Recently in Honda Category

I received an HCH Class Action Settlement for my 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid (True vs. American Honda Motor Co., Inc. ) last night.

Fortunately for Honda, the settlement includes rebates for new vehicles. I get $100 cash back and a video to train me how to best use my gas and brake pedal.

The lawsuit revolves around EPA mileage estimates for Honda's hybrids and the lower than expected mileage figures some people got from their Honda hybrids.

I suggest Honda use a disclaimer sticker.

Failure to use common sense may result in lower than expected mileage figures.

Smashing the gas pedal (combining the use of electric and electric motors without the use of cylinder deactivation) and smashing the brake (not using regenerative braking) will result in lower than expected economy.

Accessories, like air-conditioning, use energy. When you shut them off you use less energy.

Very cold days and very warm days take more energy to keep you comfortable and move your vehicle.

Some days I can get over 50 mpg and some days it may be as low as 40 mpg.

All vehicle manufactures use EPA standards for fuel economy. It is the competitive benchmark for selling a car in the United States. It makes no more sense for Honda to post figures lower than the EPA testing procedure than it would be for Toyota.

Honda can keep my $100 and put it towards research and development. I am happy that there was a car on the market in 2005 (or 1999 with the Insight) with the potential of 50 mpg.

Perhaps it would be more beneficial to force the mindless, lawsuit money train toward adopting a universal standard that more accurately reflects the cost of driving. This would actually help all consumers.

It will be interesting to watch what happens when vehicles with an even greater variability of mileage like the Chevy Volt (230 mpg) or a totally electric car like the Nissan LEAF come on the scene with the same aging EPA standard.

Honda is adding a CR-Z sports car hybrid and Fit hybrid to the offerings for 2010. Honda's New CEO Takanobu Ito says all cars could be hybrid in 20 years to meet emission standards. (wsj.com)

My neighbor dog Juno has a passion for rides. Any open car door is fair game. Frightened of the scooter at first, he is now ready for a ride.

Chuck parked his full-sized Chevy truck (11 mpg) over the Summer and has commuted to work with a 100+ mpg Honda Elite 80 Scooter.

For most of the past month, Chuck has been using old lawn mower/boat gas to power the Honda. The gas went unused this summer when I started mowing three lawns on my block with an electric lawn mower.

I was mowing with my electric lawn mower last night past my neighbor's full-sized Chevy pickup that now sits there for weeks at a time getting dirt circles under the tires. Chuck actually put stabilizer in the vehicle that gets 11mpg because it rarely gets used.

The cheap plug-in electric mower I purchased at the beginning of the summer is great.

Some handle hardware kept falling apart, but that was fixed with some lock washers for $2. It's quiet, doesn't stink when it runs, requires no maintenance and I haven't bought a drop of gasoline for a mower since.

The scooter that replaced the truck for commuting two months ago now has over 1000 miles on it.

Chuck's co-workers asked him if we was going to keep using it now that gasoline has dropped more than 50 cents a gallon. His reply, "No, now it just costs me $3.50 cents to fill the tank instead of $4." He often marvels at how much more money he has in his pocket now that it isn't getting burned up on gasoline to push around a huge metal box.

So as the summer comes to a close and gas prices decline because of a reduction in demand, the question is will people go back to consuming as it becomes more affordable.

Cycle World via the International Motorcycle World website lists nine frugal fuel sipping motorcycles. I was at one of their shows in Washington D.C. last year. Great way to see almost every model available in one stop.

1. Honda CRF230L - 93 MPG
2. Honda Nighthawk - 90 MPG
3. Yamaha XT250 - 80 MPG
4. Aprilia SportCity 250 - 75 MPG
5. Kawasaki Ninja 250R - 60 MPG
6. Yamaha WR250X - 60 MPG
7. Suzuki GSX650F - 56 MPG
8. Harley-Davidson Sportster 883 - 55 MPG
9. Suzuki SV650 - 55 MPG

Interesting to note that a home grown Harley with an 883 cc engine gets the same mileage as many bikes with smaller displacement. And they forgot the Harley's Buell Blast with a 500 cc single cylinder that gets 64/73 mpg according to the Buell website. The bike falls into the same price bracket as others on the list.

I would love to see Harley market into the economy euro/japanese high fuel economy rider market. The market is ripe for a domestically made fuel squeezer.

