I was driving down the highway yesterday going about 70-75mph and saw a 2010 Prius go past me going approx 85-90mph. This made me think, what speed is too high for this car?
Usually 70 or less (which is the general speed on expressways in Chicago) except at times evading getting caught in a clump of traffic. At that point I've hit 90 which I believe is safer once clear of numerous cars adjacent to all the others in multiple lanes.
Her are my common cruising speeds Limit Me 30 33 35 37 45 49 55 61 65 71 70 74 They are harvesting both corn and cotton locally, I recently peaked at 91 passing a long train of farm equipment.
Interestingly enough, when our Prius was up for discussion back when we were considering the Subaru replacement, the subject of cruising speed (not top speed) came up. Basically, any car we own has to be able to comfortably cruise with the rest of the motorway traffic - this means an indicated 90mph in the U.K. Any less than that, and you're permanently banished to the inside lane with the trucks and buses, unless you like being tailgated at a distance of 12 inches by belligerent Reps in BMW/Merc/Audis, of course...
@ 90 mph, mine is well controlled and exibits no front-end "lightness", shimmy or vibration. In a few thousand miles I'll do some exploring higher. ;-)
As I've pointed out in numerous venues, the DeLorean is notoriously inefficient requiring 1.21 gigawatts. The gen III Prius only needs 60 kilowatts thus obviating the requirement for the now-obsolete flux capacitor which has been integrated into the Prius' CPU chip. I've been told by a Toyota dealer Mr Fusion will be available with the technology package in the 2011 model . I personally will not be upgrading to the tech pack until Toyota upgrades to the Macintosh OSX system: much more advanced, reliable and intuitive for Prius owners. Industry rumor is that it's being held up by Steve Job's insistence on a higher licensing fee.
Shortly after I got my Prius, I went to 88 mph just to see what it felt like. Since the flux capacitor hasn't been installed yet, nothing spectacular happened. I then got a DeLorean, but it hasn't gone past 10 mph yet, except on the trailer.
I think the Gen2 was electronically limited to 104 MPH (or maybe it was 106), I tried mine and got it to 107 by speedometer. I have read that the Gen3 is limited to 113 MPH as Tideland mentioned. I probably won't try to find out. I have had it to 97 MPH by speedometer on a deserted road in Nevada and it felt very stable at that speed. I usually set my cruise control to about 2 MPH over the speed limit because the speedometer is about 2 MPH fast at highway speeds. If I'm not in a hurry I go a bit slower but not so slow as to be a problem for other drivers.
For those folks who drive a lot on interstates where the speed limit is 70 (i.e., real speed averages c. 75) or who otherwise average about 75 or so. What mileage do you get on the highway? Overall?
LOL!.... I went to about 93mph with the salesman in the back seat when I bought my GenII! It was fun to see his eyes get big!