EPA changing its estimate for the Prius WHEN IT SHOULDN'T!

consumeraffairs.com ("the journal of ambulance chasers") is just slightly less reliable than the Weekly World News.

 

EPA is changing rating procedures for ALL cars, not just hybrids or the Prius.

It has been posted that if you do the math in terms of consumption, not mpg, you will see the change is not really much more severe for hybrids on a percentage basis.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(KTPhil @ Jul 15 2007, 05:20 PM) [snapback]479330[/snapback]</div>

I am getting 51+ with mine in combined city and highway hilly driving, and I think that is closer to the EPA estimate than most cars, irregardless if they kept it at 60 or lower it to 45. Some people are bound and determined to spead bad press about the Prius, even when they need to make stuff up.

If you haven't read the story about Prius Taxi going 250,000 miles, be sure to searh our forums and read it. The driver says maintenance costs were substantially less than standard taxis.

 

It seems you're allowing yourself and your emotions to be affected by the "advertised" number, rather than the comparison of what it does against any other car on the market in any given condtion.

Remember, those other cars were also advertised at 28 or 30mpg, but in cold weather in short trips or at the very beginning of a drive they got WAY lower than THEIR "advertised" numbers.

Just because someone says "60" don't get all bunched up when you get 30. The other guys say 28 but in identical circumstances they get 14. On average, overall, they get 20--nowhere near the 28. So? Did you complain about that?

You've lived with this all your life, with every car you've ever owned and/or driven. The difference is, with those cars you expected it--and they didn't have little screens staring at you, displaying that "14mpg" right in your face. You were blissfully ignorant. And when you thought about it, you merely dismissed it as being unimportant.

The same thing goes with the Prius. The laws of physics hold.

 

Y'know -- anyone who hasn't already and is interested in this whole
comparison with EPA and better fuel economy in general should go poke
around CleanMPG and read the "Beating the EPA" article and related.
Once people figure out how to ride the top of the efficiency curves
for a given vehicle, the numbers just start to pop. This is real
life, and in most cases normal, i.e. not freakazoid, driving style.
Check it out.
.
_H*

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(PriusTouring07 @ Jul 15 2007, 07:23 PM) [snapback]479304[/snapback]</div>

You have come to the right site to get the truth about the Prius. The EPA has had a faulty method of MPG testing (one that... belive it or not...., does not involve any driving, or turning the AC on!) Then there is a requirement to inform the buying public by putting these faulty MPG values on ALL car labels. Now the EPA is fixing their test methods, and ALL car MPGs are dropping dramatically to real values. In the article this EPA mistake has somehow become the "Prius's fault". Read it again knowing what you have just learned.

When you look at the EPA "range" for similar vehicles, see what vehicle is at the top of this "range". (Hint: It starts with a "P" and is made by Toyota.) Now you should be turned off by the EPA and not the Prius.

 

I know for myself I consistly get over 50 miles whether in the city or country. But I will also tell you that I d always drive 1 to 3 miles per hour below any postred speed limit. I never "jack rabbit start" and always anticicpate red lights.

 

Are you upset about the advertised EPA estimates for other cars as well, because they are just as far off percentage wise as the Prius? The EPA test does not accurately reflect real world driving conditions. However, it is the only apples-to-apples comparison that we have widely available to us as consumers.

 

The single-most important factor with regard to the MPG that you will get on the Prius is trip length.

It takes 5 minutes to warm up the car -- sometimes longer in colder climates. If all of your car trips are five minutes in length, you will get 30-40 MPG in the Prius, regardless of the year of the Prius. If many of your trips are around 10 minutes in length, you'll be one of the many people in the lower 40s.

I have a 2001 Prius in Austin, Texas. Last summer, I average 53 MPG to and from work, which was 20 miles away. Now I'm working less than one mile away, and I am getting around 35 MPG. I even turned the screen off because seeing 35 MPG after seeing 50+ for over a year is depressing.

The second biggest contributor to MPG rating on the Prius is the usage of the A/C or defogger. The defogger because Toyota knows that seeing out the window is more important than fuel economy, and the A/C because we all know that even small A/C units suck up ridiculous amounts of energy.

So if someone tells you they get 35 or even 45 MPG in a Prius, you know they are doing a lot of short trips in the car. Taking short trips and using the A/C the whole time -- sometimes very necessary in some climates -- they'll get even worse. That's all there is to it. Note that I didn't mention city driving/highway driving, driving slowly, etc., as most people mention in these conversations, because THESE HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. Beyond what I have stated above, the only thing you can do to squeeze out a few more MPG is the pulse and glide techniques (which do work and will add 3-5 MPG for any driver provided the car has warmed up and the AC isn't running).

As for the EPA ratings, unless they have shortened their tests to under 5-10 minutes long and/or have started running the A/C or defogger during the tests, the Prius will still rate higher than what most Prius owners get.

Since the MPG is related to trip length, a lower MPG is not a show-stopper on the Prius. You're still using less gas than with other cars, and of course a lot of short trips at 40 MPG will still save more gas and mean filling up less often than someone who is driving their Prius long enough each day to average over 50 MPG.

 

I think the point that most of you miss in this discussion is that the Prius is one of the few cars that people buy solely because of the mileage (yes, I know some buy it for the low emissions). I doubt anyone who buys a Hummer, or a Navigator, or a Suburban, etc. could care less whether it gets the EPA mileage or not. People who buy a Prius do. Those cars also don't usually sit on the dealers' lots with "60MPG" written in foot-tall letters on the front windshield.
I think the revised EPA estimates will help sell the Prius once people realize it is still the undisputed mileage champion of new cars, and won't have the stigma of "not getting 60 MPG".

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(PriusTouring07 @ Jul 15 2007, 05:23 PM) [snapback]479304[/snapback]</div>

The new EPA rating is 46 MPG combined which is easy to get with conservative driving habits. I'd say it would be nearly impossible to get 30 MPG. The lowest I ever got (in cold weather) was 42 MPG. Half of my tanks have been at 55 MPG when trying hard for mileage.

The thing about worrying about the discrepancy and adverse weather conditions affecting mileage is that the same is true of all vehicles. You're still going to get about twice the mileage of a normal car in similar conditions and triple the mileage of some SUV's/trucks.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(PriusTouring07 @ Jul 15 2007, 10:04 PM) [snapback]479461[/snapback]</div>

Hmm. So then, uh, this must be a photoshop. Shaaaame.
http://priuschat.com/Working-towards-1000-...ank-t33788.html

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(PriusTouring07 @ Jul 15 2007, 10:04 PM) [snapback]479461[/snapback]</div>

uh... 75 cents in California buys you about 6 kWh of electrical energy. I do not have hard numbers on energy usage, but the Wikipedia article on "battery electric vehicle" suggests that you get 5 miles a kWh, which means 30 miles. And then I don't think I've *ever* seen the battery last that long.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Boulder Bum @ Jul 15 2007, 11:59 PM) [snapback]479460[/snapback]</div>

Try moving to some place that's hilly that gets lots of snow in the winter. You'll see 35 MPG in the winter months.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Jul 15 2007, 11:58 PM) [snapback]479492[/snapback]</div>

Stev0, I'm presuming you live in such conditions? If so, what's the lowest MPG reading you've experienced, and can you further describe just how hilly and snowy the place you live is?

I believe you and everything, I'm just curious to see how low the mileage can possibly get and what conditions the car was under when acheiving the low.

 

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