New Suzuki Alto

[Fallguy]

Just looking at the stats for small new cars, and I was slightly gobsmacked by the combined mpg for the new Alto - 64mpg, and that is with a petrol engine and they are apparently working on a stop/start system to improve that even more. Bet a good hypermiler could get that past the 70mpg barrier...

[frv]

Quite probably...
Have you noticed when they do reviews of cars and they check what they actually get it's usually waaaay lower than man. stats.
They need to get us to test them to show what is possible

[Fallguy]

I guess that's because most folks don't know how to get the most out of their fuel. Although that may not last as fuel prices rise.

I wonder if this makes petrol engines more efficient than diesal? Given that diesal is denser than petrol, it will always contain more energy per litre, and hence get better mpg but I wonder how efficiently each engine type is using that energy. And to think Nissan are working on a more complex 24v 4 cylinder engine which they reckon will improve fuel efficiency by a further 20% over a 16v engine...

[Karl]

These small petrol engines are getting very frugal indeed. Many of the smaller cars are reporting huge MPG figures - it just shows you how popular being "GREEN" with your fuel is becoming.

[Glenn]

its nice to see a bit of a swing back towards petrol cars. a few years ago i heard that about 70% of new cars were diesel. read the stats for the scrappage sceme and 58% of the new cars were petrol. i know that doesnt necessarily reflect the usual new car market but it was still a plesant surprise.

[Fallguy]

I'll second that -it is very nice to see new petrol cars coming out, especially as there seems to be a concerted effort to make them more fuel efficient. Diesals are ok, but not ideal for small light cars.

[Karl]

I have been looking at a new Punto again - something about the shape of the thing really hits the spot.

Even with 135BHP from a 1.4 Turbo engine it gets easy into the 50's - stop and start helps a bit but I remember reading that it shuts some of the engine down when you dont need it.

Will digg out some more info on it.