is a Prius for me?

[jasons76]

hi I currently drive a seat exeo 2.0 tdi, and I have a commute of about 25 miles to work everyday and I currently get about 48mpg and about 500 miles to a tank on a mixture of A roads and town driving for the last 3 miles of my journey.i am concerned about the value of my car plummeting due to the recent bad press on diesels so I was thinking of an alternative and am looking at a Gen 3 Prius I was just wondering if I would see an improvement on my figures and is it a suitable car for my needs, my current car is an estate but there are only me and my wife and 9yr old daughter and a small dog occasionally we get a big item are they a practical car for a family any feedback is much appreciated.

[Anthony Poli]

I would say, take a test drive in a hybrid first. Just to see how it feels.

The economy should be better than what you get now, your driving style will make a difference.

 

 

 

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[kithmo]

Comparing real world mpg figures on fuelly.com the Gen 3 Prius gets around 56 mpg and the Seat exeo 2.0 tdi gets around 37 mpg, so if you're getting 48 mpg from yours you must be driving it economically so applying the same style of driving to the Prius I reckon you should achieve around 72 mpg. The Gen 3 is a good sized family car with plenty of rear head and leg room, the only difference to an estate is the slope of the hatch might not let you get the bigger items in if they are tall as well.

Then there's the Prius+ which is the estate version of the Prius, does between 5-10 mpg less than the Gen 3 hatch and costs around £5K more for the same age car. It has 7 seats, last two rows can be folded down flat (but can't be removed like some mpvs) which makes it like a van in terms of space, ideal for moving large items. The second row of (3) seats can be slid back and forth and reclined and the rear hatch is vertical so you have a higher rear roof line for large objects.

[johalareewi]

Loads of room for small dogs in the back of a gen3 prius. We used to get 2 small dogs and luggage (secured of course) and 3 people in ours.  For large objects, getting it in through the rear hatch could be an issue so you might need to hire a van (from B&Q say) for a few hours.

If your commute is 25 miles and you park your car on the drive or in a garage at home, you could also look at a second hand plugin prius (the gen3 shape one).

Charging it up overnight (maximum of  3 units of electricity) you can leave home with a full HV Battery and get a good 90+ mpg.  You can use a standard mains socket for charging or there are companies that offer a free (or discounted) EV charge point installed at your home (can be outside).  My commute is 20 miles each way and during the winter (the worst time for hybrid mpg) I was getting 80+ mpg (the gen3 prius got 53mpg in winter).  Now it is summer the mpg is closer to 100.

On longer trips, the plugin is more like the hybrid prius and can easily achieve 70mpg.