My Concerns with the New Prius

If I must use premium
I rather have 15-30% alcohol in the “Premium “ if it means the price is a LOT lower.

 

Not with a trunk instead of a lift back. I stopped being interested right there.

 

In Canada, Chevron's top octane is ethanol-free, pretty sure. Al their other grades do say "up to 10% ethanol". I seem to recall too, with Shell, it's 10%, 5% and 0% ethanol respectively, for their reg, mid-grade and high octane??

 

No ethanol though!

 

The small print about premium and octane is the same as what is on Lexus site. How many Lexus owners use premium? How about the fine print for the fuel efficiency testing. The EPA test specifies a chemical blend unavailable from any station that is ethanol free and 93 octane. I doubt most people will see a difference between regular and premium.

If these tire sizes are common in Japan, it should only be short period of time of awkwardness.

The different factory wheel sizes on a car have the same over all diameter. Lot to adjust for different diameters.

As it ages, fuel's octane rating drops as volatiles evaporate off. That's more of problem in the cheap gas can fro the lawn mower than the sealed tank of a car. The PiP and Prime have been out for 10 years. The Volt longer. Has stale gas been an issue for any of them?

The little turbo in my Sonic was a premium fuel engine. GM labeled it regular for marketing. Tried both, and the premium yielded more power and better fuel economy, but the improvement in fuel economy wasn't enough the justify the price difference. I'd expect the same with the new Prius.

 

Yeah know that, but @Tideland Prius’ tire sizes caught my eye; maybe a typo:

 

In the USA, most Prius are sold in areas, with mandated EPA Reformulated gasoline 10% ethanol. Only in my dreams can I get ethanol-free Premium or Regular, which could be very nice MPG, but is unobtainium, forbidden my area.

I can get Regular with 10% ethanol
I can get Mid-grade with 10% ethanol
I can get Premium with 10% ethanol

Keyword 10% ethanol mandate in RFG areas, which includes Ca/much of Northeast and many more populated centers.

 

We can get ethanol free but the price is extremely high - enough so that your mpg improvements are useless. $2.79 Reg w ethanol or $3.73 Reg no ethanol.

 

There is no fixed difference here. The difference varies significantly by station and by time.

 

RE: Premium vs. Regular

I have owned two cars that were designed to run with any octane content, the most recent being a 2020 Ford Ranger pickup. The engine control electronics use the knock sensor to adjust timing for different octane levels. In theory, 91-93 octane premium gives you power when you need it (especially for towing) and a better tolerance for extremely hot (like Arizona summer) operating conditions. During less demanding conditions, you can save a bit on fuel by using 87-88 octane regular. This is explicitly stated in the Ranger owner's manual. My first encounter with this was an early Mazda Miata, where the manufacturer didn't explicity state that there was an available performance gain with premium fuel, but it became well-known as the Miata became popular in the USA. In both cases, after running a few tanks of premium fuel, returning to regular was a disappointment. The 2020 Ford, like the 1996 Miata, ran poorly on regular when compared to to premium. Constantly searching for the optimum ignition timing, the engines ran noticeably more roughly on regular. It was disappointing. On premium fuel, they were both great performers. I have confidence in Toyota's engineering, but this is something that is hard to live with. I would plan on running premium fuel, and not obsess over the additional cost. Travel in Mexico (which I have not done for about 15 years) could be a problem.

The good news is, the USA annual cost of premium vs. regular is a tiny fraction of the total cost of ownership. The annual "surcharge" for my wife's former 25 MPG, premium-only, BMW X3 was only about $500/year for 15k-18k miles annual driving. The per-gallon cost for premium was, at the time, about $0.50 per gallon. For the vast majority of owners, the Prius uses so little fuel that the annual "premium surcharge" is likely to be somewhere near the cost of a fancy restaurant dinner.

 

A local chain of gas stations recently expanded their availability of ethanol-free fuel entirely because they found people were willing to pay extra for it.

Refineries do all kinds of neat stuff to make retail fuel. Generally speaking, they can make a base grade fuel and add ethanol to it to create premium, since ethanol has a very high octane rating.

Another way: 0.85 gallon 87AKI gasoline + 0.15 gallon ethanol = 1.00 gallon 91AKI E15

Many automakers have played the "premium suggested" game before. It always brings the worst of both worlds: people complain about paying too much for too little power & MPG.

It creates just enough room for a louder argument.

 

I'm curious about the solar panels... From what was posted in the Japan reveal article they can provide up to 1250 km / year? If that's correct send like they're not a very well thought out novelty. Savings in gas or electricity would be less than $100 / year. Unlikely to have a good payback financially or even from an eco footprint point of view.

 

Especially if ypu buy a Prime and run it on electricity.

That's more than the annual *cost* for energy for my Prime.

 

If every car purchase was a 'what's cheapest to buy and run' we'd all be driving Chevy Sparks with no options.

I'm hopeful that some of the concerns about the new prius are a matter of over analyzing pre production concept models. Maybe they threw on the slickest looking 19" tire and wheel combo they could find and are going to production with something more common and I wonder if the higher octane is also a pre production thing.

 

it is amazing that with a whole new vehicle basically, tires and fuel are getting the most play