, problem solved!

Bill Hook

I guess you won't have to pass when you drive in the carpool lane.

Bill Hook

Unless they ration fuel due to shortages.

DaveWhyman

A golf TDI is rated at 46 mpg hwy, would that qualify? The new Smart car will definately qualify.

corey415

It has to be a hybrid car. So diesels or regular engines that get greater than 45 mpg will not qualify.

CarbonGray Earl

NOOOO!!!! Well, you have to do what's necessary though I would really like to see you keep the TSX. If its any consolation, I'm going to reinstate my Integra because it takes regular unleaded (even though it actually gets about the same gas mileage). But I'll be keeping the TSX, and just switch off every other day.

Are you going to go for 2006 Civic Hybrid??

DEVO

Not exactly but keep smoking.

Civic Hybrid vs TSX... gas savings

15000miles a year.

Hybrid
--------
15000/50mpg = 300 U.S. gallons.
300 x $2.40 (87 octane) = $720 per year


TSX
15000/25mpg = 600 U.S. gallons.
600 x $2.75 (93 octane) = $1650


$1650 - $720 = $930 per year.


Yes... I own a Civic Hybrid and yes I get 52.3 mpg on average per yer.

Now the good part... each time gas goes up, the advantage in savings goes to the hybrid. Not to mention the 2K tax credit, lower insurance, and lower monthly payments. (TSX vs Hybrid).


So yes it's not a bad choice... and don't get my wrong. I like the TSX. Almost bought one.

DEVO

The price will be around 1K... as for rescuse workers. That's total crap. The system has many backups for cutting off power.

Your gas tank will more likely catch fire and break before any battery acid will leak and we all know how safe gas tanks have become. So please get your facts straight.

mg7726

i wouldn't mind a 2006 civic hybrid. in addition to the $2k tax break, i would get to use the HOV lanes...that alone will save me major stress on the commutes.

Vividi

By DAN NEIL of the LA Times[writing like this is why he won a Pulitzer Prize: latimes.com/classified/automotive/highway1/la-hy-neil20jul20,1,664872.story ]

GOOD sirs, sheath your Porsche Turbos and Dodge Vipers and Saleen S7s. The Honda Civic GX is the fastest automobile on the freeway today. You don't stand a chance.

Because it burns super-clean compressed natural gas, the Civic GX permits solo drivers to use the high-occupancy-vehicle lane without the drudgery of human companionship. The Civic GX trails a series of baffling abbreviations behind it — such as Alternative Fuel Vehicle (AFV) and Super Low Emission Vehicle (SULEV). The important thing to know is that, although there used to be a fair number of alt-fuel clean vehicles that qualified for HOV access — including electric vehicles — they are all but gone. GM and Ford, the two big players in compressed natural gas fleet vehicles, ended their programs last year.

As far as the market is concerned, the Civic GX has the diamond lane pretty much all to its lonesome.

And that's why it's the fastest. In the ordinary crush of L.A. commuting traffic, the gasping, 100-horsepower Civic GX will leave the brawniest 12-cylinder hypercars steaming in their own impotence.

Access to the HOV lane is highly coveted. Though the state would like to grant access to high-mileage hybrid cars such as the Toyota Prius, the federal government — which has authority by way of the federal highway purse strings — says no. Should that change, the Prius, the Honda Civic and Insight hybrids would all be eligible, while lower-mileage hybrids such as the Ford Escape and Lexus 400H would remain mired in traffic.

There are many good and high-minded reasons to own a Civic GX. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, using a method that accounts for total environmental impact, ranks the GX the greenest vehicle on the market, above even the vaunted Prius. Compressed natural gas — or CNG — technology is well understood, safe and reliable. Also, natural gas although still a fossil fuel and messy to extract — is far cleaner than liquid petroleum, which requires energy-intensive refinement and shipping. Also, unlike Arab oil, natural gas is produced domestically and its supplies are projected to last for decades. At the margins, natural gas is renewable, though the economics of so-called bio-gas are debatable.

So why aren't CNG vehicles such as the GX, and not hybrids and hydrogen, the caped crusaders of the green-car movement? Infrastructure.

Because of the scarcity of refueling stations and the vehicles' limited range — the Civic GX is good for about 200 miles per fill up — CNG vehicles have been largely limited to fleet service, because fleets can provide their own fueling stations at a central depot. The relatively few private owners who drive CNG vehicles often have had to deal with spotty service, long lines and inconvenience (many CNG stations require dedicated charge cards). And they can't range freely from metropolitan areas where stations are plentiful.By

There was a time when CNG backers expected the infrastructure to expand, but that never happened. The infrastructure issue pretty much foreclosed CNG's use in private vehicles.

Honda is skinning the infrastructure cat a little differently. In April, the company began non-fleet retail sales in California of the Civic GX paired with a home refueling station, the Phill. Built by a Canadian company called FuelMaker, the Phill station is a small compressor that connects to a home's residential gas supply. GX owners can plug the pressure nozzle into the car and fill up overnight. That means drivers can have access to the HOV lane without the anxiety of finding fuel. They can fill up at the mother ship, just like the meter-reading minions of parking enforcement.

Let's run some numbers, shall we? The Phill station costs $3,400, and installation runs about $1,000, though a lot depends on the kind of plumbing required. There is a $2,000 incentive from the state's air-quality agencies to defray the cost of the first 400 Phill stations sold. So, in California at least, the Phill's out-of-pocket costs are about $2,400. There is also a $2,000 tax break on the purchase of the Civic GX, which retails for $21,760 with anti-lock brakes.

Why would you bother? Because home-supplied natural gas is cheap — something in the neighborhood of $1-$1.50 per gasoline-gallon equivalent. In other words, home CNG is half the price of pump gas.

