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.
I’m calculating money I was charged by my electricity company actually during charging hours versus miles I actually drove. (The amount of electricity my house uses at that time of night is small and ignorable.) I’m trusting the milometer, but I think that’s reasonable. It isn’t claiming it’s further to work than my previous car did!
In any case, it was almost five times as expensive on petrol as it is on electricity in my usage, and even if you adjusted the figures slightly it wouldn’t make a difference. And the pure electric car is so much more fun to drive, with so much more oomph than any other car I ever drove. I love it.
I still think it’s weird that you’re not calculating your own gas efficiency. Toyota have a vested interest in you thinking they’re doing a great job of that. I don’t know why you’re trusting their figures for gas but you’re supremely skeptical about their figures for electricity. Why would they be so inconsistently honest with you, and why are you so inconsistently skeptical?
You fucking serious mate?
Toyota figures are confirmed by consumer reports, car and driver, motor trend. Everyone is getting 50mpg even in the cold with the Prius.
The reason I’m not doing it personally is simple: it’s a 50mpg fucking vehicle. I need to drive 200miles to use 4 fucking gallons. That’s a long time to do a silly internet debate.
I’m going to do that eventually. But for fucks sake man, before criticizing my tests how about you think what the fuck I need to do to make effective tests here.
I’ll get a 200mi test done eventually. But not because you told me to do it. I always was planning on doing it but fuck man. You are a piece of shit for pushing this on me.
How about this. You go rent your own fucking car, spend 4 hours driving it and testing it and come back here so that I can shit on your results and tell you how you did it wrongly just because it doesn’t match my biases. Sound fair?
That escalated quickly!
As an outside observer, I was reading these posts calmly and under the impression it was a discussion between the both of you, then i read this comment, and the first line shocked me.
Where did all that rage come from?
Seriously, it was like maybe in the past an electic car slept with your wife.
All they said was they thought you might be biased, and you exploded. And what followed was you screaming at this person to take back what they said about you being biased whilst you insult and swear at them like they had walked into your house on christmas day and pissed on the kids.
Calm down, mate. It’s just a car.