Times have changed. Remember when the Toyota Prius was a car that got great gas mileage – and made you pay for it with Mrs. Doubtfire looks and the quickness of Forrest Gump?
How about now?
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Nothing wrong with a Prius. Not my personal choice, but respectable, very practical & efficient. Nowhere near as expensive as full electric. Probably the best-designed hybrid out there.
Still looks like a computer mouse on wheels.
It’s really nice looking car I did a double take the first time I saw it. I’d consider one now.
Hi Rob,
Experience – and time – lends perspective. When my ’76 Trans-Am was new, it was slower than this Prius – which would humiliate a stone-stock 1976 Trans-Am (even with the 455 V8) in a straight-up drag race. And the Prius delivers about four times better gas mileage than a 1976 Trans-Am, which maybe got 15 MPG if you really babied it.
Imagine the mileage this Prius could manage if it could have been made 800 pounds lighter …
A Rav4 hybrid is a great car. Buy one before you buy a Prius. I know.
When you have million dollar properties and have difficulty maintaining your fleet of vehicles it becomes problematic. You are not paying attention. Not how you do it.
Employees do not appreciate negligence. Can be dangerous.
Experience counts.
Loved the review, but we’ll know that automakers are really serious when they start making hybrid cars with DIESEL engines, not gas.
Just like the entire diesel electric train system used worldwide…
And didn’t the VW diesels from before DieselGate get about the same mileage, and even close to similar acceleration?
Things that make you got HMMMM????
YMMV….
Eric, have you ever tried hypermiling in a Prius? My friend at ecomodder and metrompg dot com, Darren (great guy like you and a genius when it comes to mpg) did a video illustrating just what a knowledgeable driver can pull off in a Prius C using pulse and glide technique.
Toyota Prius Pulse and Glide Fuel Economy Tutorial
EcoModderDOTcom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAocwToZWVQ
I know hypermiling works, today I drove 99 instead of I-5 from Medford to Grants Pass. My test vehicle was an 8th gen Civic (1.8/5speed). On the freeway I get around 38mpg going 65-75mpg. On the back road, the old hwy 99, the max speed is 45, I did a pulse and glide, I accelerate to 50 and coast, on downhills I coast in idle. I squeezed out 52.7 mpg today. (Note, on this exact same route, I did this same test with my first gen geo metro 3 times and the average was 75 mpg.) I would like to get a Prius C and test this because some youtubers claim you can get over 100mpg.
I have a Scan Gauge 3 (fantastic device), it shows everything in real time, in idle the fuel flow is 0.22 gallons/hour. Thus when coasting the mpg jumps to 250-300 mpg. So when averaged to the pulse, the overall fuel economy goes up – and this is especially true on a Prius hybrid because the engine is off. When the Prius is gliding with engine off, fuel economy is infinite. (Note: You can simulate that in some cars by turning off the engine on hills, which I used to do with my metro, as I had removed the steering lock, and the car brakes ok with no engine brake boost.)
One big reason the Prius gets great fuel economy is the engine is off when not moving, because that kills mpg, and you can watch it in real time on a Scan Gauge. You only want fuel flow when the car is moving to keep mpg up.
Similar drivetrain in the rav4 plug-in hybrid w/302 hp.
Though its sedan envelope is not my cup of tea, the Prius drivetrain is a marvel of engineering excellence. Why it’s not offered in a differently-configured crossover beats me.
But the killer app would be the Prius drivetrain in a Hilux pickup. Why Toyota hasn’t pounced on that opportunity is baffling. It would leave Ford’s Maverick pickup in the shade. BRING IT, LORD!
Exactly, and why not put a Civic 1.8 VTEC in a Honda pickup? It has tons of power, and small pickups weigh in about the same as Civic. Why in the hell do you need 2.4-3.0 liter in a small pickup? Most people never carry the rated load ever. The big problem with pickups is mpg sucks.