Let's assume a year's driving is 12,000 miles and fuel economy of 25 miles to the gallon. At $2.50 per gallon of gas, that's an annual cost of $1,200. With CNG, your annual cost drops to $600. You would recoup the expense of the Phill station in four years. If, however, you had a not-unusual 100-mile daily commute — figure about 20,000 miles annually — your fuel savings would amount to $1,000 per year.

To sum up: the Civic GX and Phill station offer the cleanest, least guilt-ridden transportation on the market, as well as huge fuel cost savings, and HOV access, which can add years to your life otherwise lost in aggravation.

Where's the downside? As I said, there are many good reasons to own a Civic GX, but driving pleasure is not among them. Styled like the dull end of a spoon, this car is boring on a scale that calls for parsecs. Cloth seats, a dinky two-speaker stereo, a trunk eaten up by the CNG cylinder, steel wheels and a 1.7-liter four-cylinder under the hood — or an asthmatic squirrel — the GX could school Savonarola on privation. The car's CVT gearbox howls for mercy at 80 miles per hour, which is how fast you have to drive sometimes so you don't get plowed under in the HOV lane. I suppose a CNG Corvette would be out of line?

Cynics might also point out that Honda's GX program amounts to only a few hundred cars and that the cars' HOV access expires in 2007 unless extended by lawmakers. The whole endeavor has a feeling of being played out after the two-minute warning.

And yet, for penny-pinching clean-air fanatics who have arduous daily commutes, don't like music or driving and are too anti-social to carpool, the Civic GX is the ultimate automobile, the fastest wheel in the urban gerbil cage. And I mean that in a good way.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

2005 Honda Civic GX

Powertrain: CNG 1.7-liter SOHC inline four cylinder engine, continuously variable transmission (CVT), front-wheel drive

Horsepower: 100 at 6,100 rpm

Torque: 98 pound-feet at 4,000 rpm

Curb weight: 2,685 pounds

0-60 mph: 12 seconds

Wheelbase: 103.1 inches

Overall length: 175.4 inches

EPA fuel economy: 30 miles per gallon equivalent city, 34 mp-GGE highway.

Final thoughts: The fastest car you'll ever pass

Black_6spd

For now, I'm probaly going to listen to this poll. (As if I expected the civic to win out on a TSX board anyway. )

However, when gas reaches the $3.50 mark for 91 octane, you'll see my at the Honda dealer in a heartbeat. We'd get the sticker from DMV (or AAA) and the wife's commute will be cut in half from the carpool lane.

One more reason get the Civic -- the tax deduction. Decisions.....

Howard911s

just gas up at chevron by my house this morning.. 91 octane 2.97........... damn

debj79

Don't buy a Civic Hybrid. Instead, she should **carpool** with someone who works for the same company. That's what I do -- we takes turns driving! Plus, I telecommute on Fridays. Because of carpooling, my 2002 RSX type S has only 45k miles. I'm planning to trade it in for a TSX soon.

weapon-x

When I driving back and forth from OC to Santa Monica (about 50 miles each way) sitting in traffic for about 2hrs each way, I seriously considered buying a hybrid. The mpg and the fact I could get in the car pool lane by myself were huge selling points.

The Prius gets great mileage, is cheap and drives fairly nice. I just couldn't get past the split rear window - just drove me nuts when I looked thru the rear view mirror so it was out of the running. To be honest I didn't test drive the Civic but I did test drive the Accord Hybrid a lot and even worked the numbers on both that and TSX before finally settleing on the TSX. The $2000 tax cut is a one time shot, at the time the Accord hybrid had not been finalized on the "approved HOV" lane. Or I would probably be driving that now.

I don't regret my decision to go with the TSX but if gas prices keep going up, I may just pick up a hybrid civic for a daily driver and keep the TSX as my weekend car. It's just way too fun a car to drive to give up completely. Heck if Toyota would fix that rear window I'd probably go with that, fully loaded (well for what Toyota offers on that model) with NAV, etc the prius was around $20K sticker price I think.

Black_6spd

We had already explored this option. Unfortunately, the carpool experiment lasted only 1 week after we pulled the plug on it. To many drawbacks. Since we have a son in daycare, he constantly has to go to the doctor, leave for home due to illness, injury, etc. Trying to plan who's driving and the doctor visits became more of a hassle than it was worth.

Those of you parents with kids in daycare will know what I'm talking about. You're pretty much "on-call" everyday.

itrhybrid

iTrader: (1)

One other thing to think about is all the other people out there that are going to jump on the bandwagon. Only problem is that all of the other people that go out and get themselves a hybrid car will now also be in the carpool lane. How much additional traffic in the carpool lane is expected. More traffic means slower/longer travel times.

James

Mokos23

that's like saying you're going to go from a G35 to a Sentra

Alin10123

Ken1997TL

Why not buy a used Civic hybrid?

Save money on your purchase

calgary_tsx

i think the civic hybrid is a nice option especially with the HOV benefits, but personally gas prices would essentially need to triple before I contemplated it. I used to have an Acura 1.7EL. I know its not a hybrid, but comparable to a civic. Now that ive had my TSX for a couple of years everytime I get the 1.7 as a loaner for servicings, I hate it, cant wait for my car back, it feels so gutless and lacking refinement. I know the TSX isnt a rocket but you dont realize how satisfying it is to drive until you've had to drive something else. As for mileage, my cost for gas is essentially the extra $0.10/litre for premium. I find that I rev my tsx way less than the 1.7 which keeps the mileage relatively similar even though the 1.7 was rated way higher.

I guess the message being if possible try it for a bit before you buy, If your saving a couple of bucks but hate driving your car its not worth it, at least not to me.