Toyota Prius Redux

You might have seen the adverts for the "next Toyota Prius", so Disgruntled tried to find out some information about this new model, so that he could compare it as he did before here. From the Toyota website, we find that the fuel efficiency of the next Prius is 72.4 mpg on the combined cycle, an improvement from the previous 65.7 mpg, but still lower than the VW Polo Bluemotion at 74.3 mpg. It also says that the CO2 emissions are "as low as" and "from" 89g/km, but doesn't say under what conditions - one assumes that this is under the best conditions possible, as if it uses more fuel than the VW, then the emissions are most likely to be higher. But I could be wrong here - Toyota need to clarify exactly what they mean. I still stand by my earlier conclusion - buy the VW, it is more fuel efficient and far cheaper.

More on fuel efficiency and emissions

If you think that the answer to the Toyota Prius of VW Polo Bluemotion is an electric vehicle, consider the following figures:-

Electricity source	CO2 emissions (g/km)
Coal	122.07
Oil	85.54
Gas	52.65
Nuclear & Renewable	0

Figures from IET Engineering & Technology magazine, 6th-19th June 2009, pg 22

How green your electric vehicle is will depend very much on the generation source of its power, not taking into account the battery technology used, and if it is Lithium Ion batteries, then it will suffer in the same way as the Toyota Prius. Green cars either need a whole new power source, or a much greener source for the electricity generating stations. Without either of them, then the "green revolution" in motoring will be all hype and no substance.

The Toyota Prius

One thing that does annoy Disgruntled from Bradley Stoke is the Toyota Prius. Don’t get me wrong, it is an impressive technical tour de force and extremely innovative. What really annoys me is what it represents. There are far too many people buying it to make a statement, saying “look at me, I’m environmentally conscious.” But that’s just it – it isn’t.

First of all, let’s consider some technical specifications:

	Ford Focus ECOnetic 1.6 TDCi 5 door manual	Ford Focus Zetec 1.6 5 door manual	Ford Focus Zetec 1.8 door manual	Honda Civic 1.8i VTEC SE 5 door	Toyota Prius T4 Hybrid 1.5 VTTi 5 door	Volkswagen Polo 1.4 TDI Bluemotion 5 door
CO2 Emissions	115 g/km	159 g/km	167 g/km	150 g/km	104 g/km	99 g/km
Fuel consumption urban cycle	50.4 mpg	32.5 mpg	29.7 mpg	33.6 mpg	56.5 mpg	57.6 mpg
Fuel consumption extra urban cycle	78.4 mpg	51.4 mpg	50.4 mpg	55.4 mpg	67.3 mpg	88.3 mpg
Fuel consumption combined cycle	65.7 mpg	42.2 mpg	40.3 mpg	44.8 mpg	65.7 mpg	74.3 mpg
Kerb Weight	1357 kg	1249 kg	1307 kg	1251 kg	1300 kg	1084 kg
List Price (at 22nd June 2009)	-	-	-	-	£18370	£13315

There are six cars to consider here, all of a similar size. You can see than the Prius has very good urban cycle figures, although the VW is better, which means that it is good around towns. Get outside of town though and the Ford Focus diesel becomes better, and the VW is even better. So if you are going to do a lot of out of town driving, the Prius scores relatively badly against a turbo diesel. If you do a lot of town driving, the Prius is not a bad option, but it is not the best – the VW beats it hands down, and is £5000 cheaper!

And this is before you consider the life cycle of the car. The Prius uses Lithium ion batteries, and Lithium is a rare metal which requires an energy intensive process to extract it. The battery cells will not last the lifetime of the car and will need replacing, and the recycling of the cells is also energy intensive. This means that taking into account the whole lifecycle of the car, all of the non-hybrid vehicles in the table above are in fact more environmentally friendly and cause less emission of CO2 and other pollutants. If you are purchasing a Prius, all you are doing is making a fashion statement. If you really wanted to be environmentally friendly when driving a car, you would buy the VW and save yourself five grand in the process.