cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/22892955

The Prius Prime is a dual fuel vehicle, able to run 100% on Electric, or 100% on gasoline, or a computerized blend in-between. This presents me a great opportunity to be able to do a direct comparison with the same car of an EV engine vs an ICE engine.

  • Toyota computer claims 3.2mi-per-kwhr.

  • Kill-a-watt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_A_Watt) claims 2.2mi-per-kwhr.

  • Additional 1.5% losses should be assumed in the wires if you wish. (120V drops down to 118V during charging, meaning 2V of the energy was lost due to the resistance of my home’s wires).

  • Level 1 charger at home (known to be less efficient).

  • Toyota computer claims 53miles-per-gallon (American Gallon).

  • I have not independently verified the gallon usage of my car.

  • 295 miles driven total, sometimes EV, sometimes Gasoline, sometimes both.

  • 30F to 40F (-1C to 4.5C) in my area this past week.

  • Winter-blend fuel.

  • 12.5miles per $electricity-dollar (17.1c / kw-hr home charging costs)

  • 17.1 miles per $gasoline-dollar ($3.10 per gallon last fillup).

If anyone has questions about my tests. The main takeaway is that L1 charging is so low in efficiency that gasoline in my area is cheaper than electricity. Obviously the price of gasoline and electricity varies significantly area-to-area, so feel free to use my numbers to calculate / simulate the costs in your area.

There is also substantial losses of efficiency due to cold weather, that is well acknowledged by the EV community. The Prius Prime (and most other EVs) will turn on a heater to keep the battery conditioned in the winter, spending precious electricity on battery-conditioning rather than miles. Gasoline engines do not have this problem and remain as efficient in the winter.


I originally wrote this post for /c/cars, but I feel like EVs come up often enough here on /c/technology that maybe you all would be interested in my tests as well.

  • davidagain@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    It’s just that you took Toyotas numbers at face value for gas but you’re extremely skeptical about their electric figures, and out of the regular car manufacturers they stuck out to me as one of the most reluctant to go electric, so it seems odd to me that you test one but seem to take the marketing figures for the other as gospel. I think you should at least do a fair test, and genuinely I’m sorry at how cross that makes you, but I don’t think you were at all even handed and I don’t see the need to pretend that you were just because you’re shouting and swearing at me a lot.

    Anyway, I’m not sure me doing an additional four hours of testing will make any difference to my monthly figures. I drive way more than that every week.

    My own numbers were based on actual amounts charged by my energy company and actual amounts charged at the pump vs miles actually driven, and I didn’t see any need to complicate that. I’m paying about a fifth as much for electricity as I did for petrol, but prices for electricity are low overnight here and petrol is taxed more than where you are, I guess.

    You call me a purist, but I only got a pure electric car because I was pursuaded to test drive one and I fell in love with how responsive and fast it was to drive compared with all the other cars I ever drove. I don’t think the prius in particular or hybrids in general have a great reputation for being fun to drive, which is probably why I’m enjoying my car so much more than you seem to be. Certainly I wouldn’t want to go back to driving a sluggish, noisy, thirsty, expensive-to-run gas-powered car that I have to keep taking to a petrol station to fill up again, it’s just so much nicer and less hassle driving pure electric. It’s easily my favourite car ever.

    • dragontamer@lemmy.worldOP
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      13 days ago

      genuinely I’m sorry at how cross that makes you

      which is probably why I’m enjoying my car so much more than you seem to be.

      Yup. As I said before and I’ll say again. Fuck you. You are a fucking child and I’m happy to have called you out on this.

      Grow the fuck up. Don’t pretend to issue apologies when you clearly have no intention on following through. You can’t even get through your apology post before deciding to attack again.

      I’ve dealt with your kind before and I’ll continue to call you out on it.

      But don’t worry. You didn’t fail any expectations of mine. I never expected you to pass this simple test.

      Come back when you actually have evidence to share and more than just insults.

      • davidagain@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        I’ve dealt with your kind before

        People who love driving their pure electric car and live in a country with more expensive gas and cheap overnight electricity than you do? Or people who told you how they feel and made you irrationally angry as a result? People who pointed out that you were a bit one sided on some issue, or people who don’t back down just because you shout and swear at them? People who didn’t intend or want to ruin your day but did anyway because pointing out minor imperfections in your argument makes you mad?

        (pure electric fast and fun vs hybrid)

        which is probably why I’m enjoying my car so much more than you seem to be.

        You can’t even get through your apology post before deciding to attack again.

        I could be wrong, but I think my opinion that pure electric cars are faster and more fun to drive than hybrids counts as an attack in your mind.

        I told you I thought it was strange that you accept Toyotas figures for gas efficiency at face value and are hugely skeptical about their figures for electrical efficiency, and I do think it’s strange. I genuinely didn’t do it to ruin your day, I did it because it seemed one sided. I also genuinely didn’t realise that you would take it so hard, but I’m not in charge of your feelings, and I’m not about to pretend that your test is even handed just because it makes you cross that I pointed out that it isn’t.

        I promise you I didn’t say what I said with the purpose of making you angry, and I genuinely didn’t mean out expect to make you cross, but I think it’s odd that you think I’m unapologetic unless I make statements in support of your viewpoint, almost as if the thing that offends you most is other perspectives. Shouting and swearing at me for pointing something out hasn’t made me think that your experiment and measurements were suddenly unbiased, almost the reverse.

        just insults.

