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I live in one of the coolest towns in Colorado, don't have a garage, and I rarely idle to warm the engine, even if it's -40⁰F (-40⁰C). The only reasons are, 1) if I or someone in the family is sick (it's just more miserable to be in the cold when you're sick.) Or 2) if it's obvious that the windows will need more than scraping to stay clean (last thing you want is to drive blind down the highway.)
I really, really want to get a 1,500W circulating block heater again and install it in my Avalon. I've used these on other cars. My 1972 Super Beetle even had a block heater I installed, albeit only 150W.
With a 1,500W block heater on a small engine it's possible to warm it up to 165⁰F (75⁰C) without idling in just a couple hours.
I will mention something I've noticed on the Avalon. Maybe the Prius dies this too but I haven't driven it enough to really pay attention not have the gauges to properly check. And that is that the vehicle will on purposely "baby" the engine when first started, using the electric drive train a lot more until the engine has warmed up for a couple minutes. I assume it has something to do with getting better emissions, mainly.
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