Prius Plug-in and Volt Pros and Cons

Volt EPA highway estimate is 40 mpg and it's easy to get mid-40's at 55-60 mph. The Ford Energi C-MAX gets a 41 mpg estimate on the highway. The Prius Liftback highway estimate is 48 mpg and the plugin is 49 mpg.

Very few cars come close to Prius gas mileage.

 

As big motorcycles zip aside me while lane splitting, appearing out of nowhere, I note to myself that I am probably getting as good mileage as they are, and having a much more comfortable ride.

 

And immune from the effects of someone opening their driver-side door at the wrong moment...

 

I have to respectfully disagree. The ECO button does nothing if you know how to drive perfectly for best fuel economy, but since I don't always do that, the ECO mode keeps my acceleration very modest, unless I need full power, in which case a foot-to-the-floor gives me that.

 

FWIW, I just returned from a 1,700 trip in my Volt.

ICE gas mileage was 41.5 - 43 at 65 - 70 mph, depending on terrain.

Very pleasant trip. I charged where I could for in town driving and used Hold mode whenever I was on the highway.

 

20 minutes gets me about 120 miles, 30 minutes gets about 170 but then it starts tapering off.
We had some concerns when approaching the Rockies, simply because it was the first time we had such elevation changes. On the return trip we had no such worries as we were no longer new to it.
We drove the speed limit the entire trip except the leg between St. George, UT and Las Vegas, Nevada (285 miles) (we took a different route to see Two Guns AZ on the way back)
Currently driving through SD we are driving 75-80.
We have used no charging other than superchargers, and our total fuel bill has indeed been zero.

I don't doubt you have seen some owners driving slower than the speed limit, just as you see owners of other cars driving slowly on occasion.
It may be they were stretching their range to get somewhere, or that they were new to driving electric, or they were simply slow drivers.
For myself, I am almost always less than 5mph over the limit, rarely below.
With car like the Model S, it is rare to see them traveling slower than the speed limit

 

So far no one has provided more objective evidence about what is the most high tech than miscrms. Don't know how you missed it - please see miscrms's recent posts over the last few pages of this thread. Yes Argonne and Idaho National Laboratories.

No opinion here because ANL and INL have already answered that question with data.

No brand loyalty/worship here. I had a diffent car make before Toyota and will possibly again with the next car. Tech is important and a big reason many of us on this site picked the PiP. That said, I'd rather drive a Tesla if money was no object. Right now that's the only other vehicle that could get me where I need to go and use even less gas.

 

I believe a typical 100 hp car is chewing up the equivalent of 75 kWh of power just driving down the highway. At least 75% of that is wasted by pushing air, friction and waste heat.

If cars were all electric, and could be robotically controlled to travel on highways in tight formation, then heat would be reduced, air resistance would be minimized, and safety would be improved. I see a bright future for the Google car.

 

It takes about 15-20 kW to go 60 mph steady and about 25 - 30 kW to go 70 mph. Maybe 45 - 55 kW to go 100 mph.

75 kW is equivalent to 100 hp.

 

Are you talking about the Otto Cycle engine, patented 1861, or the Atkinson Cycle engine, patented 1887?

 

Just curious Bill - how much gas have you personally used in the Volt ? EV% ? MPG ?

 

To be fair, that isn't "high tech" as much as it is your preference. If it were, then you could call a bicycle higher tech than a Volt because it never uses any gasoline.

I can't answer for Bill, however, while we had our Volt we used 80 gallons over ~15,000 miles.

 

Maybe that explains my excellent mileage here at 3500-4000 feet ASL.

 

I'm not Bill either--I was at 94% EV in my Volt before our vacation the last couple of weeks. Now at about 84% with about 11,500 miles and 11 months on the car.

 

Fair enough. My lifetime MPGe though is 139 right now
Amazing how close we are in electric miles - just hit 12,020 EV, just 1,180 gas though = 90% electric
diff cars for diff needs
I have a friend who bought a Volt who'd be better off w a PiP - my daughter def better off with a Volt

 

I look at MPGe the same way I look at wind-chill; it's a meaningful number, but you can't compare it in any way to actual MPG.