Besides 58 miles miles per gallon? Also, about your argument with the Prius and the Polo, keep in mind that the polo is a much lower end and simpler car.
5 58mpg not achieved by all hybrids and achieved or beaten by non hybrids. The extra 6 ships for the Toyota are mostly due to battery manufacture, nothing to do with what end of the market they're for.
Nedc ratings can easily be beaten. 320d I've witnessed averaging 80mpg, a non hybrid vehicle. Even converted for different systems, that's superior to a Prius. My own 2001 wrx I made 38mpg(31US)on the trip to London and back recently, beyond what isit officially rated at for either country, learn to drive stick properly I guess?
Alright. Here you can see the Toyota Prius, compared to a BMW 328d (only BMW diesel available in the US), Chevy Cruze Diesel, and the most recent Golf TDI which was sold in the United States, since sales were stopped due to Dieselgate. As you can see, the Prius beats the diesels by a significant margin. Most hybrids cars (not SUVs) average 40+ MPG combined, which is better than any diesel vehicle sold on the US market.
Got to remember, most of a hybrids regain in efficiency is from regenerative braking, give them a trip without regen availability (extra urban) or with over zealous usage of mechanical braking (dense urban) and they can't recharge their battery pack properly to use electrical assist, at which point they become very heavy combustion cars
So So conclusion. You get a crap availability of cars, and again, most of us aren't American so I literally couldn't give half a fuck?
Fair enough. However, as I already have a Prius, and it only has 80,000 miles on it, I will continue driving it. The car has already been built, and the damage due to batteries and stuff has already been done. I might as well make the most of it. Have a nice day.
Youre coming up on pack replacement then, unless whoever's been driving it prior has not been driving it in good conditions for the hybrid system to take advantage. Limited application is why the plug in was invented
My family has owned this car since it was brand new, and it's still working perfectly. The battery packs have been shown to last hundreds of thousands of miles, and even if it broke today, it's still covered under a 10-year warranty on the hybrid battery. Now, I'm curious... have you ever actually driven a Prius? If you had, you would understand that the hybrid system is constantly "taking advantage," as you say. Say I'm coming to a stoplight. I'm using the brakes, which is recharging the battery. Then the light goes green, and that energy that was generated during the stop is put back through the electric motor, and used to accelerate the vehicle, without having to use as much power from the internal combustion engine. Once I'm up to speed, the internal combustion engine stays running at a low RPM, where it is most efficient. Some of its power is put directly to the wheels to keep the vehicle moving forward, and any excess power is being used to recharge the battery. It's really a very intelligent system. Instead of using traditional brakes, which convert the kinetic energy of the car into heat, it's using the motor to convert the kinetic energy of the car into a form of energy which can actually be re-used, electricity. This has the effect of greatly increasing the vehicle's overall thermal efficiency, meaning you get better fuel consumption. --- Post updated --- I will agree with you there. I'd love a Tesla, but sadly, they're well outside my price range.
