It’s in all of our interests to use the least amount of fuel we can, if only because of how much it costs and of course, for every gallon we burn, we chuck out CO2 into the atmosphere.
The best way of doing this is by choosing the most eco-friendly cars you can and I guess on the face of it, there are none more eco-friendly than Toyota’s Prius Hybrid.
Cars like the Prius have become the lifestyle choice with Hollywood stars like DiCaprio & Diaz owning them to demonstrate to the rest of us, just how conscious of our planet they are and just how much more of a healthier lifestyle than us they have. The American Government even refer to the Toyota Prius as “the most fuel efficient car sold in the US”.
To test the theory, The Sunday Times have conducted some back to back tests comparing the Toyota Prius hybrid with a large executive saloon, in this case, a BMW 520D.
They drove both cars over the same journey from London to Geneva, covering around 545 miles.
The results are frankly staggering as the BMW 5 series diesel saloon returned a better fuel consumption than the eco-friendly Toyota prius.
We must say, we are not writing this piece to advocate you all go out and buy a BMW as opposed to a Toyota Prius, as these tests might just as easily have taken place using any number of similar cars to the BMW which all now produce superb fuel economy, but which all on the face of it, look a very long way from being a traditional green choice.
So what were the tests?
The route comprised both motorways and town driving and in fact, was actually almost 100 miles further than it needed to have been, so that more town or urban driving could be incorporated to give the Prius the advantage of running in urban conditions where its petrol-electric drivetrain should show huge benefits compared to the normally powered BMW.
To conserve power, the Prius driver didn’t use the air conditioning, or turn the stereo on either, with the highlight of the journey reported as “coasting down the mountain into Geneva”, where the Prius was able to average 99.99mpg for a full 10 minutes, which was actually was enough to improve the Prius’s overall fuel consumption figure for the entire journey by 2mpg. Whilst it isn’t as fast as the BMW, the Prius is pretty respectable for a hybrid, covering the 0-62mph sprint in 10.9 sec and running up to 106mph top speed.
Both drivers were doing their best to maximise the fuel consumption, although the BMW driver did use his air-conditioning to stay chilled stayed and listened to his favourite vibes on the stereo. The 520d is not startlingly quick, but it’s a lot quicker than the Prius, as it will reach 62mph in 8.3sec, with a claimed top speed of 144mph. The BMW driver reported the car cruised happily at the French Auto-route although he did say he had to reduce his speed, noticing with some satisfaction that the Prius was having trouble keeping up.
The results were that the BMW beat the Prius, by achieving an average of 50.3mpg compared to the Prius which could only muster 48.1mpg.
Why is this significant, well it’s because the Toyota Prius published figures are 65.7mpg and it achieved just 73% of that (in the real world) at just 48.1mpg and for the BMW’s published figures are 55.4mpg, it achieved a massive 91% of that at 50.3mpg.
Effectively, from a published starting figure of over 10mpg less than the Toyota Prius, the BMW, not only turned that 10mpg around, but beat the Toyota by 2mpg and that was (as we said earlier) despite deliberately building in more urban miles to help the Prius produce its best results.
OK, not a massive difference, and I accept the CO2 of the Prius at 104g/km is lower than the 136g/km of the BMW. But who understands these figures? I don’t. Does it mean that the Prius chucks out 104g/km based upon averaging 65.7mpg, because if it does, well its way off the mark, because in this “real world” test, it only made 73% of the target.
We are all right in trying to conserve the planet, but it must come as a bit of a shock when what’s pretty much seen as the “Green Icon” amongst cars can be so convincingly thumped by a large executive saloon.
Perhaps these tests might signal the start of some realism in the car market as both the public and the government realise that normal car manufacturers are making giant leaps forward in engine design and technology resulting in us all being able to drive cleaner and more fuel efficient cars, even if as in the case of the BMW, it might not look like we are.
