Prius Takes Mileage Record Previously Set By Dirty Diesels

Trigger warning - This story contains opinions and conjecture. 

Hypermiling has been a thing for many decades. Many vehicle enthusiasts (we estimate the number at around 12) feel that it is super cool to see how many miles per gallon of fuel they can eke out while doing things in traffic that usually earns you the bird from passing drivers.

Volkswagen’s diesel vehicles were the favorite of such enthusiasts a decade ago. That was before the diesels were all pulled off the market, and Volkswagen was fined historically high amounts for "cheating" on emissions. You see, some vehicles in which these records were set (allegedly) might not have been in alignment with the Clean Air Act (slow trombone sound). Models such as the 2012 to 2015 Passat TDI. We can’t fault the drivers who did the roadwork. How could they know? It’s not like journalists were screaming loudly that emissions you can see, smell, and taste aren’t in compliance with EPA regulations. On the contrary, green vehicle publications were giving awards to dirty diesels back in that bygone era. It was all the rage to call a vehicle that used the most polluting fuel available “green.” Well, some reporters were pointing out the downsides of diesels. But our facts were very unpopular. 

Need A History Lesson On Dirty Diesels. Click Here.

What the Prius has done at the hands of an experienced and record-setting hypermiler is to set an average for the entire trip of 93.158 MPG combined. The Prius is available in many forms today, including all-wheel drive and plug-in hybrid-electric versions, but this one was not a plug-in. Those have an MPGe of way over 100 when driven normally. This record was set using one of the hybrid-electric Prius LEs with an official MPG Combined rating of 57. 

Toyota says the previous record was in the mid 70 MPGs range. We are not certain, but we think that record may have been set by the same driver in a VW Passat TDI diesel. 

Congratulations to Toyota for creating a nearly 100 MPG vehicle that can be hypermiler maddeningly slowly in public when starting and then coasted maddeningly slowly towards any possible stops. Of course, driving much more slowly than surrounding traffic on the highway is also a popular, though potentially dangerous, hypermiling technique. 

For a less snarky version of this news, please see Road and Track's reporting here. 
 

Top of page image courtesy of Toyota.

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John Goreham is an experienced New England Motor Press Association member and expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on Linkedin and follow his work at our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John's by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ Grammarly grammar and punctuation software when proofreading.