        The only thing I can see in what I wrote that could count as an insult is “inconsistently skeptical” and similar things. But you took Toyotas data as gospel for gas efficiency and got out your home testing kit over their electricity data. Did you think that was consistently skeptical? I think it’s a simple statement of fact, genuinely not intended as the kind of personal insult you’re taking it to be.

        Come back when you actually have evidence to share

        I already said that it used to cost me about five times as much to fill up on petrol a month than it does to charge it. I didn’t do unnecessarily complicated measurements to try to diagnose some problem, I just looked my electricity itemised billing and counted 100% of the electricity I got charged for on the cheap overnight tariff as money I spent on charging my car. I can’t see where you think I’ve done that wrong, but I start to worry that you don’t want my facts, you just want me to say that I was wrong and you’re going to stay angry until I do.

        But the main reason I love my car is how much more fun it is to drive. I don’t think the prius is fun to drive. Pure electric cars, or at least my pure electric car is.

        • dragontamer@lemmy.worldOP
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          13 days ago

          People who didn’t intend or want to ruin your day but did anyway because pointing out minor imperfections in your argument makes you mad?

          You enjoy this and continue to post massive walls of text proving you are enjoying this.

          An honest person doesn’t continue to post here. An honest person would seek to apologize or make amends (if they posted).

          A sane person would have called the mods on me and/or blocked me by now. Your actions though, to continue posting?

          Yeah, gotcha.

          • davidagain@lemmy.world
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            13 days ago

            People who didn’t intend or want to ruin your day but did anyway because pointing out minor imperfections in your argument makes you mad?

            You picked this one? This is the “your kind” you were referring to? You accept that I didn’t intend to ruin your day, but my criticism of your one sided skepticism is the beginning and the end of your problem and your anger?

            You enjoy this and continue to post massive walls of text proving you are enjoying this.

            You also write quite a lot. Are you having more fun than you seem to be?

            A sane person would have called the mods on me and/or blocked me by now. Your actions though, to continue posting?

            I’m not personally cross or angry just because you are. Baffled, yes. Whimpering? Absolutely not. I shrug. It’s weird how cross you got, but not personally upsetting to me, no. I gave up letting angry people dictate my emotions when I was still at school. You seem to think I need some authority figure to fight my verbal battles for me online or to silence you for swearing at me and shouting at me, but I didn’t feel as intimidated as you clearly wanted me to feel.

            I think you should take a moment to reflect if you’re calling someone insane for not reporting your behaviour or blocking you.

            Was it worth it? Did it have the effect you wanted? Did you convince more people or fewer people? Is it how you want to react next time someone disagrees with you online?

            And I also think you need a moment of reflection about whether you made this post to share rational data or whether you’re just living out some kind of persecution fantasy about how EV enthusiasts wronged you. You keep thinking you made some massive gotcha in your data or in my criticism or my lack of upset, but I don’t see that you proved anything except that you found data that confirmed your preconceptions whilst you ignored the possibility that any of the other data might also have had a positive spin put on it.

            An honest person doesn’t continue to post here. An honest person would seek to apologize or make amends (if they posted).

            I already apologised for making you angry, which I didn’t intend. All I intended was to correct an imbalance in your argument. What I didn’t and won’t do is pretend that your all guns blazing skepticism and penny pinching attitude towards Toyotas electric data was in any way matched by your wholesale swallow of their gas efficiency figures. Pretending, just to stop your irrational anger, would be dishonest. I also think it’s dishonest to try and convince me that grey is white with a bunch of shouting and swearing.

            But you sound calmer now, which is good.

            I see no need whatsoever, though, for a retraction of the central point, which is the entirely one sided nature of your skepticism.

            I don’t see your data as the massive gotcha that you do. Of course the manufacturers overstate the efficiency of their vehicles, who would equate marketing data with science? Only you. And only for gas, weirdly.

            If you had asked around, you might have found that people think that the prius is a bit lacklustre in driving performance, not as fuel efficient as claimed, and overpriced for what it is.

            But I didn’t actually buy my pure electric car for the massive running costs savings they’re just a fringe benefit. I bought it because I fell in love with how much fun it was to drive. Zoom zoom!

            • dragontamer@lemmy.worldOP
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              12 days ago

              1200+ words across 6 seperate posts according to MS Word, though I admit I’m not copy/pasting very carefully.

              Look man, under no uncertain terms I’ve stated the following:

              1. I’ve lost trust and faith that you and I could have a reasonable discussion.
              2. I’m willing to insult you directly to make the point#1 crystal clear.

              I’m not sure where you think you can bring this discussion forward from this spot, or what is going on in your brain to think that writing additional walls of text to me is a productive use of your time. And I’m honestly not sure what I can say that is a productive use of my time. And this is what I want, because again, point#1, I’ve lost faith that you and I could possibly hold a reasonable discussion on this matter at the moment.

              Try again in the next topic or next time we talk or something.

              • davidagain@lemmy.world
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                12 days ago

                I’m glad you found more peace with it and you’re less angry now. Can you take at face value that your skepticism was a little one sided now?

                • dragontamer@lemmy.worldOP
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                  12 days ago

                  Holy shit. You seriously don’t get it yet. Okay, lets go back to the basics then.

                  Fuck you. I don’t trust you for this discussion.

                  • davidagain@lemmy.world
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                    12 days ago

                    Swearing at me doesn’t make your figures or methodology less one sided, I’m afraid.