I have driven an auris hybrid which is literally just the Prius system. You only get electrical assistance and hence that boost in efficiency of there is charge in that pack, you take it on a long journey at 60mph highway speeds, you see a reduction in efficiency as now you're running pure gasoline, there's no electrical assistance occurring here, now it's an efficient gasoline engine (atkinson cycle helps reduces volumetric efficiency but improves thermal), an aerodynamic car and with tires that are about as narrow as can be safely afforded to reduce rolling resistance, but it's heavy, may on occasion have the extra parasitic loss of battery recharge too. That battery recharge also means at a certain point, you don't gain efficiency from regen as the battery is already full. Again, stop start traffic, you don't get full regen (below a certain speed the car reverts to mechanical, I believe around 5mph, regen has lesser efficiency here anyway if engaged and something to do with the transmission workings makes it impractical), leading to the car draining from the battery more rapidly than it can add to it, eventually having to fall back on gasoline power, it's this scenario for which plug ins were invented as many city drivers were seeing their cars achieving low efficiency running the gasoline engine outside of design parameters and really struggling to keep electrical assistance going, so larger battery packs and ability to recharge the pack externally was added, this was literally because people were hitting issues in that a hybrid doesn't actually work as a hybrid in all scenarios. They do work as intended for journeys with a good mix of driving in them where it can regen and return that power frequently. I know how they work. Nearly did a dissertation involving them. I did design and write code for a model scale range extender hybrid (which does function differently from a Prius, the Prius is an odd system though). Never built. Also did some code for efi and abs systems. Alas my university decided I couldn't do any of those. The hybrid I'll admit. In paper was a fantastic idea. In execution. Flawed. We need clean cars yes, but the hybrid isn't the answer. The electric or hydrogen is in my eyes, the hybrid is a bandaid being stuck on a large open bleeding wound
I drove 500 miles in one go on the highway (with one or two stops for using the restroom), and the hybrid battery never drained. I was doing 70-80 miles per hour the entire time, and the battery stayed right around the middle. I averaged 48 MPG (57.6 miles per UK gallon), which is amazing for a US-market car. Yes, the car gets slightly better fuel economy in town than on the highway, but that's really not a bad thing. Until the charging infrastructure or hydrogen refilling infrastructure improves, hybrids and plug-in hybrids are the best option for efficiency. On a long highway drive, you only have to stop to fill it up with gasoline, and since the fuel tank is smaller, it takes even less time than with a normal car. Sure, you could make that 500 mile trip in a pure electric car, but I likely would have spent more than an hour waiting for the car to charge along the way. As to your comment about stop-and-go traffic, typically speeds are low enough to where the internal combustion engine doesn't even turn on. You can go a mile or two on a standard (not plug-in) Prius on the battery alone, which will get you through most traffic jams. Also, the Prius is not overly heavy. It weighs 300 lbs more than a Toyota Corolla, which has a standard ICE making around the same power as the Prius. However, the Prius makes quite a bit more torque, and is more aerodynamic. As a result, the Prius gets 48 MPG highway, and the Corolla gets only 35 MPG highway. Both have an almost identical 0-60 time as well. And as to the tires, my Prius has P195/65 R15 tires, which I've never found to be lacking in grip. I can still drive as aggressively as I need to without any issues. Yes, hybrids need work. In my opinion, the Toyota Camry Hybrid is a much better hybrid vehicle than the Prius. it has a larger internal combustion engine and electric motor, resulting in a powertrain which feels less overworked. The 2018 Camry Hybrid gets 51 MPG Combined, and is the smoothest car I've ever driven which wasn't a pure EV. In fact, my mother is considering buying a Camry Hybrid to replace her Prius, as I am inheriting that car soon. My grandmother has owned a 2016 Camry Hybrid for a year and a half now, and she loves it.
Well, clearly you do, or else you wouldn't be posting here. Also, as far as the US having a "crap availability of cars," what do you expect us to do? As much as I wish I could, I'm not going to abandon my entire life in Washington and move overseas just to buy a slightly more efficient car. The reality is, us Americans have to take what we can get, and where we live the Prius is one of the better options. --- Post updated --- Better that bandaid than nothing at all.
Man I like the prius. but I like any car that is typically maligned. if I could afford anything more expensive than a Ka.... or didn't lose my driving license a few months ago I would have one.
Prius is not a car for highway trips, it's a car for city driving. If you want efficiency on a highway, get a full-ICE diesel.
And then the yaris is better than it in the city. Toyotas in general are overpriced. The same goes for german cars. There are a few good and cheaper alternatives. Also to be honest by spending that much mo ey on a boring prius... You would be better of buying an old and cheap diesel which gets a few liters/100km more, but it is cheaper to begin with. As long as you live in a normal country which doesn't discriminate older car's drivers you would be just fine. And at least you would be respected at least a littlebit by the better part of car world.
ive chosen the prius because the rodius is ugly as hell so id drive it over with a tank and trade it in for an impreza
