Yeah the EV mode is primarily meant for moving the car around in your driveway or something like that where you want to avoid a cold-start of the internal combustion engine, and the associated pollution and wear.

Maladjusted

I have a '06 Prius, and I did the mod to force it into EV. Well, it's good for VERY short drives as it will wear the battery down pretty fast. Maybe a mile or so, two tops if you're driving gentle. The problem then, is, the battery for the electric motor is so low that the gas engine has to try to recharge the battery, negating the gains that you got while running in stealth. The EV-mode is good when used properly, but unless you get a larger battery pack installed it's not going to get you much.

AZTriGuy

It's been 10 years already? Shenanigans!

P3nnst8r

awww... how nice. A car that is basically useless turns 10. Its not really "that" great for the environment.

Pepper

@Pepper: Idiot

hn333

@Pepper: I bet you drive a Hummer.

hn333

@Pepper: How is it not "that" great for the environment?

Show me a car available right now for under $30,000 that is better for the environment.

ideaman2020

@P3nnst8r: The Prius first went on sale in Japan in 1997.

They made it available worldwide in 2001.

In February, I will celebrate my 6 year Prius anniversary...

ideaman2020

You sure? I thought these things came out like 6 years ago? Then why haven't they gotten any prettier? Curvier looks and all that?

slingblade

and I think his point was you have all those beautifully wasteful toxic nasty ass nickel acid batteries to worry about after approx. 75,000 miles.

djdare

how about the lupo?

djdare

A VW economy diesel gets much better milage.

barkingart

@djdare: Urban Myth. It's not true. I love how this stuff gets around. Have you researched to see if any of what you said is true? I have. I own the damn thing. It's pretty damn cool even without the gas economy.

whitespider

Wow, you guys are @-holes. Apple lovers you try not to seem, but you DO, and now the prius? There's nothnig wrong with the damn car. If you wanna race then obviously you shouldn't be driving a hybrid. The only problem with this car is it's NOT as fast as alot of cars (but it's still quite fast. I own one), and that the wheels are 15 inches. That's it. It's a technological dream.. and i'm not even talknig about the hybrid part of it! the smart key system, rear view camera, GPS, bluetooth phone.. i feel like bond when I get in mine. Get the H--- out of here with your bias.

whitespider

@Pepper: I suggest you try one before you diss it. We've had a Prius since 2004 and it's saved us a pile of money. And it IS better for the environment than any other similar size vehicle on the US market. Unless ofcourse you drive a VW TDI with biodiesel or something like that.

sorry buddy, you're just wrong

mor10

@barkingart:

Very true.. and it's not slow as shit (a la Prius). Plus you don't have that cloud following you wherever you go...

dap12321

@djdare: There are Prii (plural for Prius, I guess) that have been in service as taxis in New York and Canada with well over 200,000 miles on them, battery packs still running without any problems at all. Take your 75,000-mile comment and do some research.
I have to second the opinion of the other Prius owners here in that I love my car. Sure, it can't beat much off the line, but you know, I'm not really in that much of a hurry anyway :) I have to mention that since I've been not jumping off the line at lights, not feeling that I have to pass the car in front of me, basically driving like a sane person, my blood pressure has gone down 12 points. I'll take my 52mpg lifetime average, once every three-week fillup for $30, and be very, very happy.

AZTriGuy

@dap12321: And, it's not "slow as shit". True, my 0-60 isn't the best, but it isn't the worst out there. And, if you remember, Al Gore's son got pulled doing something like 110mph in his Prius. So, it can go if it has to. I have no trouble accelerating an on-ramp to the highway and getting up to speed before the merge, and I have no trouble keeping up with traffic once I'm on. I think you notice them going slower because people who drive a Prius drive like they have a brain. Slowing down a little saves mileage, so I tend to stick around 65 on the highway. Not because it's the best the car can do, but because there's about a 15% mpg differential between going 65 and going 75.

AZTriGuy

@ideaman2020: come on... do you really wanna make me do this to you? about 50% of the stuff on the European market will do better.

@AZTriGuy: it's slow, there's no getting around that, and it is annoying that prius drivers drive slower to use the electric motor more, even if it does save the earth. About Gore's son, it says on the spec sheet it only does like that much so that thing must have been on the brink of annihilation. He's lucky to have been pulled over

The main complaint i have is that instead of supporting diesel, like we should, toyota decided to market the hybrid which still uses gas, just more efficiently. it's a short term solution.

