Two of PriusChat's most distinguished hypermilers have had a chance to drive the Prius PHV for a few days now. Tony's (TonyPSchaefer) full review is available here and Evan's (efusco) forum thread with his thoughts can be found at this link. But now it's my turn to hit the streets in the PHV for a few days. What does that mean? It means you'll hear insights from a driver who likes driving with the AC set to 74 and hits 75 mph on the interstate, but still mixes in some hypermiling techniques here and there. Watch out for my thoughts coming soon. In the meantime, check out this video from when I first got to test drive the Prius PHV back in April. And here are my thoughts during an interview with Toyota:
I'm guessing you want my ScanGauge too. I wish Toyota would let me borrow a plug in for a few days so I can get my ScanGauge back. [edit] Coming soon... For sale. ScanGauge that was used in an official Toyota PHV. Starting bid $1000
Ya know, some people will end using so little gas in these PHVs and REEVs , they might need to use a fuel stabilizer to keep it from turning sour in the tank ... but that would be a good thing!
Heh, I wish that if I loaned out my ScanGauge "for the cause", it would enable me to babysit errr... drive a Prius PHEV for a few days.
Quite awhile actually--surprisingly. For those of us who already have PHEVs I can say that you do eventually start to notice degraded performance around the 3rd month on the same tank, but it's nothing serious. TheForce has gone even longer than I have on a single tank and he hasn't had any problems develop either (as far as I know). I have heard some horror stories about people adding fuel stabilizers to Prius tanks--not sure that's necessarily a good idea. Andrew
What a great chance! Looking forward to hearing from you more details. I've had a test drive a Mini-E in China, not for road test. I drove Mini-E in a circuit for only 3 laps but feel great!
Time to start compiling a PriusChat mileage database for the PHV demo cars.... route type, distance, mpg, etc.
