Did you see the Top Gear episode where he took the Prius on the track? It was amusing. He had a BMW follow it, to compare actual gas mileage between the two.
He made a big point of being bored to death the whole way, not even sitting straight in the seat, with the pedal held flat to the floor. Which of course is the worst way to drive a Prius, so the resulting mileage was pitiful, and the BMW did better.
Of course it is.
So, if you see more than one Prius on a winter road in an Eastern city, you can pretty much assume…
WFI…
a salt and battery of Priuses?
No, I won’t apologize. Besides, buy yourself a Civic, get more room, more driving oomph, and save yourself $5k plus in the process. And your resale isn’t going to take as much of a hit…
If you drive 20k miles per year, the Prius actual pays for itself over the Civic assuming you plan on owning the car for 7+ years.
Assuming you live in an urban area with lots of stop and go to take advantage of regenerative braking. Out in the wild or on the highway, hybrids generally don’t fare as well and thier mileage suffers. Full electrics are a different kettle of fish.
Not true of all hybrids. I do a mostly highway commute and my year round average is 46 mpg. It is 44 in the winter and 48 in the summer. My local when I do all local is better but my highway mileage is still excellent. The 2014 claims 51 city / 48 highway and with a lighter foot driver would probably get those numbers. I know as an experiment I forced myself to drive near the speed limit and conservatively on breaking and etc and I clocked 52 mpg for about 300 miles. But I can’t stand driving that way. So I am happy with my average 46 mpg.
My current Prius gets worse mileage than my previous one. The SO drives it, and she doesn’t care about mileage, since it gets better mileage than her truck. Also, I’m driving a little faster nowadays. I’d have to check my spreadsheet for an exact number, but I’m getting 41-42 mpg driving mostly on the freeway.
Me, I like my cars to be boring. A car is a utilitarian tool to get from point A to point B. Excitement is something that happens that prevents that utility.
Exactly. As my driver’s ed teacher put it many years ago - “If you’re having fun driving, the other drivers on the road probably think you’re an asshole.”
Wow. What an asshole.
Around the DC metro area there are several major highways that are restricted to HOV, or hybrids. Sometime in the early 2000’s the Prius came into high demand and now 10 years later those highways are clogged with single-driver hybrids. Which seems to me to defeat the purpose.
In any case, please stay to the right!