Prius 1,2,3 - I think the P1 was some kind of Mk1 Yaris (aka Echo) based thing sold for a while, the P2 is the one in your pic and the P3 is the 2010 one we have.
I have to state that our family Prius is actually Mrs A's so my trips driving it tend to be local - i.e. when I get a loan of it
80+ MPG is what I get taking it to the local movie place with A Junior and his friends (e.g. over the Christmas break) - this is mostly urban and suburban roads - max speed 40, more usually 30-35. My technique is to get the engine warm asap with harsh acceleration where possible, and to use the same strategy from then on so that the ICE comes on when I set off and then the car switches into EV mode once I reach the speed required. After that I moderate the pedal to try and prevent the ICE starting and to use battery.
Eventually the battery runs low and the ICE will start to keep it charged. For my local trips this works well, but for longer trips the ICE is required all the time so the CVT becomes the issue - see below.
I'm suspicious of the graph because the Prius is hard to work out in terms of speed vs MPG - the CVT transmission for example is very sensitive to load (acceleration, hills, headwinds) so it seems to change down far too often. I know some people believe it keeps the engine in the BSFC range but I doubt it, but as the Prius has no rev counter it is hard to say. Plus I think the assistance is varied by the battery charge. In power mode though it "goes"
The CVT is described in some places as the "engineer's solution to a non-problem" and I agee - I would prefer the Prius to have a 6sp, or at least to have a rev counter with some indication of change points. I'm sure we use the ICE harshly when we don't need to and sometimes the CVT seems to favour power over FE and we have no way of overriding it - if I lift off then acceleration or even maintaining speed stops and the MPG gauge hits 100, i try and maintain speed it and drops to 50. Either 50 or 100, nothing in between.
When I bought George (see left, below my avatar) I did consider a Prius 2 instead but what put me off is the way the car and it's systems take control - the more control the engineers who design the car have the less you have and they design for the 80 part of the 80:20 rule. George is basic - 1.0L, manual gearbox etc. - so I decide how it drives. On the same trips I can get 70-ish (65-75) depending on traffic so I can more or less match the Prius cleverness on my own
In defence of the Prius, Mrs A's Prius is also a company car so I can't plug in the SG and spend a few days with it as she does use it for work more or less all the time. Mrs A does
not do hypermiling but compared to her previous car (Octavia 2.0 TDI) an average tank is 11 miles per litre vs 7-9 miles in that car. If I got to spend a couple of weeks with it I'm sure I could get it over 13-15 - maybe.
And if you can get past the "field of smugness" any Prius generates, it is actually a pretty nice car to drive. The handling (and no this is not Skidpan G...
) is responsive, and in terms of "go" it can annoy tailgating drivers quite nicely when required. In terms of looks, the P3 with the 17-in alloys also looks pretty cool IMHO.
The downsides ? Well for such an advanced car it seems to have a load of build quality issues - rattles, cheap trim pieces and bits that just fall off. If Toyota could get Skoda* to build them they would have a winner.
(*Every Skoda we have had has been flawless. VWs, BMWs, Renaults, Peugeots and Toyotas have all have issues...)
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