Build it here and squeeze foreign oil. The concept makes me giddy.

Hayes Diversified Technologies, Hesperia, CA has a 667cc diesel motorcycle that gets 105 mpg. Production is delayed due to production requirements of the military.

I ride a BMW 800 ST which gets 67mpg. Hardly a frugal ride for this cheap soul, but it was the highest fuel mileage bike I could find with an engine that suited me that I wouldn't mind riding on an Interstate at 70 mph for 6 hours (and could get out of it's own way at that speed).
67 mpg motorcycle grocery getter camper (greenmesh.com 5/08)

So Chuck has been using his scooter to commute to work since June 9. His Chevy truck has been sitting in the drive collecting dirt rings around the tires for two weeks straight now.

He has logged 320 miles. Had he driven the truck for those miles it would have cost him $126 in gasoline. After burning through a free tank of gas from the dealership, the scooter has cost about $12 in fuel.

Chuck admits that he is driving the scooter more than he would had he only had the truck adding that after getting back into the truck 6 liter truck after two weeks that it felt sluggish compared to the scooter.

Scooter shopping day 1
Scooter shopping day 2
Scooter shopping day 3

I tend to over think purchases. After looking at everything everywhere, we decided to purchase this new 2007 Honda Elite 80. The Elite, assembled in Mexico out of Japanese parts is about to disappear as Honda will replace it with an Indian made scooter with more storage and probably a slightly larger engine.

The Elite is a lone scooter survivor of the 1980's Scooter market and has been marketed here since.

It's somewhat 1980's-ish looking and definatley doesn't scream steal me. It has a long track record of durability, a dedicated parts network and even in a doomsday scenario there will be parts on EBay for the next 30 years because they have has such a long production run.

I had the honors of taking it home. The 80cc engine goes up and down Mount Zion hill at 35-40 mph and the scooter can hit 50mph on the flats. It as a variable speed transmission and an automatically engaging clutch. It engine breaks down long hills.

Not something you would want to take on Interstate 83 or the the Rt 30 bypass, but very serviceable for most any other road. It will out accelerate most cars and is rated at 115 miles per gallon. The one gallon fuel tank had 88 miles and 1/4 left on the gauge, so i don't doubt it will hit the mark.

We figured out that to run the truck to work five days a week costs about $56, while the scooter costs under $4. The crankcase holds about 2 cups of oil.

Also see:
67 mpg motorcycle grocery getter camper (greenmesh 05/2008)

So Chuck checked out a local East York used car dealer turned scooter franchise and presented me with some figures. The Chinese made Roketa scooters sure have a low price point.

Scooters haven't been a big sale item in the U.S until the recent gas crisis. I remember my father buying an Austrian made Puch moped in the 1970's during that gas price escalation. Today, the Motorcycle Industry Council estimates that 50% of the world's scooters originate in China. In many parts of the world, a scooter is the dominate mode of transportation. Honda actually sells more motorcycles than it does cars.

New scooters can be purchased in four ways:

---Mainline dealerships that carry familiar nameplates.
---Independent motorcycle repair shops that carry a line of scooters.
---Business entrepreneurs (often car dealerships) that offer a line of (most likely Chinese made) scooters.
---Internet purchase with drop shipment (usually Chinese made)

My neighbor Chuck drives a Chevy Pickup with a 6 liter engine that gets 11 mpg. Last week he saw my light on around midnight and came banging on my door. It seems that the money he had budgeted for gasoline has gone beyond that budget eating into food, vacations and everything else. He got the truck to pull a camper and uses it to commute to work.

"This guy at work bought a motorcycle and I was thinking, why spend $9000 to get 35mpg when I can spend $1500 on a scooter that gets over 100 mpg."

This is coming from a man who loves big Detroit iron and has a truck named Big Red. Ford was right when they said there is a structural difference occurring in the market. Yes. Basically, people can't afford to eat or go anywhere so they are rethinking life.

I have owned three motorcycles and have shopped for them endlessly even when I wasn't in the market. There are so many varieties of motorcycles and it can be confusing, but the scooter market in the Spring of 2008 is a strange combination of backyard entrepreneurship and an evolving supply and demand issue.

A wide assortment awaits the buyer from major makes in motorcycle dealerships to Chinese-built platforms that come with many different names and seem to have a lot of the same parts.

Follow along on the scooter adventure and see what we bought.