Prius Eco 58 MPG vs Prius 54 MPG - What's the difference?

Are you suggesting I will weight 60 pounds less in the 2 than I do in the 2 Eco? My theory that I weigh the same in each car means the MPG is always better in the Eco, whatever it is.

There are customers who want the cutting edge of MPG and customers who want a car that just acts like a car and want good MPG. Toyota makes models for each.

Toyota, being Toyota, has standards about ride quality. Owners who are not concerned with ride quality have bumped up PSI above the placard for years. (decades)

While the Gen 4 does not interest me, I do hope that similar thinking makes a Gen 2 Prius v that you can option without back seats and tires made for MPG.

 

So based on the reports of one New II ECO owner, the ECO and the Non-ECO have the same tires? So the only difference is slightly less weight and no rear wiper?

 

No, the mileage is different too.

 

I quizzed the salesman as to why the eco gets higher millage, but he could only regurgitate the official line, lack of rear wiper and spare.

I wonder if the eco gets cherry picked or binned inverter parts.

 

your right, its more than just lack of rear wiper,no spare. i think Prius Two Eco inverter are tweaked for efficiency gain that helps gets a bit more mpg than other models.

 

Can any of you document in hint of support for your rumor?
Toyota has been very clear on the differences.

 

I've spent a few minutes looking for the differences, without much success. It's got a higher mpg rating, for some reason. And if it's got regular tires, that's due to: deleted rear wiper?

 

lighter and special windshield.

 

I cannot, but if removing the rear wiper and chucking the spare gets me an extra 7% millage I will do so.

Actually the salesman claimed the Prius has a special sound dampening windshield. I was looking at a model 3 and he was banging on it with the back end of a pen to show me how quite it was. Maybe the eco strips out some of the sound dampening like the fancy windshield. I cannot document this either.

 

solar resistance to reduce solar gain, keeping a/c use lower.

 

here listen to toyota hybrid expert talking to danny...( forward the video to 4:15)

 

there could be more software tweaks like more aggressive EGR or battery use or less powerful ICE over regular prius.

 

They sure could, why wouldn't they have mentioned them when they mentioned lighter glass or battery, no rear wiper or spare, different tires, etc.

 

around 4:20, he says, 'you tie the efficiency gains in the engine and motor, to the efficiency gains of the inverter, and that's how you get 58 mpg in the city with the two eco.'

a bit confusing, don't the other packages get those efficiency gains?

unfortunately, instead of asking, danny changed the subject.

 

Although this guy said "Prius Eco" the inverter efficiency improvements he discussed such as direct mounting to the transaxle without the need for high voltage cabling is actually common to all gen 4 Prius. He did not say there was any efficiency improvement in the inverter that is specific to the Prius Eco model.

Interestingly (I think), the 2016 Volt and Malibu hybrid made the same change where the inverter is now mounted directly to the transaxle instead of being a separate unit that is connected to the transaxle via orange high voltage cables.

 

see my post #134.

 

Windshields are typically made of laminated glass for safety reasons and laminated glass brings acoustic benefits along with it so that is good but perhaps not special. Laminated glass - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I've seen a claim of the Gen 4 windshields having advanced treatments to pass visible light while blocking heat and UV but I believe this was introduced in the 2010 Gen 3 so I'm not sure what this claim is about. Perhaps we will eventually see some thermal and radiation performance specs for the Gen 4 windshields.

 

see pmike's post #37. but now, there is confusion over tyre brand and psi.

 

Well, it may be that the eco model had those special tyres on when they tested it, but they may be in short supply, so they shipped them with the "standard" tyres. Fast and loose with specs.?

 

interesting thought. that would be disappointing, for anyone counting on the 58 mpg.