Winter Non Hybrid vs Prius

My 05 Lexus LS430 gets 24.9 MPG in summer and 23.5 in the winter. Stats:

- Summer tires: Goodyear Eagle on 18" factory wheels (put on by selling dealer)
- Winter tires: Michelin Xice2 on 17" factory wheels
- 80% freeway driving, under 75 MPH
- Only driven on non-slushy days with no predicted snow in the winter
- Shell 93 octane fuel year-round.

 

We have an 11 Rolla, same engine. High of 31 this last summer, and currently getting 24mpg.

Prius gets 52 summer, 43 winter.

Both have studded snow tires

 

It would be intriguing to find out how your discontinued diesel (smaller & dirtier) compares to a new one. Warm up for emissions hits all vehicles especially hard in the winter, but some of it has to do with the fuel itself. The formula for gas changes in the cold season, making it less efficient. I'm not sure how much that happens for diesel.

I remember watching the tachometer on my Taurus. You could clearly see when warm up finished even while crusing on the highway (3 blocks from my house). RPM ran higher until then, obviously consuming more fuel as a result.
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I've had a pretty good taste of many short trips driving on this tank. I'm 400 miles into the tank, so, it's settled in ....

50 to 55 F, no heater use, 37/35 psi, solo driving, many 2 mile ish trips up to a few 7 miles (I need to get out more ) ....

49.5 on gage now.
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The Accord Coupe would have clocked about 25 MPGs at the pump under same conditions.

Any 1.8L compact would be about high 20s to maybe 30 in same conditions.

Betchya money a newer Jetta Sportwagen TDI couldn't beat 38 ish MPG under same conditons. Aren't they rated 33 city?

 

The Prius will always suffer a bigger MPG hit in winter than a standard ICE car. The Prius gets its efficiency from running the ICE only when needed, a standard car is always running but at a slightly less efficient level when cold. The Prius needs to reach and maintain an engine temp of at least 157f to get the full benefits of HSD, and a cold traction battery will discharge faster, requiring the ICE to charge it more frequently. Add in heating the cabin, denser air and slushy roads, I guess MPGs in the 40s is just a burden we have to bear! Still better than 19 year round!

 

and a manual to an automatic gearbox.

The most frugal car I had before the Prius was a 2005, 5 speed manual, Ford Mondeo 2.0 ltr TDCi Diesel.
On my commute to work, which is only 3 miles:
My prius does 58 mpg (UK) in summer and 42 mpg (UK) in winter.
The Mondeo did 44 mpg (UK) in summer and 39 mpg (UK) in winter.
So a bigger percentage hit, in the winter, but still better mpg for the same journey in the Prius.

 

Oh Yes it is. My son has a Jetta TDI and we have dicussed this in detail. Both cars are comparable on mpg depending on circumstances. But as John pointed out, that dirty diesel will never compare with the spotless tailpipe of a Prius :cheer2:

 

My other car is a Jeep TJ. It gets bad mileage in the summer, worse in the winter. If I drive it very, very carefully I can get the mileage over 20 mpg, but normally it's worse.

On the other hand, it gets better mileage than my Prius in really bad winter weather. Once the Prius is stuck its mileage drops to zero.



Tom

 

LOL I just did the first mileage check on my new (to me) 01 Lexus LX (same as Land Cruiser): 13.9 MPG. That 1/2 tank was about 50% highway on regular. Good thing it's not one of my daily drivers.

 

The trick to getting good winter mg on the Prius is grill blocking and starting out with the heater off. Even with a cold engine you can P&G and use the electric, on level or downhill coasts. Then when the engine temp gets about 146 F from uphills or pulsing , its ok the turn the heater on. Couple this with window deicer instead of heater on defrost and you can get into the low 50's with winter driving in New England, even with no garage.

 

I also think it is unfair to make this comparison with U.S.-style MPG. Using Gallonage (see Cwerdna's frequent links), expressed as gallons-per-100-miles, would be be more revealing, especially with much of the population's less than stellar math ability. And expressed in this form, I believe that most of the winter fuel consumption complaints, compared to nonhybrids, would vanish.

The hybrid's winter fuel change can't be proportional to the nonhybrid's change because the cabin heat demand and drag from rainwater and slush on the road are not proportionately reduced when driving the hybrid.

 

I agree with you.

I play with the same numbers when I am trying to decide if I should run my 15" wheels or my 17" wheels. The 15s produce an easy 52mpg ave. whereas the 17s are closer to a 46mpg average. If I just look at MPG numbers it looks bad but when comparing gallons/miles it is a different story and I don't feel so bad about the loss.

 

I have seen a normal drop from 37 mpg in the summer on my 09 Corolla to 32-34 in the winter. On my Previa I see a drop of about 2 mpg in the winter from 20-22 to 18-20 mpg. Similar results on my on my other cars too. Just driving in all of the rain kills the mpg.

 

I rented a 2012 Ford Focus (2.0+6 speed DCT) last December. After 4 days and 140 miles city driving (snow), I got 17MPG (EPA figure is 27MPG). At the same time, my prius did 44MPG.

Hybrid uses more fuel in winter. Non-hybrid uses evern more.

 

Even comparing cars by percentage hit is an incorrect comparison. Let me illustrate, by example.

Toyota Prius goes from 50 mpg (summer) to 45 mpg (winter), a 10% hit.
Regular car goes from 30 mpg (summer) to 27 mpg (winter), a 10% hit. Seems to be the same hit in your pocket book right? Wrong......

Why?

Let's say each car is driven on a 100 mile trip with gas (petrol) at $4.00/gallon.
Going from 50 mpg to 45 mpg will change the cost of that trip from $8.00 to $8.89 ($0.89 more)
Going from 30 mpg to 27 mpg will change the cost of the trip from $13.33 to $14.81 ($1.48 more)

In fact the Prius would have to drop from 50 mpg to about 42.2 mpg (15.6% mpg hit) to give the same $ hit in the pocket book as going from 30 mpg to 27 mpg.

Or put another way a 3 mpg drop in winter in a regular car is worse than a 7 mpg drop in a Prius in terms of cost impact or quantity of fuel impact (same thing really)

BK
Added after initial post:
Or a 2 mpg drop on a truck with 12 mpg (summer) is the same (in terms of fuel wasted) as a 30 mpg drop on a Prius with 60 mpg (summer). Even Consumer Report "experts" don't get it as shown in this article.
New EPA mileage figures

 

True story!