Prius Prime (PPPXP) 10,000 mile road trip report

INTRODUCTION/OVERVIEW

(I like alliteration, so PPPXP is for Pretty Prius Prime, XSE Premium). Yea, now it is now the Prius PHEV so PPHEVXP doesn't ring as nice)

This is new observations compared to 5200 mile road trip report from 2023 (Prius Prime 5200+ Mile Road Trip notes | PriusChat), noting new observations only.

The trip itself was the last of a series where we visited someone or something in every US state and Canadian province you can get to by car. Basically all except Hawaii and Nunavut. We drove from Denver to Winnipeg, back to Michigan, then back into Canada to Saint John’s in Newfoundland/Labrador, then back through the northeast states. We had intended to go back to Denver from there but got a late invitation to a graduation in Del Rio Texas, so took a bit of a detour on the way home!

Spoiler alert, the car did great. At 20K miles before the trip start, for me this is the “honeymoon period” after the first 10K miles where you worry about any build issues and aren’t yet worried about anything wearing out or breaking which should hopefully be at least 100K-150K miles.

 

EFFICIENCY AND CHARGING:

Since we were driving multi-hundreds of miles a day, the trip was mostly using fuel. I’m very OK with that and it is the reason I got the Prime, electricity for around town and fuel for road trips. I mostly max out at 68MPH even if the posted speed limit is higher and was comfortably getting in the upper 40s and occasionally low 50s for MPGs on an entire tank of gas. We had a hard deadline on the way to Texas (bad to be driving near the US/Mexico border after dark) so we drove the posted 80MPH for an entire day and I was pleasantly surprised to get 42MPG on that tank.

The ability to charge on a road trip remains problematic. The only practical charging is obviously overnight. Of the 20-ish hotels, only two offered level 2 charging, one free, one paid. The hotel in Winnipeg had heater plugs at most parking spots, and although the front desk staff said it was OK to try, no luck getting any charge. The outlet lights were on, but I got weird blinking when I plugged in, so suspect there was a current limit. I even tried the cars 8A setting to no avail. I had better luck at public places where charging not only worked but was free. Just not very many of them. One hotel let us use a 120V outlet. All in all, we got four full and two partial charges the entire trip.

For the one hotel that charged for a charge, the posted rate was $0.50/KWh which is the high side of normal, but with fees ended up being about $0.80. Doing the math later I realized that in terms of dollars per mile, that was more expensive than local gas prices!

 

DRIVER WORKLOAD:

For the 5,200 mile trip I was still very much getting used to the car. The driver assistance stuff—especially compared to my Gen1 Prius—was great, but I was still getting used to it. Now that I’ve had the car 1.5 years, I know which beeps matter and which don’t and in general “trust” the car more. I’m the primary driver and my wife takes over when I need a break. For this entire trip I only needed a break once, the cars features (mentioned in great detail in my 6,800 mile trip report) really make long road trips that easy. Physical comfort is still great too.

 

WEIRDNESSES:

There was only one very weird thing: on some random interstate in Michigan the cruise control suddenly disengaged and wouldn’t re-start. I tried a few times both just telling it to restart as well as turning it off and back on again. No luck. I just kept on driving and tried again 5 minutes later and all was good again. Nothing about the road or markings or traffic seemed unusual and it was dry weather. No idea why it got grumpy or got happy a few minutes later. The message was the useless “… unavailable, consult user manual”, not that practical while driving down the interstate. My only wild guess was maybe a leaf or something temporarily got stuck in front of the radar???

More an annoyance over a weirdness though, it looks like the trip odometers roll over at 10,000 miles. I like to set an odometer at the start of a trip and take a picture of it at the end. Alas when I got home, the trip odometer showed 147 miles! I spent a few days thinking I accidentally reset it on the last day before realizing that what probably happened was it just rolled over at 10,000. I looked back 147 miles from getting home and the odds of resetting it at a random place on an interstate were really low.

On this trip I finally disabled the “check rear seat” alarm that beeped every time you exit the car! It was at the point where the alarm was going off almost always given we used the back seat for stuff. I’d have to go look at the display each time to make sure it was that alarm and not something legit. I’m not missing it and I promised I’d turn it back on if we ever have kids in the back seat. A month later it seems to have re-enabled itself.

After nearly a month of driving in hybrid mode and enjoying all 220HP when it was useful (and yea, when it wasn’t as well), it was hard going back to just-electric mode back at home. It is easy to get spoiled. There is some serious pep in hybrid mode! Again, my reference for 20 years was a Gen1 Prius.

 

CARGO STORAGE:

For this trip it was just my wife and I. We packed quite a bit given it was a month long trip, but certainly for two people there was plenty of storage. The very back was for luggage and we used the back seat for food and any sundries that might be useful while driving. So, two people with luggage: easy, three: iffy, and no way for four.

 

MISC:

The 120V outlet finally got a lot of use for my wife’s laptop. She had a lot more to do this trip than last time, so the outlet has been promoted from “seemed cool, but not used” to being a genuinely useful accessory.

Spare tire anxiety: No issues on the trip, but I still worry. I really should get a spare just to feel better. Yes, it would take up a lot of room too, but I know an unfixable flat would likely cost a day or two if in a remote-ish place chasing down a right-sized replacement given it is still a very rare tire.