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 get £0.09 /kwh for overnight charging. I spend about a fifth as much on electricity for my car each month than I spent on petrol on my previous car.
Why does your car calculate your petrol efficiency but not your electrical efficiency? Sometimes hybrid cars are sold as being more fuel efficient, so report the fuel efficiency of the gas by including the electricity-fueled miles in when calculator the gas efficiency. (Toyota haven’t historically been terribly enthusiastic about electricity.)
My overall miles per gallon was 85mpg including electricity.
The 53mpg is within other tests (ex: consumer reports), and is within expectations.
On the contrary. I don’t trust Toyotas EV efficiency figure of 3.2mi/kwh because I’m measuring 2.2mi/kwh from the wall.
Are YOU measuring the electrical output from the wall correctly? The cars battery has a figure but it’s after the efficiency losses in the cable, heater and other such figures. My calculation includes all the losses except voltage sag in wires (1.5% estimate)
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.
Yup. Because it’s not honest. It’s clear the discussion is worthless at that point.
If they can’t even hold the pretense of an honest discussion, none of the words after will matter. So might as well get this over with and make it clear that I intend to end the discussion unless they back down from the bias accusations.
Protip: if the other guy in a discussion thinks you are biased, it’s a waste of time to engage in honest discussion. It doesn’t matter if they are a MAGA conspiracy theorist or a fanboy or anything. The discussion goes nowhere and I’m confident it’s a waste of time.
And it’s a waste of time, I need to make it clear in no uncertain terms that I’m ending the discussion ASAP.
If you see my point about bias then I’m happy with the words I’ve selected. It’s made it clear what I’m mad about.
Putting my edit at the top.
You completely changed your response to me so now it looks like i am responding to something you didnt say. I should have quoted i guess.
Anyway, gonna leave the comment i made as some of it is still relevant.
It’s not baseless though is it?
They saw your results and asked for confirmation around the way your car calculates mpg m/kwh. Stating that many manufacturers state the mpg of a hybrid based on the combined milage gained from fuel and battery.
Based on this, he is requesting information around how you calculated your numbers. and asking why you use the company stated range for fuel (which might be fuel and battery but also might not) but use your own battery range measurements.
This in and of itself is a fairly innocent question, and if youbare carrying out tests, then you should be open to criticism or query around your method.
In order to get reliable outputs, you need to make reliable inputs.
None of this is to say you are wrong. You may absolutely have planned these tests perfectly, and the other person may be wrong. But if they are, then prove it. They have made a good point. If you have accounted for the issue they are bringing up, then you should have an answer to dispute them.
Aaaannnyway
This is all irrelevant. My point was only that they asked you a question (again, making a claim that was not “baseless”), and you blew up.
This is how it looks from the outside.
Now if you address their claim then this whole matter is put to bed. But by all means, carry on insulting them.
I suppose its none of my business.
Yes. Apologies for that. I’m thinking plenty of things on this subject.
But rest assured I’m mad and I’m proud to display my anger on this discussion. I can see you are an honest and reasonable outsider so it’s different than the other guy.
I made it clear that to do the test they’re asking for is four fucking hours of test at a minimum.
And then they come back and call me fucking biased. Okay you fucking asshole. You run the test. Don’t complain to me.
The fucking gasoline test is going to take a long time, it’s going to force me off of EV mode for literally days and I’ve actually got busy things this week (wedding, work, etc. etc). I have no time to do a substantial gasoline test anytime soon.
The other asshole hasn’t tested jack shit and is just bullshitting from his keyboard. I owe him, and you, nothing.
I’ve offered my test data on the internet. I don’t have anything else to offer.
As I said before and I’ll say it again: if he wants to spend hours answering this question, and if I get a free stab to call him biased in the new topic he makes, then yes, I’ll change my tune. But we all know he’s just trolling me.
What, you think I have the test data you want or something? That these fuel test results magic themselves out of the air? Someone actually has to take the time and do this test.
Lulz. I owe you and him nothing. I did the tests in the top of the page and I stand by my tests. I don’t owe additional tests (let alone fucking hours of work) to anyone else.
Do you think the temperature stays still? The temperature in my area is back up to 50F today, which if I started the gasoline test it would have negated the results. This shit changes per fuel type and and per temperature.
I think you mean me with the name calling!
Don’t pretend you did a big fair test when you did a small test and quoted manufacturer figures for the other side.
