From review quoting a book, “Why success begins with failure”
Is that true? Why would Priuses be so slow?
They are not ‘slow’. They are normal cars. I drove mine as fast as 90 through the west Texas desert. It seems like that quote is quite a stretch.
Well, mine doesn’t have a whole lot of pep, but it’s not like a golf cart or something. I’ve never noticed that traffic around me or any other Priuses I see is noticeably slow.
If he’s talking about the way the gas engine shuts off when you come to a stop and then starts up again when you step on the accelerator, it doesn’t really take any longer to get going than any non-hybrid car.
Probably not what the author was referring to, but I notice that many Prius drivers are very slow accelerators. I suspect that it’s not that the car can’t accelerate more quickly, but that the drivers are striving to keep the car’s performance in the “happy zone”.
Bolding added to clarify - won’t any kind of car in congested traffic move slowly?
The only way the statement makes sense is if the author is comparing driving a Prius to not driving a car at all. Which seems like a bit of a false comparison.
It’s also possible that people with cars that get high mpg may be tempted to drive more.
I don’t understand what it could even mean. I don’t have one but have driven Priuses and other hybrids and they drive the same as any car.
Well, the same as any economy car.
I don’t know about a Prius, but in my Insight, if I turn off the Eco Mode and shift it into Sport it zips around just as fast as any other modest 4 cylinder car. No, couldn’t win a drag race against even my old 5 speed civic, but if I’m next to an unsuspecting Corolla or Explorer at a red light and see the road is about to merge down to one lane I’ll have no problem getting in front of him with those things turned off…in full eco mode…maybe not.
Again, this is specifically about my Insight since I think a Prius can drive on the battery alone (right?), but in my Insight I’ve learned to take my foot of the brake about a quarter or a second before I need to move. Also, I’ve learned that when at a stop, if I keep my foot on the brake and tap the gas, it’ll start the engine and keep it running. Nice to know it hot weather to keep the AC on.
As for the quote, if I’m reading it right, he seems to be saying that in heavy traffic, the Prius will cause other cars to emit more pollution. I can only assume it’s explained better in the book. As a stand alone line, I can’t make any sense of it.
And, possibly, any kind of car cause other cars to emit for pollution in congested traffic than the car does directly. It may be particularly notable for the Prius if the Prius itself doesn’t emit much pollution.
The only way I could lead credence to this is if making the electricity to power the battery causes more pollution than does a gas engine. But for the reasons stated in the OP? I don’t see it.
My wife’s Toyota Camry has a lot more pep than my old BMW323i did. The engine (CVT transmission) and electric motor pull together during serious acceleration, so the engine does not need to be as big as a regular car. In highway driving, or charging the batteries, or CVT mode the engine runs steady at the more efficient settings; without a lot of stop-and-go on the engine, it produces less pollution.
I have noticed that some hybrid drivers accelerate slowly; but in fact, IIRC, this is also better for normal vehicles - the harder you accelerate the worse the pollution, and the harder you brake instead of coasting to slow down, the more energy you are wasting.
So it sounds to me like the comment is mainly hot air, with or without extra CO2.
My car has an instant and trip MPG readout on the dash. I’ve often wondered if drivers, as a whole, would get better mileage if that was mandated. I know, a lot of people would ignore it, but I started driving more carefully when I noticed it. Mainly because I got tired of seeing it dive down to 3 MPG every time I left a red light when if I was careful I could keep it at 15 or 20. Who needs the jack rabbit starts when there’s no one around to beat, honk at you and you don’t have to be anywhere by a certain time. Of course this is all ingrained in me now. Sure, I don’t always drive like a grandma, but I also stopped driving like a teenager that always acts like he’s racing for pinks every time the light turns green.
Part of it was just a contest with myself. My trip MPG would be at, say, 43.8 and I would see if I could get it to 43.9 or 44.0…which is really hard to do when you have 6000 miles on the trip odometer. It’s a lot easier to make it go down then up. I also started using cruise control a lot as well to help out with that.
You basically have to unlearn bad driving habits when you buy a Prius. Jackrabbit starts really suck up the gas, and the vehicle really doesn’t have that kind of power anyway. As far as the issue of keeping up with traffic flow, I have zero problems in that category, so I think Harford is way off base with his comment.
I don’t know what it was about this comment but it made me think of something. I wonder if he’s thinking that people in Priuses are hanging back in heavy traffic so that instead of moving forward three inches at a time (engine on, engine off, engine on, engine off) they can move forward one or two car lengths at a time. This might cause the people behind them to gun their engines to close the gap.
Of course
1)That’s their fault, not the Prius’, the other drivers can just idle forward.
2)The same thing could be said of a lot of stick shift drivers as well. When I drove stick I usually waited until I could move forward more then 6 inches because I usually kept the car in neutral in heavy traffic so my ankle wouldn’t get tired.
I really can’t think of any way the quote from the OP isn’t rubbish.
The most efficient use of a Hybrid vehicle of the Prius type is to drive it in such a manner that you never need electric power and depend solely on the internal combustion engine.
Do you mean “least efficient?”
Cite?
Most efficient.