Statute of Limitations tolled by class action suits (5 of them) so no problem right? :)

[lonestarnot]

Court asks for further details in Honda small claims case
By Linda Deutsch The Associated Press
Posted: 01/10/2012 02:57:49 PM PST
Updated: 01/10/2012 06:52:06 PM PST


Heather Peters with her 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid outside the Torrance Courthouse on January 3, 2011. Peters is suing Honda in small claims court for poor gas mileage. (Jeff Gritchen / Staff Photographer)A Honda hybrid car owner who took the auto giant to small-claims court for failing to deliver promised mileage is heading back to court for another round after a judge ordered a continuation of her trial Tuesday.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Commissioner Douglas Carnahan did not address the substance of the unusual lawsuit by Heather Peters, the owner of a hybrid Honda Civic. But he sought more information on the technicalities of its filing, such as the possibility of a statute-of-limitations problem.

"Of particular interest to the court is whether, considering the date of purchase of the vehicle, the plaintiff is within operative statutes of limitations relating to claims of relief," Carnahan said.


http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_19713572?source=rss

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I am wondering what this is going to do to hybrid innovation, make them better or make them go away. I don't remember hearing or reading about all this crap with all electrics. Refresh my memory, it fades fast.

[jeff47]

1. The problem is how to estimate mileage on a hybrid

Hybrids get high mileage based on shutting the engine off in heavy city traffic. If you never drive in "stop-and-go" traffic, you will not get better mileage than a similar gasoline-only vehicle.

This creates an enormous problem when estimating the mileage of the car. Because if you drive it in a relatively uncrowded suburb, you will get much lower mileage than if you drive it in a city. So how do you come up with one number to cover both situations?

[lonestarnot]

2. That is a problem but throwing out a 51 mpg that was never attainable under any circumstance was

wrong.

[jeff47]

3. Which is why the EPA changed it's method of estimating hybrid mileage.

Remember, it wasn't Honda coming up with the estimate.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

4. Are you sure you're using "better" and "worse" correctly?

I know nothing about hybrid cars, so you may well be right, but I'd think it would be more likely that both hybrids and gasoline-only vehicles get more mileage in suburbs than stop-and-go, but hybrids do less worse in inner cities (as opposed to better)?

But maybe they use a trick I don't know about?

[jeff47]

5. You have it backwards

The battery in a hybrid is not very large. So it can't propel the vehicle quickly or for a long time.

In an uncrowded suburb, where the vehicle can mostly just keep going, a hybrid will use its gasoline engine because it doesn't have the battery capacity to run on electric.

In stop-n-go traffic, hybrids can turn off the gas engine because they are not going fast, nor traveling far. So it saves gas by not idling, and not using the gas engine to move forward slowly.