Will former Prius drivers drive more aggressively in a Model 3?

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Yes. Give people more and they'll use it.

But, how much more aggressively is a matter of the individual.
I drive our Volt more aggressively than the Prius because it has better acceleration and handling. But not much, because overall I don't get myself into positions where it matters.

 

[daniel]

Pretty much every Prius driver i see is flooring it! Not trying to hypermile or anything of that sort. Its just an ICE car regardless

In the early days, most of the people buying the Prius were tree-huggers. Eventually it went mainstream and became just a high-mpg car to most owners. This was easily visible on Prius Chat, which was populated mostly by progressives and environmentalists in the early days, but after a while began to represent a wider cross-section of the political spectrum. A lot of those early buyers really wanted to cut down on their gas usage and some went to extreme lengths to do it. Nowadays the car is so mainstream that those people are a small minority, and I think that many of the Prius early-adopters have moved on to electric.

Why is hypermiling rude? Why isn't aggressive driving rude?

Both are rude:

Hypermiling in traffic is rude because you are holding back all the cars behind you, and actually making the line as a whole less efficient due to the wave effect of traffic flow.

Aggressive driving is rude because you are putting others at risk and possibly forcing them to take evasive action.

Hypermiling is not rude if there's nobody behind you, and rapid acceleration is not rude (or aggressive) if there's nobody in front of you.

I advocate safe and courteous driving.

 

[T34ME]

Hypermiling is not rude if there's nobody behind you,

True story! A couple of years ago, my wife was hypermiling on a four lane road in our neighborhood about 9:30pm on a Sunday evening. The road was completely empty, all four lanes, and we were driving in the far right lane about 25mph in a 45mph limit area. I was sitting in the passengers seat. All of a sudden a car comes zooming up behind us and lights us up. We pull over and the cop walks up to my window. "Everything all right?" I said my wife was practicing her hypermiling. He said, "what's hypermiling?" I explained and he said, "I thought maybe you had been drinking or something!"

So much for doing our part to save the environment.

 

[Zaphod]

Not sure about in CA, but in TX, I see plenty of Prii doing 80+ on the highway. Makes me laugh really

 

[206er]

True story! A couple of years ago, my wife was hypermiling on a four lane road in our neighborhood about 9:30pm on a Sunday evening. The road was completely empty, all four lanes, and we were driving in the far right lane about 25mph in a 45mph limit area. I was sitting in the passengers seat. All of a sudden a car comes zooming up behind us and lights us up. We pull over and the cop walks up to my window. "Everything all right?" I said my wife was practicing her hypermiling. He said, "what's hypermiling?" I explained and he said, "I thought maybe you had been drinking or something!"

So much for doing our part to save the environment.

LOL - I had never heard of hypermiling before this post!

 

[calisnow]

OK. File this under "random thoughts." It's been inferred that Tesla expects to get a lot of former Prius owners with the Model 3. My question is this...Do you think they'll drive more aggressively once they get the Model 3? My hunch is "maybe" for a couple of reasons. 1) There's no more "gasoline guilt." Assuming you're getting you're electricity from a green, renewable source (i.e. solar panels), you can floor it without guilt. And 2) It's going to be a LOT more powerful than the Prius, and therefore, more fun-to-drive.

I hope Tesla sells a LOT of Model 3s to Prius owners, AND they finally discover the skinny pedal on the right.

Lord almighty - the topics which pop up on the Model 3 sub forum.

 

[daniel]

Not sure about in CA, but in TX, I see plenty of Prii doing 80+ on the highway. Makes me laugh really

A Prius doing 80 is still burning half as much gas as most other cars doing the same speed. If you're going to drive 80, and you're shopping for a car before Tesla started selling cars, a Prius was your best choice. I gather that in Texas people habitually drive so far that if they didn't drive fast, they'd never get there.

There's a story about a Texan who visited his cousin who farmed in North Dakota. The Texan said, "Why, it takes me three full days to drive my pickup truck all the way around my ranch." The North Dakotan replied, "Yep. I hear ya. I had a pickup truck like that once, too."

 

[JeffK]

True story! A couple of years ago, my wife was hypermiling on a four lane road in our neighborhood about 9:30pm on a Sunday evening. The road was completely empty, all four lanes, and we were driving in the far right lane about 25mph in a 45mph limit area. I was sitting in the passengers seat. All of a sudden a car comes zooming up behind us and lights us up. We pull over and the cop walks up to my window. "Everything all right?" I said my wife was practicing her hypermiling. He said, "what's hypermiling?" I explained and he said, "I thought maybe you had been drinking or something!"

So much for doing our part to save the environment.

In my state if you hadn't been on the right, they can ticket you for going too slow in a faster lane and not yielding to faster traffic.

