Why I gave up and bought a Prius Prime

[Shipbldr200]

Elon! I want a Tesla branded toaster oven!

I do too, but only if it is fully unlocked on day one.

Don't make me pay extra for the -L version of the toaster...

 

[McRat]

If I sound like I'm picking on the Prius, there is reason.

If I would have never driven an EV/Hybrid except the Prius (which was true at one time), I'd still be all ICE today.

I believe the Prius did more damage to the environment than any other car. Why?

It taught a generation of drivers that 'green' meant slow, sluggish handling, goofy looking was the future of Green vehicles. It was a necessary evil. But that was not true.

You can drive green, and still have performance, style, and handling. That's what Tesla proved.

I'm never going to endorse a car that wraps itself in green cloak and pretends to be a super hero, when the green cloak is just there to hide that hideous sweater you received last Christmas.

 

[omgwtfbyobbq]

I share your sentiments and outlook, but I have been waiting a long time for a Tesla and I'm going to spend the money.
The simple truth though is that in terms of green-ness per dollar there are much better choices than a Tesla.
WHaaaat ?! say my fellow Model 3 wannabees. How is that even possible ?

The short answer is that the money saved on the difference in car prices spent on PV makes the comparison lopsided.
$15k dollars can generate around 15 MWh for 30 years, so 450 MWh
450 MWh can displace about 450,000 Kg of CO2 from coal combustion
At 10 Kg CO2 per gallon, that is 45,000 gallons of petrol. Say 2.5M gas miles ?

That is the closest a Tesla vs a Prime+PV gets. If criteria pollutants are considered the comparison is embarrassing.

That's true. I think the same applies to Toyota too, or any new car. The less someone spends on a reasonably fuel efficient hybrid or EV, or even an electric bicycle, and the more they spend on PV, the more CO2 they'll offset assuming they're replacing nothing but coal. Whether they'll replace mostly coal is regional though, so YMMV as usual.

 

[Seamless]

Our fleet average for our Volts hovers around 380 miles per gallon of gasoline for 3 Volts. Including all sales taxes, incentives, and rebates, they were between $25.5, and $28k new.

The Volt was on the road with lithium batteries batteries and a 149 hp electric motor back when the Prius was still using NiMH and had no PHEV variant, and I believe a new, larger 80hp electric motor. When the PHEV variant was released, it was a joke to appease CARB. 6 miles electric range if you crept along at bicycle speeds. Still NiMH. Toyota originally lied about the Prius power output and had to change it. Not sure if they are still lying. They also mislead folk by gaming the EPA system with their PHEVs. By completing only the loops they can complete under pure EV power and listing that as their MPGe EV mode, they can inflate their economy.

To put the power issue in perspective, running both the gasoline and electric motors, the Prime hits 60mph in 10 seconds. Without gasoline, the Prime takes over 12 seconds. The Volt hits 60 in 7.5 seconds. Without the gasoline engine running.

• Toyota claims 121 HP of electric power, and weighs 3378, for 27.9 lb/hp to yield 12.2 seconds to 60mph in EV mode.
• Chevy claims 149 HP of electric power, and weighs 3523, for 23.6 lb/hp to yield 7.5 seconds to 60mph in EV mode.

All numbers are from the same testers at C&D. Somebody is fibbing. And this is after Toyota reduced their advertised HP. Before, it had the Toyota with a better PW ratio yet slower than the Volt by a sizable amount.

But still, when the majority of Americans are asked to name an electric car, they name the Prius, and this dates back before the PiP existed. Toyota certainly won in the marketing department. They have a marginal compliance car, and an H2 car that doesn't sell, but are known as the greenest car company on earth, even though they sell some of the most gas guzzling vehicles on the market:
Compare Side-by-Side
Note that I selected the 420HP versions of the Escalade SUV, and GMC Denali pickup. Far more powerful and larger engines than the Toyotas.

This is the only reason Toyota sells the Prime. Their CEO acknowledges that EVs make no sense, so they make a car just similar enough to a EV to be able to sell the thirstiest trucks on the market. They are exactly as green as the government forces them to be. Even when the Prius was released so that Toyota could become The Electric Hybrid Car and the Greenest Car Company, the Honda Insight was actually greener, but lost the Green Marketing contest to the dirtier car.