I am sure that I won't be changing any prius owners' minds, but if you are in the market for a green car, look into biodiesel.

I end on this note: the premium you pay on a prius versus a similarly equipped non-hybrid will take on average 3 years to be worth it.

AznSmith

@AznSmith: polluting less is valuable in itself. Decent people willingly pay a premium to do so. Focusing on the payback to make it "worth it" is a seemingly-reasonable-but-actually-stupid meme that started with lazy automatic journalists, was encouraged by oil companies and carmaker without hybrids, and is now performed by people who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. How long does it take for the premium you pay for bigger engine, metallic paint, leather seats, fancy sound, or big-ass rims to be "worth it"? Hello?!

What's sad is that no carmaker has beaten the Prius for 10 years (the discontinued Honda Insight was a different class of car). Everyone fights in the V8 horsepower war, now Audi and BMW moved their battle to V10s. Meanwhile Prius sits there atop the EPA GreenVehicles list at 48/45 MPG, 10 Greenhouse, 8 Pollution for 10 years!

Diesels get good mileage, but they pollute more according to the EPA site. The European cars that do better than the Prius are tiny tinny low-performance subcompacts.

skierpage

@AznSmith: "it's slow, there's no getting around that"

What do you mean by "it's slow"?

I regularly drive mine at around 75mph. Do you need to go faster than that? Really?

Does anyone really need to go over 100mph?? You should have planned better and left earlier...

Are you saying it's slow to get from 0 to 60? It may not be the fastest in that category, but are there really that many times when this is an important issue??

ideaman2020

@AznSmith: "about 50% of the stuff on the European market will do better."

Yeah, I should have qualified my challenge better.

I meant anything available in the US right now, for under $30K, which has a range of 200 miles or better...

ideaman2020

@djdare: "you have all those beautifully wasteful toxic nasty ass nickel acid batteries to worry about after approx. 75,000 miles."

ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE!

My Prius has over 90,000 miles with no battery replacement or battery issues of any kind...

ideaman2020

@djdare:
Are you just trolling here? Get the facts straight before you post. The battery is covered by Toyota warranty for 10 years or 150K miles in California and a few other states that sell clean fuel. For the other states, the warranty is 8 years or 100K miles. How did you make up that 75K number? Toyota designs the battery to last as long as the life of the car. If your claim is true, Toyota has already bankrupt because almost all the Prius batteries on the road are still under warranty.

pri_them2

@barkingart: I heard that the VW TDI was banned from California until just recently due to emission problem. In comparison, the Prius is classified as a AT-PZEV (Advanced Technology - Partial Zero Emission Vehicle). A milage king is useless when it is not even street legal in some state. A economy car is not necessarily a clean car.

Try to measure the emission per mile travel, then you will find the Prius in a category of its own, just below the pure electric car.

pri_them2

@AznSmith:
If Toyota could do a gasoline-electric hybrid, there is no technical reason why they cannot do a diesel-electic hybrid. But there is an environmental reason not to do it. Diesel is just too dirty to pass California emission standards. Try finding a VW TDI in California, they were banned for their air pollution. I heard that the ban was lifted recently when the clean diesel is more readily available.

pri_them2

@AZTriGuy:
Though the 0-60 time is 10 seconds, it does not mean the Prius lacks the kick. It beats any other car when jumping off the red light. Its electric motor has its full torque at zero rpm. So its 0-10 time probably beats a Ferrari. From 10-60 is another story. I often found myself the first car leaving the pack when the light turns green. I learned to mellow out and use a slow start for the sake of saving gas. Many Prius owners go slow to save gas, not because the car is slow.

If you want to see how fast an electric car can go, read the spec of the Tesla Roadster. Its 0-60 is less than 4 seconds. It can beat a Ferrari easily. The Prius is designed for saving gas, not for racing. But that does not means the hybrid technology is not capable of racing. See Toyota Concept car Volta as an example. [www.toyota.com]

pri_them2

@AznSmith:
Biodiesel is considered green fuel because it is renewable. It does not mean it is clean burning. To reduce air pollution, stay away from diesel.

pri_them2