Hyper Miler Challenge wrap-up
Participants take Toyota Prius’ miserly fuel economy to another level
‘Passes everything but a gas station.’
We’ve all heard that timeworn crack about high-performance, fuel-hungry cars, but after this summer’s Province Hyper Miler Challenge, when describing the 2017 Toyota Prius we’ll paraphrase that to ‘Passes everything and a gas station.’
Heading into the challenge — which pitted four readers against the Prius’s posted fuel economy rating of 4.5 L/100km over a 61-kilometre road circuit in Metro Vancouver — we knew full well that the Toyota hybrid was a fuel miser. We also expected our ‘hyper milers’ to get close to that Natural Resources Canada rating in real-world driving on a route that included highway driving, stop and go road traffic, and a couple of big uphills and downhills.
What we didn’t expect was for all of them to get under that number, and certainly not to the extent they did. Our top challenger finished with an incredible 3.0, followed by not-too shabby 3.1, 3.3 and 3.6.
To put that in monetary terms, the total fuel cost of each of them, respectively, to travel 61 kilometres at a fuel cost of $1.40/litre was: $2.56, $2.64, $2.81 and $3.07. At the Natural Resources Canada rating of 4.5 L/100km, the Prius would cost $3.84 to travel that distance.
So, our Hyper Miler Challenge winner, Susan Dalip of Port Coquitlam, saved nearly 33 per cent of the projected cost of covering those 61 kilometres simply by paying attention to how she drove and employing basic fuel-saving driving techniques. Techniques, it should be noted, that can be easily translated to driving a hulking SUV and even a supercar.
For comparison’s sake, taking public transit to cover the same route our challenge took — which encompassed two fare zones — would cost either $4.10 or $2.85 depending on time and day. And of course, would take substantially longer than the 90-minutes or so it took our Prius drivers.
Yes, yes, this doesn’t factor in the costs of operating, paying for, or insuring the car, but it does provide some insight into how a hybrid vehicle can save you money.
And how hyper miler techniques can too.