Toyota Prius c: 53 MPG city / 46 MPG Hwy; Under $19,000

Your expectations were not too high. Toyota promised this would be the most efficient gasoline only car, and they.... lied, no i mean tied, um its more efficient sometimes:cheer2::cheer2:. Toyota blew it by setting the wrong expectations. The beast would be more efficient and faster with the gen III engine. The point of the engine choice was lower cost I don't think the buyers are going to remember the promises. The prius c gets rid of part of the hybrid premium, and will sell well. You wouldn't want it to be faster, cheaper, and more efficient than the liftback.

 

My only strong expectation from reading Toyota press releases over the years was cost reduction. I don't feel misled.

One aspect of the (prelim?) EPA numbers I am curious about: Toyota offers tyres in 175, 185 and 195 mm widths for the car. I wonder which width was used for their testing. A 5% difference could easily be seen in the city results depending on the tyre choice.

 

I'm willing to bet that Toyota submitted their testing with the narrower tires. In most cases EPA doesn't test all of the trim models, if they test any at all, so the rating will likely be the result of the model best equipped for mpg. I'd like to be wrong, however.

 

I believe the car makers do the testing themselves with EPA simply restricting the test procedures. This is why we see the lawsuits starting against the car makers which are too far off of the EPA estimates (See the latest lawsuit because of Civic hybrid)

Toyota, on the other hand, is quite conservative when it comes to these procedures. They are very aware of the negative consequences when you are the market leader and something isn't perfectly right (refer to the Prius III brake software update and unintended acceleration claims)

 

Do we know if the 'c' has undercarriage panels like the standard Prius? That could make a difference in highway mileage and may have been dropped due to cost/weight issues. While the 'c' has less mpg then what I would like, it is not a big issue. The car will sell in expected quantities because it costs less, is shorter and has great city mpg. The 'c' seems like it is for city, and the car is ever so slightly more suited to city use then a regular Prius.

 

Prius = 49.65 MPG combined

Prius c = 49.85 MPG combined

It's obviously not a huge margin, but it is indeed more efficient. And let's not forget about the much higher priority of price reduction... which most definitely was delivered.
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Toyota is offering exactly what they need to in order to continue dominance in the hybrid market. The reg Prius is the most FE midsize liftgate in its class, the V is the most efficient wagon/van and the C will be the leader in subcompacts. When competitors someday catch up and start to eat into Toyota's marketshare, then we'll see them boost the MPGs pretty quickly! Right now, why should they?

 

+1
With exception of a couple out of town trips, most of the time our calculated avg speed tends to stay in 30-38MPH range, usually 32-35. At these speeds Prius C may be more efficient then Gen III.

 

first of all, those are not official numbers... in Prius v and CTh, didnt they increase the numbers from suggested to official?

But in any case, thats not how testing works... they have to submit the numbers for most popular version or separate them as with TCH with XLE.

You can not have some special version, that you dont sell and claim same mpg for all of the model sales.

Nor is anyone doing that... what people are suing about is cars that are optimized for EPA but cant deliver in real life.

 

That's not what I said. I said market it under the "ICON" badge. Ever heard of "Classic Coke"?

The big four Japanese motorcycle makers have been doing this since the 1980's; especially, in the extremely competitive and largest youth segment (600cc) where affordability can be paramount. For example, Kawasaki sold the ZX6 with minor updates for an astounding 13 years straight while bringing out new and improved 600's.

Having said all this, I think motorcycle/automobile markets are vastly different. My OP was just spit balling ideas. :juggle: <---- Is this an appropriate use of this smilie? I've always wanted to use it.

 

The majority of testing is done by the manufacturers, and they can use hand built models for the test. The EPA simply doesn't have the facilities or manpower for testing all but a small amount of available models. So they mostly test some random models to keep the manufacturers honest, but will also do new models with all new drive trains. They will be testing the c.

The case against Honda is a bit more involved than a person not getting the rated mpg. Many were getting it, but their numbers dropped after receiving the software update to keep the battery going for the warranty period.

That is nearly what Honda did. They tested their hybrids with the more aggressive use of the battery. When that aggressive use was determined to be the cause of early battery death, they updated the software. They didn't retest the cars with the updates which left the higher test results as the published ones.

 

lol, you want to go to the 3rd sig fig, but it won't work. Your math is wrong. the prius c 53/46 calculates to 49.603, worse than the prius liftback. Just stick to something real, they thought it was better, they hyped it was better, but it turned out to be the same. All the excuses, pretending that toyota did not set higher expectations, but other car makers are bad, is a little childish. The car looks like its a good car, it doesn't really matter that it doesn't live up to promises, people will choose it if that is the car they want.

Yes, software reduced the mpg after the fact. The question is when the component (battery+software) didn't live up to expectations is honda liable.

 

Also, we should keep in mind that these cars are developed for the global market, not just the US. They had to meet a price point in designing this thing and lowered the price of admission.

I was hoping for a combined of 55mpg and 20k, instead, we get 50mpg and 19k. I personally would have traded the extra 5mpg I wanted for that one thousand dollars.

 

"You wouldn't want it to be faster, cheaper, and more efficient than the liftback."
That is the most ridiculous statement I think I have ever heard! Just exactly why would I NOT want that. Indeed it is EXACTLY what I want!

 

It's correct. 55% city, 45% hwy comes to 49.85

How the heck did you get that number?
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I think Toyota made the right decision here. They could either choose to be a little more expensive than the competitor while being marginally more efficient or be well above the competition in both categories. Pricing it at $20k (or especially $21k) would make make less of an impact against the Insight or 40mpg touting $15-18k competitors.

 

The concept was revealed last January. We were told "more efficient" and "less expensive". There were high expectations from consumers, but targets were never stated by Toyota. So, I'm not sure what promises there could have been.

Upon delivery, both the 10-15 and JC08 estimates are clearly more efficient. EPA isn't much of a difference. For price, there's no contest. It's most definitely less expensive.

Price has been the biggest argument over the years. That magic threshold would now appear to have been exceeded. So just like any other hybrid we've scrutinized over the years, it comes down to actual sales.
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Well, we don't actually know the "real" price yet. We just know it'll start below $19,000 but neither SKS nor cruise control has been mentioned as standard, yet. If they pull the same crap as Honda with the Insight it could be up to $20,800 if you want cruise.

 

Thought not relevant to the "c":
Thanks, Sergiospl, for the info-that's an interesting concept vehicle for those that would want a sedan, and it is good to hear they are making progress on refining the hybrid components, etc.- it may have some "c" parts in it...

 

of course it will have less equipment than Prius, how else are they going to lower the price?
Same as with Corolla and Camry, and Yaris and Corolla. Or Fiesta and Focus. Focus and Fusion. Whatever you like.