But if I were dead set again all things GM, and would accept a conventional hybrid design as my PHEV, I still would have chosen the Honda Clarity PHEV, which while is not superior to the Volt, it is certainly superior to the Prime by a wide margin. Or even the Hyundai:
Compare Side-by-Side
The Clarity based on performance, room, and range, the Hyundai on price and range.

Wow! Thank you for all that info. I can certainly appreciate the viewpoint.

My original plan was to buy a cheaper used Prius to keep driving until the M3, because my experience with my old Prius was 100% positive. But $16k changed things. Really that simple. I don't maintain that the Prime is superior to any of the above. It just makes an awful lot of sense at that price for me. And where I live, I'd estimate that Priuses are somewhere between 10% and 25% of the cars on the road. In the more-or-less central town of Northampton, Mass., it's probably higher than that.

I still see this as a bridge to a future Tesla. Just a bridge that may be a bit longer. But that's okay -- I'll keep socking away the funds. Who knows -- maybe this time next year, I'll wanna go for the 3 anyway. I still haven't asked for a refund on my Tesla deposit. Or a few years from now I might instead be able to go for an S or a Y, or...

Sandollar nailed it. This is just part of the trail to going full EV!

 

[cella]

To put the power issue in perspective, running both the gasoline and electric motors, the Prime hits 60mph in 10 seconds. Without gasoline, the Prime takes over 12 seconds. The Volt hits 60 in 7.5 seconds. Without the gasoline engine running.

This is a little unfair. The Prius is clearly not designed to run in EV-only mode with its tiny battery, and it's even more obviously not designed for performance. The main reason why it's so slow when using the gas engine is that it runs in Atkinson cycle. This makes acceleration from a standstill very sluggish, but also makes the car significantly more efficient than most other ICE cars once you have reached cruising speed. As a result, the Prius gets 50+ MPG highway, whereas e.g. the Volt only gets around 41 MPG.

 

[Seamless]

If I sound like I'm picking on the Prius, there is reason.

If I would have never driven an EV/Hybrid except the Prius (which was true at one time), I'd still be all ICE today.

I believe the Prius did more damage to the environment than any other car. Why?

It taught a generation of drivers that 'green' meant slow, sluggish handling, goofy looking was the future of Green vehicles. It was a necessary evil. But that was not true.

You can drive green, and still have performance, style, and handling. That's what Tesla proved.

I'm never going to endorse a car that wraps itself in green cloak and pretends to be a super hero, when the green cloak is just there to hide that hideous sweater you received last Christmas.

That's a really interesting point. And I suppose it explains why, outside the weird bubble where I live, they aren't as popular. People in this extremely blue region went whole hog for the Prius immediately, replacing the former regional mascot, the Subaru Legacy wagon. A large portion of the population here would have gone for the greenest car immediately and enthusiastically, even if it took 20 minutes to get up to 60mph.

But as other Prius drivers have mentioned, that reputation is largely not because of the car, but the drivers. There are far too many who tool along. I find that the Prius is not the sluggard it's cracked up to be. It's a shame it's got that rep. The accelerator works just fine -- if you actually, you know, use it! But people chase the ECO mode, accelerating like molasses.

I had a former colleague who held forth acerbically one day, making light of Prius drivers who drive fast, hurting their mileage. I had to point out to him that a Prius going 80mph still gets better mileage than an ICE going 80. You don't have to sign a pledge to drive as slow as possible or anything. People have very weird notions about hybrids.

 

[Seamless]

That's true. I think the same applies to Toyota too, or any new car. The less someone spends on a reasonably fuel efficient hybrid or EV, or even an electric bicycle, and the more they spend on PV, the more CO2 they'll offset assuming they're replacing nothing but coal. Whether they'll replace mostly coal is regional though, so YMMV as usual.

Pardon my ignorance here, but what is PV?

