this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2024

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Efficiency test of my 2024 Prius Prime: Gasoline vs Electricity in my first week. (self.realtesla)

submitted 1 week ago by dragontamer to c/realtesla

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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.

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[–] mortalic 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Tbf, it will eventually start burning the gas. With other similar cars it's after about a month. It's not actually cabaple of running 100% electric in perpetuity.

Additionally your car running in electric still has a lot of dead weight. The gasoline, the engine, the gear box, the muffler, catalytic converters, oil, etc.... A similar sized ev would be quite a bit more efficient. It's why you hear people say don't go hybrid. Go 100% ev or 100% gas.

And that doesn't even touch on the packaging advantages of not going hybrid.

Still though, interesting information, thanks for sharing.

Edit, just thought of another disadvantage of hybrid, once you are on the freeway, those tiny hybrid batteries are useless. They are now the dead weight. And As a result, your engine has to work harder to overcome them.

[–] dragontamer 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Additionally your car running in electric still has a lot of dead weight. The gasoline, the engine, the gear box, the muffler, catalytic converters, oil, etc… A similar sized ev would be quite a bit more efficient. It’s why you hear people say don’t go hybrid. Go 100% ev or 100% gas.

Why is my Prius Prime 500lbs to 1000lbs lighter than every EV?

Evs have more dead weight, by nature of literally weighing more.

Everyone driving a Tesla knows that 2.1mi/kw-hr is the expected figure for winter driving btw. I've verified these numbers with winter driving of other EVs. It's the EV community who is lying to us and hiding this crap winter performance in the marketing materials.

Factor in the damn heater that is on the battery pack. Heating the battery just to be able to drive is a HUGE source of inefficiency, one the ICE is immune to. I can't believe I was blind to it all these years because EV fanboys were so convincing online.

But it's okay. There are other reasons to go EV. But don't give me this copium. The figures match everyone else's tests. EVa have a 30% range drop (and therefore 30% efficiency drop) in the winter.

The dumbass part is EV fans ignoring the consequences of that on your miles-per-dollar.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Your Prius is almost the same wright as a bolt EUV. You must be comparing it to electric SUVs. Anyways, my solterra was about 19Kw/100km, or less than $4/100km. Not sure the mental gymnastics you're doing with math there. Dollars per mile is all that matters. What does it cost you to drive your Prius 100km?

[–] dragontamer 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

My coworkers Bolt EUV is getting the same figures as me.

It's winter my man. Winters fuck your EV efficiency argument by significant margins.

In either case, the Bolt being less long but heavier than the Prius is my point. All those batteries weigh a fuck ton. It's an embarrassment for a smaller vehicle like that to weigh more than the Prius Prime.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

It really doesn't. My EV range was cut in half at -36, but I never had to exceed that range anyways. Thay means I was ~$8 per 100km. Gas does lose lots of range in cold too, but you probably don't pay a ton of attention because gas stations are everywhere. The suv it replaced was closer to $17/100km at the best of times as it took premium.

[–] dragontamer 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Half range means half efficiency my man.

Aka: your electricity costs per mile just doubled at low temperatures.

Gas does lose lots of range in cold too,

The 53mpg measurement above was at freezing temperatures, conducted the test just a few hours before this post.

I did both measurements at a 30F / -1C week for temperatures.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

At -1 my range loss was only like 15-20%. Again, this replaced an SUV that cost like $17/100km.

[–] dragontamer 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

At -1 my range loss was only like 15-20%.

Measured from the wall or your car's computer?

Because my L1 charger is clearly loosing a lot of electricity here in the winter. I'm pretty sure its the battery-heater that's using much a substantial amount of power and losing efficiency.

To get 11kWh into the battery, I needed over 13.5kWh (2.5kw-hr of losses between the wall and the battery). I expect the 15% to 20% loss to only be the "running battery during winter" penalty, but you're missing the 2nd ping when the heater must turn on for the battery during charging at night.

Note that I have an inefficient L1 charger and I do plan to upgrade to L2 eventually. (3 hours of heater instead of 10-hours of heater overnight will clearly improve my charging efficiency, but then I lose the ability to measure the energy at the wall).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

So how much does it cost to drive your Prius 100km?

[–] dragontamer 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

$4.50 in electricity, or $3.63 in gasoline.

Which is a bit surprising to me. All the pro-EV people were making it sound like EVs were way cheaper...

EDIT: Today it is 50F in my area and the Electric costs have dropped down significantly. I'm estimating about $3.20 in electricity costs when the temperature is 50F.

100km in 0C is $4.50 in electricity

100km in 10C is $3.20 in electricity. Holy shit, it's a huge difference.

[–] mortalic 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Your missing my point, the prime would be even lighter if it wasn't a hybrid. What exactly do those batteries and motor do on a 600 mile road trip? Nothing. Weigh you down.

As for charging ev's you can't solar power fill your gas tank.

Listen, it's easy to get caught up in anti ev or anti gas sentiment. Don't be that person.

[–] dragontamer 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

My Prius Prime got 53mpg last night. I'm very happy with the gasoline efficiency.

The batteries are used for Regen breaking at stop lights btw. Which is a huge portion of the efficiency of the Prius. It wouldn't have gotten 53mpg combined highway + city driving (I had lots of Christmas shopping last night....) unless the motor was there for Regen braking and the battery was there to absorb the charge at every stop light.