Consumer Reports Pegs Prime EV Range at 28 Miles

Cut it Hudson.

 

OK, I don't get it. Forgive my ignorance, but I must ask the following. My GEN three Prius battery will give me 1 to 2 miles of EV driving at best. But the Prius prime, with a battery capacity twice that of the third generation Prius, is able to provide 22 or so miles of EV driving. How can this be? Is it because Toyota no longer will limit usable range of the battery from 20 to 80%? Or is there something else and play? I don't get it.

 

It's a Plug-In Prius. Not a standard Prius. In order to get the 22 miles on the Prius Prime you need to plug it in to an electrical outlet like your standard 110 V outlet. The Prime come with a cord that does just that.

Your Gen 3 Prius comes standard with a NiMH battery pack that is 1.3kW of which about 800 watts is usable for EV. The Prime will come with a 8.8kW lithium ion battery.


Unsupervised!

 

The Prime's battery has twice the capacity of the previous Prius plug in, rather than that of the 3rd generation hybrid system that is in your car.

 

Sweet! Now it all makes sense. Thanks for clarifying!

 

I'd watch a bunch of CR reports undercut the prius via hard driving, leaning towards the gearhead mentality.

 

As hard as they drive their cars they still got 52 mpg (combined) out of the 4th gen Prius. This makes it their number 1 mpg gas powered auto ever. Their gear head mentality is no worse than Car and Driver or Autoblog or Motor Trend, etc.. They all said the almost exactly the same thing about the 4th gen Prius and then the Prius Prime "yes it drives much better but it's no sports car". CR does like the ride of the Prius Prime better.


Unsupervised!

 

I would think for those considering it for taxi or uber, its a deal breaker. Although I do wonder how many taxi drivers would consider it for that.

Now Uber...definitely. People who uber go for cars they like, then add the requirements it can be used for ridesharing.

 

I have a friend who Ubers with a new Leaf. He has had 3 people squish in back, but the default is to use the passenger front instead.

Realistically, it's far more important to offer ample headroom. Plug-In vehicles like Leaf, Bolt, and Prime all address that. Volt clearly does not, even though it offers a "fifth" seat.

 

I had a similar situation. I was a contractor, my boss was 6000 miles away and wasn't cleared to know what I was doing. I never met the man in 7 years. I wrote my contract with my Air Force sponsor and when we agreed on the scope of work, we sent him the contract to be accepted by the company. The company got paid, I got paid and the Air Force was happy.

 

I noticed this on the priuschat Facebook page:



Does this imply that @Danny would have been able to go 34 miles on ev?

 

Will you be posting another review of your impressions of the Prime? I assume you had more time with the car than you were allowed in Japan and I would like to know what you think of it.