Prius Mileage - How Good Is It?

Posted on June 16, 2008 at 10:04 a.m. by Jill.

The kids are out of school, cherries are in season and my hybrid Toyota is getting better mileage. It must be summer

It's rare that I fill the tank of the Prius without someone coming up to me and asking what kind of mileage I get. Often they're contemplating the purchase of one themselves.

The truth is, the Prius is good but not world changing. In the winter, it gets between 38 to 42 miles per gallon. In the summer, its between 48 and 52 miles per gallon.

This is excellent for a full-sized car. (It easily fits our family of four plus a friend.) But I did once read an estimate of all the gasoline that's been saved by all the Prius drivers taken together since the car was launched and compared that with the amount of fuel the U.S. uses in a day, and let's just say, that equation was comparison was rather deflating.