How do I highway merge when my 2015 Prius C takes 11-12 seconds to even get to 50 mph?

Is that true? Is my cute little car faster than most SUVs? I like to think of my car as a wee tiny SUV. I love it.

 

I don't know that it's faster than "most"...
Certainly none of the one's pictured.

 

You won't like a Prius, either.

They are both slow by today's standards. (Faster than most cars I have owned, but I tend to drive slow station wagons: Ford Falcon, Mazda 8080 Miser, Mazda GLC, Ford Escort, Toyota Corolla All-trac, Subaru Forester, Prius v)

To be happy coming from a BMW, a 1970 2002 would do 0 - 60 in 12.5 seconds, you could be happy in a Prius coming from that one.

 

y'all got me curious about this... I could not find all of the relevant 0-60 statistics, but going from what I did find our c is middle-of-the-pack of all the cars my wife and I have previously owned.

The past 15 years of car commercials has everyone thinking every on-ramp needs to work like a catapult, and "merging in" now involves a double lane change and passing three accelerating cars.

 

In some cities it does... depending on the time of day, "merging" in Atlanta is either at 80+ mph or -10 mph. The PC is perfect for the latter.
If I remember right, it's somewhere around 10.5 seconds to 60.

Edit:
10.6 per motor trend. 17.8 through the 1/4 @ 76.6 mph.
2012 Toyota Prius C First Test - Motor Trend

 

i just bought it for a second car. city driving, but i let go of the bimmer and kept the c.
I was unaware of the acceleration my wife wanted it so i got it for her.

 

"your C, or the regular Prius you have in mind, will never be a Bimmer"

i know, i just miss the speed sometimes. but i am now doing mods on my wife's C.

 

I feel your "pain". I come from a Z, and I do miss eating stock M3s, STis, EVOs, Vettes, and of course 911s for breakfast . I would be interested to know what mods you have in mind. Let us know how your mods go and please post pictures if you can As far as I know, there are no mods that would make the C significantly faster, other than lightening the car. If you know how Toyota's simulated Atkinson-cycle works, the intake valve stays open past the piston's BDC, so it essentially regurgitates part of the air-fuel mixture that it just sucked in, back into the intake manifold, so I don't believe modifying the intake part of the equation, or even turbo/super-charging would make all that much difference in power output, not without changing the cam geometry and timing. And modifying the MG1 or the electrical traction system is simply beyond the skills set of ordinary mortals like me and probably you too. Folks with more knowledge than me, please feel free to chime in or correct me.

 

@frenzee a few people have swapped in Yaris cams, which mostly un-Atkinsons the engine. It isn't right, there are weird problems, but it allows more fuel to be burnt which does make it go faster.

Usually I can think of cheaper ways to arrive at a Yaris though.

I do need to floor the pedal in ours for a moment here and there on most trips, but it's never been too slow; no dents in the back bumper.

 

No speed mod, just LED lightings, alarm, and cheap navigation, upgrade my wheels to 16 / 17" and lower the car.

 

do u guys know what size the wheel is? I kinda like it.

 

Pretty sure that's the optional 16" wheel.

 

Your wife's C does exactly what it is supposed to do. Wrecking that by buying 'mods' will get you a slow car that doesn't get fantastic gas mileage, and is not as reliable as an anvil.

Can I suggest a used Honda VTec or something that has performance potential? Most Prius mods make something pretty or loud, but leave a stop watch unimpressed. Forced induction CAN work, (be warned it will just charge your battery quicker, not make the 0 to 60 much quicker) but you will find very little room under the hood for the 'plumbing' and no kits, you will hand make every pipe.
1999 Accord EX | eBay

Choose wisely.

 

i do not like hondas. As you can see in my signature, i only had toyotas and 2 bmws.

 

Toyota no longer makes a FX-16 GTS type car, my brother likes his. He replaced it as his daily driver with a Prime. it is now his fun car. Currently the only 'fun' Toyota is really a rebadged Subaru, you can hope they actually get around to releasing a Supra.

My list (all gone but the v)
1962 Ford Falcon two door station wagon 2.4 l 84 HP RWD
1977 Yamaha RD400 motorcycle (new) 0.4 l 44 HP RWD
1976 Mazda 808 Mizer station wagon 1.3 l 59 HP RWD
1979 Mazda GLC 1.3 l 59 HP RWD
1981 Ford Escort station wagon 1.9 l 86 HP FWD
1989 Toyota Corolla All-trac station wagon (new) 1.6 l 103 HP AWD
2001 Subaru Forester station wagon (new) 2.5 l 165 HP AWD
2009 Toyota Prius (new) 1.5 l 76 HP FWD
2012 Toyota Prius v station wagon (new) 1.8 l 98 HP FWD

So you can see, I am not lamenting the speed of any cars I used to drive. <g>

 

Cars are developed until they are sort of good that everything the average buyer in that class typically wants. Not everybody falls into the average buyer category. I know I didn't. I was very nervous about buying a Prius or hybrid in general. It made sense because of the commute though. It's now 1 of our 10 cars and isn't going anywhere. Its by far the slowest of the bunch but I have done a few things to help it suit my needs better. On the power side of the equation I have opened up my intake a bit and it helped enough that I am able to maintain the 80mph speed of traffic up the highest grade we see on our commute. On the suspension side I re-did everything. After all the best way to save fuel is to carry your speed through the corner! Coincidentally this has helped us merge on to the freeway at speed in several spots with out pissing off traffic.

Check out the Hi-C build section of my website if you're curious about what parts I chose and why. The car now works much better for my needs than it did the way it left the factory. 66k miles to date most of that with the mods traveling 200 miles each weekday, and I have yet to have a failure or a trip to the dealer for anything.

 

Today I took a 2hr drive up I95 towards DC. It was mostly at speeds around 70mph and relatively flat. Not sure if the 2018+ model has any revised parts but I was pleased with how well it performed. There was wind noise but surprisingly comfortable and fairly quiet inside. Visibility was great and no scary moments merging or weaving in and out. It is a compact car so you have to plan your moves like was mentioned earlier. I've driven a number of small cars in the past and prefer the size.

Is there a trick to using the accelerator pedal? It seemed like I was able to get the engine to kick down when pressing the pedal in a top-down motion versus pressing in more of a horizontal motion. Didn't some older cars have like an extra half inch where you could kick the transmission down to the lowest gear for overtaking? It could have entirely been the computer making the decision based on the conditions. I'll go out tomorrow and visually inspect at the pedal and travel.

 

All Prius are eCVT, there is no shifting.

 

Older cars had different combinations of mechanical kickdown switches, A/C cutout switches and more. In the Prius it's just a data encoder that tells the computer how far it has been pushed. The computer interprets what you do and works it out from there.