 

[igotzzoom]

Pretty much every Prius driver i see is flooring it! Not trying to hypermile or anything of that sort. Its just an ICE car regardless

Not sure about in CA, but in TX, I see plenty of Prii doing 80+ on the highway. Makes me laugh really

It's probably about 80/20 out here. Most drive slow as molasses in winter, but a few drive like that rental car scene out of "Days of Thunder."

 

[Dogwhistle]

Oh, I definitely intend to!

 

[BluestarE3]

Other than accelerating more quickly to get up to speed to merge with traffic or to avoid a dangerous traffic situation, I don't envision my driving habits changing after I switch from my Prius to the Model 3. Age (and hopefully wisdom) has had more effect on my driving habits than anything else.

I also agree with comments above that the Prius is no longer just a tree-huggers' car that's driven conservatively to maximize gas mileage and minimize harm to the environment. It's pretty much a mass-market car with a cross-section of driver types. I see a lot of Prius around here being driven aggressively and, sometimes, even recklessly.

 

[ModelNforNerd]

I drive a Prius plug-in and have little "gasoline guilt" since I generate 100% of my electrical needs with my Solar City roof panels. I WILL NOT drive my TM3 any differently since floorboarding it just reduces range. For me, speed does not equal fun. Being personally responsible equals fun.

For the love of god.....i hope you stay out of the left lane. No one cares how many MPG you're getting out there....it's about MPH.

Prius drivers are easily the #1 cause of everyone being stuck doing 5 under the speed limit on an otherwise wide open stretch of road.

 

[David99]

I'm overall a pretty mellow driver. I kind of enjoy driving efficient. I did drive a little more spirited when I got my Model S new. It's just too much fun to feel the acceleration. But it wears off after the first few months. You end up driving with the flow of the traffic again soon. It's no different than any car with lots of power.

 

[T34ME]

For the love of god.....i hope you stay out of the left lane. No one cares how many MPG you're getting out there....it's about MPH.

Prius drivers are easily the #1 cause of everyone being stuck doing 5 under the speed limit on an otherwise wide open stretch of road.

And therein lies the problem,"it's MY road and you better get out of MY way." The speed limit is the maximum speed limit, not the minimum speed limit.

 

[JeffK]

The speed limit is the maximum speed limit, not the minimum speed limit.

Wait, you mean they aren't just moderate suggestions?

 

[aronth5]

My Prius V is so slow with so little pickup the Model 3 will feel like a race car, so yes I expect to drive a little quicker.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

For the love of god.....i hope you stay out of the left lane. No one cares how many MPG you're getting out there....it's about MPH.

Prius drivers are easily the #1 cause of everyone being stuck doing 5 under the speed limit on an otherwise wide open stretch of road.

It's actually stuck doing 2 to 3 mph under the speed lmiit because the Prius' speedometer is a big, centrally-displayed liar. At least that's the case for my 2010. If you put cruise set to PSL at highway speeds you'll be comfortably under the limit, and so you'll end up being passed by other people cruising at the limit.

Our Volt's speedometer matches GPS well.

 

[shrspeedblade]

And therein lies the problem,"it's MY road and you better get out of MY way." The speed limit is the maximum speed limit, not the minimum speed limit.

No, the real problem is that way too much of the American populace don't understand or follow the rule, "Keep Right Except to Pass".

It's not only courteous and logical, it also results in far safer roadways REGARDLESS of speed.

 

[Ulmo]

Some people are simply not the lead footed aggressive driver type, it doesn't matter what car you put them in. There's a lot of conservative 328i drivers out there, even though the latest incantations of that car are quite respectable turbocharged cars with responsive low-end torque.

But seriously, expecting people to drive outside their comfort zone is not gonna make the world a safer or better place. I would much rather spread the message of keep right except to pass, and being aware of cars behind you that want to go faster and courteously letting them by at your convenience.

I wholeheartedly agree. One day I saw a slow Prius next to a slow Tesla, and asked myself the following question:

Would I rather all drivers convert to electric vehicles that have good performance like Tesla, including every single bad slow driver, or that all the bad slow drivers stayed in ICE vehicles, such as Prius, Toyota, etc.?

I decided that I'd rather swear at the same bad, slow, dangerous drivers in a Tesla rather than in an ICE, regardless of how bad they are. The one thing is not the same as the other thing.

Unfortunately, it's not as egalitarian as that: there is a heavy correspondence between weak cars and ... lackluster drivers, to put it one way. In the new world of electric vehicles, even if every horrible driver gets an electric vehicle, I assume that a large proportion of them will also get cars that match their lackluster performance. I have heard that they are working on ways to make electric vehicles that "don't exhibit the dangerous acceleration of performance luxury vehicles like Tesla".

 

[T34ME]

No, the real problem is that way too much of the American populace don't understand or follow the rule, "Keep Right Except to Pass".

When I am driving the speed limit, I have every right to drive in the left lane when passing trucks without some idiot right on my bumper flashing his light and giving me the finger as he passes me going 20mph over the speed limit. Now that is not only rude but dangerous.