I haven't posted in a while but thought I'd give an update on our overall combined MPG which has recently been staying around 110 MPG. We bought our 2020 Prius Prime XLE new and recently went over the 21,000 mile mark. We live in a small town and can avoid using any gas at all when doing any daily local driving, we usually only use gas about twice a week when we travel outside our local town to around the nearest big city about a 45 mile trip each way. I am also very pleased with the average range we get in EV (electric only) mode. While the manual states a 25 miles range for EV, our experience has leaned more towards about 30 miles in EV mode. We do live in the south and it is my understanding that warmer weather is supposed to help you get better EV range. We usually don't use the air conditioning unless it gets extra hot like in the upper 80's or 90's with higher humidity, but yesterday we were pleasantly surprised to still get somewhere around about 27-29 miles in EV mode even when using the air conditioning (had it set at about 72 degrees) not sure of the exact miles as I didn't see the exact time it went off EV mode but had been watching it enough to know it hadn't been off EV mode long when I did notice and could estimate the miles, maybe anywhere from 27 to 29 EV miles with the air conditioning on.
You need to find routes to and from your destinations that are downhill in both directions. Pair that with the perpetual motion machine I’ve developed and you’ll never need gas.
Thanks, hey with how gas prices are getting the less gas we can get by with the better I do try to remember to use the downhill charge as well as getting the most out of coming to a stop for red lights and stop signs to stretch the EV mode and preferring gradual starts over jack-rabbit starts We are just glad we decided to get the Prius Prime back when there was not as much demand for hybrids and EVs as there is now with much higher gas prices, we got a good deal with 0% interest back then. Back when we decided on the Prius Prime my wife had simply decided she wanted us to get a Toyota after hearing how her friend had a Toyota (non-hybrid) that was still working great with somewhere around 400K miles, so after researching Toyota models I told my wife why not get a Prius Prime because you never know when gas prices might get crazy later on, and now we are glad we did
OK - here is my Prius Prime (Limited) mileage info. I am currently showing just under 200mpg at the 9k mark on my vehicle, having owned it about 14 months now. All local driving is in EV mode, of course, and only longer trips (fairly frequent) of 60 miles or more does the ICE kick in. After a full charge, I typically show 30+ miles of range. This, I suspect, is due to our mild climate here in CA and my driving style and the roads I typically drive on (country roads where max speed limit is 55 but often you are going slower due to curves and hills, etc.). I am, of course, super pleased at this mileage data and as a result I don't really care about gas prices since it is so infrequent when I have to fill-up. In terms of battery management, I am careful not to ever fully charge the vehicle unless I am about to take off and go somewhere. I try to keep the vehicle at about 50-60% charge level when not in use, sometimes even lower. I used to have an older Nissan Leaf and I made the mistake with that vehicle of always keeping the battery fully charged. I think I got lucky when I bought this car a little over a year ago as Toyota was offering $5,000 cash back. That, combined with the $1,000 state rebate and $4,500 Fed. tax credit meant I was getting this at $10,500 off of MSRP. Impossible to find this kind of deal today and as a matter of fact you are lucky if you can even find a PP at a dealership. Overall, I am extremely pleased. I do, however, wish the car had a 6.6kW charging circuit instead of 3.3kW. I like to charge up as much as I can when out and about in an urban area but 3.3kW is kind of slow.
Yes, pre Summer 2021 was to time to get the best deal on the PP. I (we) should have bought two of them
Yep, we received our ours in the first half of 2020 before there started being more of a demand for them, we still had to factory order ours but that was only because being in a non-carb state there were not a lot of plug-in Primes on car lots reasonably close enough and none with both the color and model (XLE) we wanted, so not being in a big hurry we ordered ours. Non-carb states didn't have as good of deals as carb states but we did manage to get 0% interest and no early payoff penalty. Wow, your "just under 200mpg" is fantastic, congrats !!!! Our 110mpg+ could be much better if we did more local driving, but living in a very small town where my normal most distant destination, the grocery store, is only about 2 - 2 1/2 miles away, so I could consolidate my shopping runs and go to local stores like Dollar General, CVS, the grocery store and back home and maybe only have traveled roughly about 7 to 8 miles total. (I need to check my odometer sometime to get a more precise number) ....but anyhow, I love it when our trips to get somewhere and back home is within the EV range so we can avoid having to use any gas at all those times