 

[Seamless]

This is a little unfair. The Prius is clearly not designed to run in EV-only mode with its tiny battery, and it's even more obviously not designed for performance. The main reason why it's so slow when using the gas engine is that it runs in Atkinson cycle. This makes acceleration from a standstill very sluggish, but also makes the car significantly more efficient than most other ICE cars once you have reached cruising speed. As a result, the Prius gets 50+ MPG highway, whereas e.g. the Volt only gets around 41 MPG.

A fine point. Since my daily commute is 95% highway, I find this rather important.

 

[omgwtfbyobbq]

Pardon my ignorance here, but what is PV?

It's short-hand for solar panels.

Photovoltaics - Wikipedia

 

[Seamless]

It's short-hand for solar panels.

Photovoltaics - Wikipedia

Oh! Thank you.

 

[T34ME]

I do too, but only if it is fully unlocked on day one.

Don't make me pay extra for the -L version of the toaster...

The SR version of the Tesla toaster oven will do one slice of bread at a time. The LR version will do a whole loaf of bread at a time, in a shorter period, but will cost $900 more and use twice as much electricity to operate!

 

[omgwtfbyobbq]

When the PHEV variant was released, it was a joke to appease CARB. 6 miles electric range if you crept along at bicycle speeds. Still NiMH. Toyota originally lied about the Prius power output and had to change it. Not sure if they are still lying. They also mislead folk by gaming the EPA system with their PHEVs. By completing only the loops they can complete under pure EV power and listing that as their MPGe EV mode, they can inflate their economy.

Clearly you haven't driven a Plug-in Prius for any length of time. Real world range is maybe 8-12+ miles depending on how you drive. Bicycle speeds would net ~20 miles of range. It's slower than the same gen Volt with a 11.3s 0-60 instead of 9.8s, and was designed with less electric range, but it also got much better mpg on gas.

https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/phev/fact2013toyotapriusphev.pdf
https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/phev/fact2011chevroletvolt.pdf

I also wouldn't reference car mags for any performance figures. IMO, they're notorious for pushing them around any way they can.

 

[Seamless]

The SR version of the toaster oven will do one slice of bread at a time. The LR version will do a whole loaf of bread at a time, in a shorter period, but will cost $900 more and twice as much electricity to operate!

Ha! And the SR version only exists in catalogues for next year.

 

[kzod]

Lots of posts pointing out that no Prius can match the Model 3. But those guys are missing the point. With incentives there are MUCH better values available. Smart money is to pick up a bargain not the highest priced "cheap' EV around. If you could get over some of the minor drawbacks cars like the Leaf, Volt, (bolt?), and Prius can be much more compelling alternatives.

 

[McRat]

Clearly you haven't driven a Plug-in Prius for any length of time. Real world range is maybe 8-12+ miles depending on how you drive. Bicycle speeds would net ~20 miles of range. It's slower than the same gen Volt with a 11.3s 0-60 instead of 9.8s, and was designed with less electric range, but it also got much better mpg on gas.

https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/phev/fact2013toyotapriusphev.pdf
https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/phev/fact2011chevroletvolt.pdf

I also wouldn't reference car mags for any performance figures. IMO, they're notorious for pushing them around any way they can.

I don't know where you found a Gen 1 Volt that takes over 9 seconds to climb to 60mph. It takes about 8.5 seconds on a city street with the fresh factory tires at the recommended pressure, measured with a race computer is very accurate.

Gasoline fuel economy is only important if you use a lot of gasoline. If you use little to none, it doesn't matter what the number is.

The shop Volt does a 58.4 mile (map miles) roundtrip a few days a week to a customer. It uses between 12.7 kWh to 13.9 kWh.

 

[SageBrush]

This is a little unfair. The Prius is clearly not designed to run in EV-only mode with its tiny battery, and it's even more obviously not designed for performance.

You would talk differently if you had actual experience with the car.

Last week we drove 250 miles to our other home. That was mostly in hybrid mode.
Through the week all our driving was EV. 100%. IIRC about 150 miles total

As for performance, the Prime is no Tesla but the Atkinson story is ignorance. The drivetrain combines ICE and battery motive powers. Depending on engineering choices, ~ 7 second 0-60 times are on the market as evidenced by the Toyota Camry or the Clarity PHEV.

