Consumer Reports Names Prius "2014 Top Pick Green Car"

CR is turning into a bit of a snob, and the bullying of car manufacturers to add safety features according to CR fancy to gain 'top pick' status goes against my preferences for simple transparency.
I'm going to cancel my subscription.

Addendum: Done. Good-bye, CR.

 

Loving every minute in my Prius v death trap.
Interesting what they had to say about it compared to the Prius. Only 3 mpg less but a bad crash rating. I guess it makes sense considering how much bigger of a car it is, maybe they stretched the sheet metal a little too thin on the v. That said, if i ever crash my prius v(assuming I live to tell about it) I'll probably get a regular Prius next time(touring trim with power seats!). I find I don't really need all the extra space of the v and power seats would be oh so nice.

 

I own a "v"," and I'm NOT worried.

I driven cars for 45 years without air bags, seatbelts or even a padded dash.

A lot of times, a little skill means everything.

 

44 mpg overall for the Prius? Where did they get that number?

 

Above post .... out of CR's hinder parts. They say liftback is like 35 city, 55 highway for them. They don't know squat about real world MPGs in prius.

I can't get excited sitting in Prius liftback, even top of the line Four and Five models. Maybe the 4th gen will appeal more, maybe not.

Accord sedan / Hybrid ... now we're talking. Best Accord yet AND Honda fixed the driver's seat this generation. Was an awful jut of lumbar curve (even with adjust flattened out) in the last gen Accord from 2008 to 2012, but this 2013+ is ace.

btw, sweet looking blue hybrid center gage when opening door on hybrid. I would imagine Accord Hybrid pretty much can drive circles around a Prius, but oh what people will do for that extra 5 or 6 MPGs.

 

I have the camry hybrid that would IMO be the car to compair to the accord. we love it and it has 200 hp but it drives like it has more. I guess it is because the electric gives it more power as soon as you get on it. This car will easily pass anything that is not racing you. we get 40 mpg. I wonder how the accord hybrid is doing if it will outperform the civic hybrids?

 

Been looking at Fuelly - Track and Compare Your MPG Last checked there are 16 Accord hybrid owners logging fillups showing an aggregate just above 37 MPGs. Bunch of them seem to be in frozen tundra, getting 30 MPG overall.

Was tooling around at Toyota just this evening. I can sit in any new Camry and see clearly as day, the steering wheel badly offset to the right. Biggest letdown to me from Toyota. I pretty much drive away from Toyota dealer flipping them the bird. Then I go across street to Honda and all is well with exacting layout in new Accord. ....

but I will say the previous generation Accord sedans (2008 to 2012) had much too pronounced lumbar curve (even flattened out). But this current Accord 2013+ is fab. ....

2014 Accord sedan 4 cylinder, CR top pick midsize sedan

 

Since our CR subscription expired, all I've gotten are renewal offers. Not once have they asked why we stopped our decades long, subscriptions.

As for CR recognizing the Prius, it is stung by their backhanded view of the Prius c and Prius v and flawed methodology. Also, I've grown tired of those calling it "green" because such labels keep the Prius apart from ordinary cars.

The Prius is transportation and if the mechanicals were welded shut, the car would blow away the competition. But CR auto reviewers are stuck in some decades past world that will never be again. None are so blind as those who will not see.

Bob Wilson
(having an old man moment)

 

Their track, their cycle. I don't think any other car comes close. The number does not mean anything in isolation, you have to compare it to other cars tested on the same track/cycle.

 

When considering a hybrid one year ago, the Toyota Prius was my only choice. I'm glad people smarter than me, agree.

 

I find Consumer Reports sometimes misses important details, like their high ratings on Bosch dishwashers across the board: Not once did they mention Bosch is European sized and has upper rack that is full 2 inches shorter than all other brands.

Also, CR whitewashed (Greenwashed?) the 2nd gen Prius saying .... it has good interior room and never mentioned it as worst for tall drivers.

Seriously???

source - CR Best & worst SUVs ... and wagons, Spring 2008, p. 6 ( Prius hatchback in that mag)

 

It's Consumer Reports own MPG test, not EPA test.
...it may be partially the difference between EPA using ethanol-free/high density test gasoline vs. Consumer Reports using (I assume) E10 with lower density like we get at the pump here. There could possibly be 10% difference in MPG just due to fuel energy content. The only thing I don't know is if EPA adequately adjusts their reported MPG to reflect E10/lower density fuel at the pump. I have embarked on a gasoline density study for which I got one sample so far...it was 0.726 g/cc density at my pump. That's really low energy content I think, and nothing like the EPA test fuel. The low energy content here comes in part due to EPA reformulated gasoline requirements and winter blend right now. But EPA does not use reformulated gasoline in their MPG tests, last time I looked at it anyways.

 

And then their methodology means you can't even compare the numbers to other cars they have tested. A model tested in spring on summer blend won't be 'apples to apples' to one tested in the fall on winter blend.

 

That seat really bothers you doesn't it? I personally never noticed it until you said something and yeah, it is there but, its not like its a hinderance or uncomfortable or something. I guess maybe I'm just not a perfectionist because, it just really doesn't bother me. Plus, I have not seen one review that talks about that.

 

The EPA test blend is ethanol free premium. No consumer available gasoline is identical, but that is just a way of controlling variables in the test. Testing on a dynamometer indoors and following a published speed and acceleration map are others. Which gives consumers numbers that can be compared between models. CR tests on an outside track using local station fuel without posting any speed or acceleration rates for the test.

 

And yet if you compare MPG ratios between cars using the CR cycle, they match up pretty well with ratios from EPA. Surprisingly well, actually.

This attempt to have a test cycle be 'real world' is just pandering to an ignorant public.

 

I used Google Earth to look at the CR 'test track' and as expected, it is in hilly terrain. For CR to have any credibility, they need to post a GPS, longitude, latitude, and altitude track of their mileage test profile. At least then we would could model what the heck they are doing. But I am bothered by something else, the CR suppression of high mileage numbers.

I don't have the numbers handy but when I compared CR numbers versus EPA, they do not follow similar curves. If the CR tests were reproducible, I would expect to find plots of similar cars using EPA and CR numbers to be roughly parallel. But that is not the case. Once the mileage gets in the mid-30s, the CR numbers flatten out compared to the EPA numbers. For example, cars that gets say 25 MPG_epa might get 24 MPG_cr, a 4% offset. But a car that gets 50 MPG_epa gets 45 MPG_cr, a 10% offset. The error between CR and the EPA gets worse as the EPA MPG goes up suggesting either CR or the EPA is doing something bad. But I can replicate the EPA numbers at will by following the well documented EPA protocol.

CR does not share their testing protocol and absent a GPS trace, I don't have a basis of estimate or model. But I think it is important because of what we see in Fuelly.

I have noticed there appears to be a non-Gaussian distribution of Prius mileage on the low side. I've long suspected there are operating modes that cause some Prius owners to get unusually poor mileage. What it is, I don't know. Sure I could replicate their poor mileage by exploiting what I already know about the Prius but there are more than one way to get crappy mileage in a Prius. We really need a GPS record of the CR test with timed, X, Y, and Z data to figure out this puzzle.

Bob Wilson
(having another grumpy old man day)

 

Our taxi fleet here is mostly all Prius. Usually when I get in one the display is showing around 8L/100km (30mpg). Typical Winnipeg taxi use seems to reliably give poor mileage.

 

What was the Winnipeg mileage for the prior generation of taxis?