It all depends on the gas price and electric rate you are paying. For me a full EV range is almost always about half gallon HV mileage no matter what season. During summer, I get 35 EV miles, but my HV mileage is almost as high as 70mpg. During winter, my EV range diminishes to ~22miles, but so does HV mileage down to 44mpg. What is your electric rate and gas price? In my location, electric rate of $0.19/kWh and gas price of $2.40/gal, it has been cheaper to drive HV for most part of my PRIME ownership. Currently the break even point for the gas price is $2.50/gal.
Definitely something going on. It's called colder weather. Actually, depending on your speeds and the temperature, 25 miles might be really good. With the electricity prices some you you north easterners are saddled with, the only advantage I can see to the Prime would be hedging your bets against future gas prices. Even here in sunny FL, I can see a huge difference in EV efficiency between the driving I did Sunday and what I did today. Sunday was 37 miles and I had 4.6 m/kWh. All in EV thanks to being able to charge at both ends. Today, so far, has been 42 miles and I have 5.4 m/kWh so far. All in EV again. The difference was the speeds of the roads I traveled. Temperatures were about the same.
Didn't you purchase your Prime to also make other people better off? There's a very real benefit from using less gas and emitting fewer emissions, even if you can't equate it to a monetary value. You'd be amazed how much your small contribution to a larger cause really adds up.
Gotta remember those 28 charging sessions are being done as outside temps drop. If you got the car in may of june instead of late fall, you'd see some difference in your EV range. But if 25 miles of EV range is not good enough for you in this weather, there is nothing wrong with driving in HV all the time. The car will adjust and give you the best it's got.
Other than the fact that I live down in York and commute 63 miles each way to Chelmsford, MA for work, we have just about the same numbers for break even. Again, this will be my 3rd winter with this Prime (>80,000 miles now), so I know that my EV range will go down. It's just that it's never gone down this much before. It could just be the tires. All of my Toyota Hybrids have reduced efficiency in the winter, be it from the cold temps or the crappy winter gas. I have continued to charge up and trying to maximize my E miles, but it is mainly to save money. The green aspect of it is a nice bonus but let's be real - me burning a 1/2 gallon less gas per day is not that big of a deal when I'm literally being surrounded by more & more gas-guzzling SUVs every day.
Yep, it's the sad truth. Whatever I do myself to protect the future of humanity is severely overshadowed by a million others only caring about getting ahead of me in line,
As I updated in another thread, my EV range has gone down again. Now, it's only showing me to have 22 miles of EV range. I think it's time to stop wasting my time & money plugging it in until it warms up again.
My GOM is currently showing 47.7 miles on a full charge (a value without Climate Control). It is not 47.7 miles of pure EV range on my daily drive. Rather it is with a mixed HV mode to supply needed heat. In reality, I am driving ~20 miles (out of ~36 miles driven) on EV mode using ~50% of battery charge (~3.2kWh) daily. My historical winter months (Dec-Feb) mpg (mixed EV and HV drives) for the first two winters were 68 mpg average with a range of lo 50.9 to hi 95.6. My last month (Dec) average mpg (mixed EV and HV drives) was 76.8 mpg, which makes current strategy to show the ~13% improvement from previous two winters average.
ours has always been about that but we have always gotten on freeway which burns it up right quick. It has shown some improvement of late with short local trips.
