Just bought a new 2020 plug-in

I drove the new Prius plug-in home today, trading in a 2009 gen2.

Reading on this forum helped me decide to buy another Prius. I would like to thank you all for sharing the knowledge. Without Priuschat I would probably have bought a worse car!

 

Thank you, I will make sure to pass along your compliment! I live in the flat and forest-y part, but hopefully the Prius will get to see some scenery, at least by next summer. I will have the car pose for pictures as conditions improve. Here's one from the sad-and-grey parking lot from before it got its plates. You can see I went for the standard "spirited aqua" exterior and moonstone interior. You can't tell from the picture but it was the most colorful car on the lot .

Yes, winters do get chilly . The car is parked inside though, so usually not much below freezing. I look forward to zapping it with the key fob from inside to make it nice and comfy before departing. Still not halfway through the manual—going to read up on the battery heater and cooler things.

I also work in tech (on the design parts), will keep an eye out for Lavene once traveling is back on the menu.

 

I took the car to visit my dad and back, which is about 300km. This trip is a part of the reason why I bought this car, so I was very curious to see how it would perform. Here are my initial observations:

• Radar cruise control and lane keep assist (to my surprise) does work well. I was using it on the highway home, and it feels odd to "wrestle" the car over control, but that's all about learning new habits.
• The difference in throttle response between EV and HV mode is significant. The HV response is what I would expect from a Prius; in EV my driving often got a bit jerky. More new habits to learn.
• Being an EU model, mine comes with the "EV City" mode, which is like a slower EV mode. EV City in Eco mode is probably what I will use the most.
• I tried to use the HUD, but turned it off after a while. Need to learn the other displays first I think. Maybe I'll revisit it later.
• CarPlay was a great experience, worked just as well as I had expected.
• Speakers were super bass heavy. I may have some EQ settings on my phone causing this, but the first song I tried on the highway started with a bang.
• I ran out of gas (got the dash light) on my way home, and was unsure of what to do. I clicked the "Map" button, and as if it had read my mind it showed me a list of nearby gas stations. A tap on my preferred brand got me instructions for how to my station of choice. I don't plan on running out of gas in the future, but it was a seamless experience.
• Gas milage for this trip was not great, and I'm not entirely sure how to see the totals for the trip. I spent too much time poking at settings, testing modes and whatnot, which probably wrecked havoc on the economy. I will make an effort the next time to see how it compares with the gen2.

 

It's worse than that, I had them put snow tires on (though it could be even worse; I run without spikes).

 

That's probably correct. Just not used to seeing that sign! And it felt strange to put the same fuel into the new Prius as the old one.

Everything is new, so hopefully they're not sneakily remounted from another car. It's probably user error on my part. Wouldn't be the first!

 

I did some back-of-the-napkin calculations. My current electricity cost is about 0.55 NOK per kWh (in cold winter months this can double). From what I read here the Prius will gobble up about 6.5 kWh. With a full charge I can drive up to 50km. That's about 0,066 NOK per km.

Gasoline prices are not stable, but let's be generous and say 14 NOK. For a liter I can drive about 25 km, making it 0,56 NOK per km.

All else being equal, this would make electricity about 1/8 the price of gasoline, or 1/4 in the coldest of months.

 

I drove to my dad again today, which is a ~300km roundtrip. Now I got a bit unlucky, had quite a bit of extra traffic (that I usually avoid on my Sunday visits). I charged before I left home, but didn't want the hassle to charge at his place. I finished the trip with an average of 3.2l/100km. The last trips I did with the gen2 were 4.5l and 4.7l/100km. This is quite a significant reduction in usage of gasoline.

 

I repeated my trip, with less traffic, but quite a bit of rain. This time I tried to let the car do its thing, run down the EV battery and then go HV, instead of juggling buttons. I ended up with markedly higher consumption—about 3.8l/100km.

So now I am thinking it might make sense to juggle buttons. I will try some juggling on my next trip and see if I can match the 3.2l figure.

 

Repeated my "standard" ~300km trip. This time I ended at about 3.6l/100km. I did a minor bit of button juggling. I have some thoughts on how to improve, but also think this may be about what I can expect from this trip on snow tires.

Today was a fairly cold day, around freezing, so I decided to try climate prep. I also made use of climate control, and on the highway stretches I pushed it up to a toasty 23°C . More tempered than in the gen2, where it on occasion felt like I had a hair dryer to my face, and I never managed to position the vents correctly.

 

Went out this morning for an errand, stopped to snap a couple of photos in the sunrise. Today it was -6°C, still managed to do what I set out to do without a drop of gasoline.