Fuel Efficiency Road Test - Prius vs BMW 520D
It’s a known fact that many Prius owners criticise Toyota for tweaking the fuel consumption estimates - real life driving proves it to be larger than claimed.
Therefore, the Sunday Times have decided to make a real road comparison test - Prius was compared with BMW 520d with regenerative braking on a road from London to Geneve (740km long route).
After the open road drive, additional 100km was driven in the city, to give Prius a chance to improve its score on what is supposed to be Prius home ground (city drive).
Final verdict is in favour of conventional efficient dynamic diesel - BMW limo have gone 0,8km more than Prius per litre.
BMW, which weighs tad over 250kg more than Prius, has beaten it’s competitor where it wasn’t supposed to - fuel efficiency!
Gas emission of BMW was only 32g/km higher than Prius’ and final fuel consumption was:
- BMW 5,61l/100km
- Prius 5,87 l/100km
A pro-Prius argument could be that result would be opposite if the test was primarily based on city driving, but the difference surely wouldn’t be too big.
Regardless of everything, a label attached to Prius in US (that it’s the most fuel efficient car in the US), is pretty much shaken after this test.