Based on data gleaned from more than 36,000 Prius owners in its annual survey, Consumer Reports gives Toyota’s best-selling hybrid top scores in terms of reliability and ownership costs. As we noted in January, CR set out to answer questions posed by skeptics by taking a 2002 Prius with 206,000 miles on it and putting it through a battery (get it?) of tests.
After extensive testing, CR‘s numbers show that the first-gen 2002 Prius returned an overall fuel economy of 40.4 miles per gallon, which is virtually identical to the 40.6 mpg that CR recorded when testing a new Prius back in 2001. Likewise, CR found that, with 206,000 miles on the clock, the old Prius’ acceleration numbers had only dropped by a few tenths of a second for both the 0-60 miles per hour dash and the quarter-mile run.
While the tested Prius’ nickel-metal hydride battery pack showed virtually no signs of degradation ten years and 206,000 miles later, CR‘s evaluation says nothing of today’s radically different lithium-ion packs. Still, since we’re a decade on in battery development and the OEMs behind the new batch of plug-in vehicles and hybrids are offering substantial warranties, there’s a good case to be made that the critics might not always bear listening to.
[Source: AOL Autos | Image: IFCAR – C.C. License 2.0]