 

[David L]

This is the only reason Toyota sells the Prime. Their CEO acknowledges that EVs make no sense, so they make a car just similar enough to a EV to be able to sell the thirstiest trucks on the market. They are exactly as green as the government forces them to be. Even when the Prius was released so that Toyota could become The Electric Hybrid Car and the Greenest Car Company, the Honda Insight was actually greener, but lost the Green Marketing contest to the dirtier car.

This is the fundamental reason why buying a green car from a traditional automaker isn't green from a holistic point of view. These automakers, whether it's Chevy with the Bolt/Volt or Toyota with the Prius or Honda with the Clarity, sell fuel efficient cars in order to offset low MPG and highly profitable SUVs and trucks. They do this because they have to achieve the government mandated corporate average fuel economy. Therefore, when you buy a Bolt/Volt or Prius, you may yourself be lowering your carbon emissions, but you also enabled the automaker to sell a vehicle that cancelled out all of the high MPG and electric goodness of your vehicle. I understand that buying a Tesla before the $35k TM3 arrives may be financially unwise or impossible for some and am definitely not judging you for purchasing something else. I had a hard time convincing myself to pay $50k+ the TM3 and considered the alternatives as well. But at the same time, it's important to understand the business models of traditional automakers and the implications of purchasing a fuel efficient vehicle from a traditional automaker.

 

[ezevphl]

I have an original Plug in Prius. I got it used for about the same price as a regular Prius and the original owner never plugged it, so little to no battery degradation. It is an interesting first step into electrification and has some cool tech for its time, but not a particularly great car.
When I drive through mountains, or in winter weather or just highway passing, I really wish for a Tesla...
I never expected the 35k Tesla, but I am hoping to get one without the Premium upgrades. If I can't get one this year, then it depends on the tax credits between state and federal.
There is a reasonable chance that we'll look at a Volt and Clarity which are eligible for a full tax credit and have a decent EV range.
With a first day reservation I am hoping to get the configuration email in the next month, so we'll see what happens.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

If I sound like I'm picking on the Prius, there is reason.

If I would have never driven an EV/Hybrid except the Prius (which was true at one time), I'd still be all ICE today.

I believe the Prius did more damage to the environment than any other car. Why?

It taught a generation of drivers that 'green' meant slow, sluggish handling, goofy looking was the future of Green vehicles. It was a necessary evil. But that was not true.

You can drive green, and still have performance, style, ard handling. That's what Tesla proved.

I'm never going to endorse a car that wraps itself in green cloak and pretends to be a super hero, when the green cloak is just there to hide that hideous sweater you received last Christmas.

The important thing that the Prius did was to be reliable. It also had a reasonable premium and, from Gen 2, decent utility. The Prius helped hybrid consideration enormously, rather than negatively impacting the image of electric vehicles. Increased hybrid offerings increased sales. But since the market doesn't care much about energy use, it's not willing to pay much to improve it, and sales have waxed and waned with gasoline prices.

 

[SageBrush]

This is the fundamental reason why buying a green car from a traditional automaker isn't green from a holistic point of view. These automakers, whether it's Chevy with the Bolt/Volt or Toyota with the Prius or Honda with the Clarity, sell fuel efficient cars in order to offset low MPG and highly profitable SUVs and trucks. They do this because they have to achieve the government mandated corporate average fuel economy. Therefore, when you buy a Bolt/Volt or Prius, you may yourself be lowering your carbon emissions, but you also enabled the automaker to sell a vehicle that cancelled out all of the high MPG and electric goodness of your vehicle. I understand that buying a Tesla before the $35k TM3 arrives may be financially unwise or impossible for some and am definitely not judging you for purchasing something else. I had a hard time convincing myself to pay $50k+ the TM3 and considered the alternatives as well. But at the same time, it's important to understand the business models of traditional automakers and the implications of purchasing a fuel efficient vehicle from a traditional automaker.

I am sympathetic to this perspective, but the argument would be stronger if Tesla did not sell its ZEV credits to the truck manufacturers without their own compliance cars.