I have a few years of data, not a few hours of data like yours, and filling my fun to drive EV with electricity costs my about a fifth as much as filling my petrol car did each month, with the same commute. My data is based on what the electricity company actually charged me during the cheap tariff hours, not some weird calculation based on some electrical testing kit.
You seem to be ignoring and distrusting data that disagrees with your position and amplifying things that agree with it. I wonder if there’s a word for that kind of selective hearing.
Ok, so you look for other test data, then right? You aren’t the only person with that car who has tested it, surely. You aggregate that data, you work off an average, and if it’s almost or exactly what the manufacturer is claiming, then you are good. If it’s quite different than that claim, then you know the data is unreliable, and therefore, you dont draw conclusions based on that data.
You dont need to do 4 hours of testing yourself. If there is other data out there, you can take an average.
Or actually, maybe you should do 4 hours of testing before submitting your results. Maybe that’s just being thorough. Maybe it’s not actually that long and can be done as a part of your normal driving.
And hang on, you said in your original post that liquid fuel engines dont have the same problem of being affected by weather. So why are you now claiming the temperature changing is going to affect your fuel results?
And just to address this, you are rightz you dont owe me or that person any answers, assuming that we dont make a valid point. You made the claim in the begining based on your testing these are the results, that person disputed your results, based on faulty input, so now you do have to address this and come back with more rigorous testing and results to make a claim that gas is cheaper than electric (in your area)
otherwise, what use is your data? It doesnt help people choose the right car if you cant verify the accuracy of the data and it doesnt say much about the peraon carrying out the tests if they freak out the moment they are challenged on their results.
I am serious about what i am about to say.
Dont respond to me. Come back in a week when you have had long enough away from this. I bet you won’t even be bothered to respond by then. This won’t matter then. That person won’t matter then. You are just angry and are getting worked up.
Most of it.
This is you admitting that you are being dishonest?
You’ve been extending the argument for days. Doesn’t seem to be effective to me.
Not yet you haven’t.
Personally, I think your anger makes you seem much more biased, not less at all.
If it helps, I have an older Prius and I get about 50mpg using the odometer on the car and the gas meter at the pump. It’s not consistent every fill up because it uses a bladder instead of a rank, so this us averaged over multiple fillups. Sometimes I calculate 64, sometimes 45, and sometimes 50 on the nose. My driving patterns are very predictable, going to and from work 2x/week and some shopping.
I’ve had the car for 10 years now and I’ve consistently gotten about 50, sometimes closer to 45 if winter is particularly nasty.
And this is a regular Prius, not a plugin. The numbers are about what Toyota advertises, if not a little better. I only calculate it because I’m curious, and at this point it’s a complete waste of time.
Note that winter-blend fuel has 10% or less energy in it. Summer-blend fuel has the most energy. And then E15 has less energy, depending on the current market of Ethanol vs Gasoline, you’ll get a little bit more or less energy out per gallon of gasoline.
The variance is expected. No two gallons of gasoline is exactly the same, there’s many blends in the USA and the blends change season-to-season, location-to-location, and even as the laws shift (0% Ethanol decades ago, 10% typically today, and a smooth blend up and down from there depending on what the gas stations decide).
I’m sorry for making you cross, but if we can trust Toyota’s figures, why not just quote Toyota’s figures? I still don’t get why your skepticism is so one-sided.
I didn’t mean to give you a bad day, but my petrol costs were soooo much higher than my electricity costs, by a factor of about five, and about 50%-60% of that saving is because overnight electricity is so cheap. Even without that, it’d still be cheaper.
But the main thing about my pure electric car is just the joy of driving. It’s so responsive, fast and smooooth. I love it.
Lulz, No you’re not. Every fucking EV asshole talks the same as you do. You’re probably congratulating yourself for triggering me. Don’t worry, I’m not a dumbass. So I’m making sure I call you out on it.
But seriously dude, it takes a lot of time to do these tests and just blatantly fucking accusing me of bias? And you’re not even taking it back? Fuck you man.
Or do you at least take back your insinuations of bias? I did this test, I’m publishing this here on Lemmy. I’m proud of what I accomplished and will defend it. And your accusations of bias are not going unnoticed. You take it back before I take by my curse words or “triggered” perspective. I get you’re a fanboy but you’re directly insulting my work here.
Best part? I drove 100% electric last week, aside from the gasoline tests. I’m on the pro-EV side and pro-electrification side. But that’s not enough for you fucking purists. I’m doing these tests so that others know how electrification works and have something closer to the honest truth. I’ve already bought the EV, the batteries and am working to have an electrified future.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.