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In the case of the Honda Civic hybrid, they really do get 50 mpg in the city, and highway too... at 52 mph. As your speed increases, the mileage drops as the small gas engine has to work really hard at road speed. At 70mph, freeway speed in Iowa, the Civic hybrid is reported to get just a little more than 30 mpg. We ended up with the new '06 gas Civic for my wife's commute; she gets an honest 40 mpg highway commuting 40 miles each way daily.
Small engines work hard under load regardless of whether they're working full-time or mounted in some hybrid arrangement. The real savings for small engines comes in daily driving in traffic. If you tow regularly, then a larger tow vehicle makes sense. If you only tow occasionally, and use your tow vehicle as your daily driver, then it really doesn't matter how poor your towing gas mileage is as you only have it for a very small percentage of your annual driving mileage. As long as it's competent to tow your trailer, your real savings is in your daily commute mileage.
Roger
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AIR 2053 “A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.” Robert Heinlein
1994 Airstream B190 & 2006 Bigfoot 25B25RQ
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