2012 Toyota Prius c Review - The Affordable 60 MPG* Monster

Euro cycle numbers are not out yet. Expect them to be for the Yaris h which is sold in Europe, rather than the 'c'.

As for EPA estimates, all the 40 mpg sub-compact claims call for a shakedown. Either EPA has to start testing themselves or have some independent organisation do it.

 

I have read many reviews of the car. Many of them are saying it is faster than the official 11.5 secs for 0-60. The MPG they are getting is better than 50. The lowest was 46 after flocking it like no tomorrow. I sense a lot of Easter eggs hidden in this car. Can't wait to find out the average real world MPG.

 

so far TME has said "less than 80g CO2/100km" for Yaris Hybrid.... lowest Prius is 89g.

 

Thank you for the fine review. Qestions come to mind that you might be able to address:

• The apparent failure of a 500 lb weight advantage to produce fuel economy benefit over Gen 3 is perplexing. Is any part of that some artifact of how CAFE is measured? Might intelligent driving squeeze more mpgs from the C than from the Gen 3 nevertheless?
• I have always looked askance at the twist-beam rear suspension in Prii. C appears to have a very rudimentary rear suspension, with shallow springs. How much poorer are the driving qualities from Civic or Focus?
• How is the FM radio reception? Does the chronic poor reception of earlier Prii (perhaps due to electrical interference) persist in C? (C's electrical components might be different from Gen 3 in this respect.)

 

i still dont understand how do you think it works .

Major requirement for every car is to get as best official numbers as possible. So you bet they test against it. They can tweak it for specific situation only, but that might bring real numbers down for real life. You can see for instance not only Cruze or Elantra, but also hybrids - Camry Hybrid vs Fusion vs Sonata... numbers show vast difference in EPA cycle, but not in real life.

What Dan says mirrors my own real life experience with small vs large engines. In real life, unless you are going steady at significant speeds, you will find a lot better numbers in smaller engine compared to bigger one.

So it was quite reasonable to expect that Prius c will get better real life results than Prius G3, and it does, no matter what some strict lab tests say.

 

Look like the mpg in the Prius C may be better than the EPA rating.

Reminds me of when I bought a brand new Jetta Gl 4dr Turbo Diesel, 5-spd manual in 1985-86, it had a rating I believe of 42 mpg or so.

I never got less than 50 mpg and sometimes near 60 mpg. I replaced
it with my 1977 VW Rabbit 4 speed non turbo diesel, and the Jetta got better mpg's and had better performance than the Rabbit.
Of course the Rabbit was also smaller and weighed less. go figure....

alfon

 

I was thinking that the 3 mpg advantage could be mostly explained by the skinny tyres.

I am *so* looking forward to taking a long test drive in this car. I have not completely given up on 80+ MPG in fair weather on a warm engine -- although that of course would be quite a gamed number since most driving will be in the city, and warm-up a common barrier to really high MPG.

 

Nice review. But, I just cannot let this go by without commenting:

I'm sorry, but in exactly what universe is the subcompact market priced like that?

 

do not know, but you'd see incredible sticker shock if you ever looked at Singaporean car prices partly (?) due to their Certificate of Entitlement...

I can't find Yaris prices there (currently blank) but the Vios at Toyota - looks like a Yaris and the cheapest one I see is 95988 Singapore dollars = 76447.9148 US dollars.

A Prius there is 161988 Singapore dollars = 129012.4268 US dollars.

 

Hah... in addition, the Prius c is priced at 103K Malaysian Ringgit = USD 34K, whereas a Honda Jazz is priced at 110K = USD 36K! A Prius c makes A LOT of sense in those market!

I have been verbally selling the Prius c to my Singaporean mates and mostly consider the car to be quite cheap for the excellent advertised mileage. It's going to sell like hot cakes there... we just hope Toyota Australia price the c reasonably.

 

if you read the review, didnt you notice Danny writing about easy 60 mpg without trying and hypermiling?

With all the hoopla in the media about Elantra & Co not getting 40 mpg as advertised, i think Prius c will get a lot of good press for getting more mpg than advertised.


p.s. One of the mags got their testing equipment and tested 0-60 in 10.6s, on slight incline.. so Toyota might be downrating it a bit to not cannibalize G3 sales.

 

Good review. Thanks for the info.

Longer cars often have better Cd, so it is not surprising that the highway mpg would be impacted in the PRIUS C. As speed rises the impact of the weight difference becomes significantly less important. The ability to recover energy in a Hybrid would further narrow the weight impact but the aerodynamic impact is still there.

 

it's my first post here and I have a lot of fun reading the excitement around the launch of the Prius c, the cousin of the Yaris Hybrid we will see next month at the Geneva Show and be able to order in June. I live in Germany, at the French Border where I work. Driving in Germany is quite different from the one in the USA and HSD is not very popular here, people being very speed- and HP-fixed. PriusChat is my best source for information on cars with HSD-PSD drive trains.

I just learned that the Yaris Hybrid is officially indicated at 69.18 mpg (USA) or 3.4 l/100 km. This tends to confirm the EPA system is tough on the Prius c. It is 2 inches higher and 4 inches shorter, so it is likely the Prius c would do even better.

Did you know the European Yaris is built in the North of France and the Auris Hybrid in the UK? The HSD drive train is imported from Japan, though. So, Toyota CAN assemble hybrids elsewhere.

It also has an acoustic-laminate glass wind-shield which I did not see mentioned in the press release. I wonder whether this has an impact on noise dampening.

In the review by Peter Nunn at Inside Line I read that "only when you floor it does the planetary-type continuously variable transmission protest and deliver that wearying slipping-clutch feel endemic to CVTs" and in a Dutch (my mother tongue) brief drive report of the Yaris Hybrid, I read that the response of the HSD system is more direct, with less slipping then in the Prius Hatchback.

@Danny: How did the Prius c compare to other cars (Prius Hatchback and segment B cars) with regard to noise (wind, road) suppression? And did you notice differences with respect to the so-called slipping-clutch feel?

Jan

 

Is the mpg imperial gallons ?

If so US mpg is 69.18/1.2 = 57.6

Addendum: the 69.18 is US gallons. Cool

 

The Honda Insight is short, but managed to excel in highway mileage to absurd levels that we probably won't see again for a while, if ever again for gasoline powered car.

 

No Mpg (US) I use a nice calculator -converter indicating so, but I am not allowed yet to post URLs.

Jan

 

OK, got it. Singapore.