What MPG Does the 2023 Toyota Prius Get in Real-World Driving?
The redesigned 2023 Toyota Prius’ aggressive wedge-shaped styling and higher-output gas-electric hybrid drivetrain gives the hatchback a sportier persona, but even with its greater focus on performance, it hasn’t abandoned its efficiency-focused roots: The 2023 Prius actually gets better EPA combined fuel economy — 57 mpg in front-wheel-drive LE trim — than the 2022 Prius, which is rated as high as 56 mpg combined in L Eco form.
Related: 2023 Toyota Prius Review: Newly Sexy, Still Not Perfect
Other trim levels of the 2023 Prius aren’t quite as efficient, however, including the Limited trim we took on our real-world fuel-economy route. The Limited is rated at an easy-to-remember 52/52/52 mpg city/highway/combined, but while that combined rating is 5 mpg less than the LE’s, it still equals or bests all 2022 Prius variants apart from the L Eco variant — and at the end of our fuel-economy drive, the 2023 Prius Limited had also bested its own EPA rating.
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The Route
Our roughly 200-mile fuel-economy drive route traverses northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, starting and ending at the same gas station in the Chicago suburbs. The route features a mix of high-speed interstates, rural highways and stop-and-go suburban driving, and there’s little in the way of elevation change. On the day of our test, the outside temperature was in the mid- to upper 50s Fahrenheit.
The Results
When we pulled back into the gas station where we had started the drive in the morning, the Prius’ trip computer was showing 196.1 miles traveled and average fuel economy of 55.7 mpg. Normally, we refuel at the same pump used at the start of the drive to minimize variables, but we had to use a different one this time because that pump was out of order at the end of our trip. We refueled by adding 3.445 gallons of gas for a pump-calculated fuel economy of 56.9 mpg. Averaging the trip and pump numbers resulted in real-world fuel economy of 56.3 mpg.
Besides final trip results, we also tracked fuel economy at various intervals during the drive. While the Limited’s EPA fuel economy estimates are 52 mpg regardless of what type of driving you’re doing, we saw trip-computer fuel economy creep up as vehicle speed decreased. That’s not unexpected for a hybrid, as many have city mpg estimates that are higher than their highway ones.
The first leg of the trip was almost all higher-speed interstate driving, and after traveling 45 miles, the Prius’ trip computer fuel economy was 46.8 mpg. The next two legs had a mix of country roads and highway driving, and after 142.1 miles, the cumulative trip-computer fuel economy had jumped to 51.4 mpg.
On the final leg of the trip back to our gas-station starting point, speeds dropped even more as traffic and stoplights increased. The slower speeds were a boon for fuel economy, however, with the Prius’ trip-computer average increasing more than 4 mpg in the final 50 miles or so, reaching a cumulative 55.7 mpg at the end of our drive — well above the Limited’s 52 mpg combined estimate.
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Should You Buy a 2023 Toyota Prius?
The redesigned Prius remains a great way to save money at the pump, and it also offers a more enjoyable driving experience to boot. As new cars go, the Prius is also relatively affordable, with a starting price of $28,545 for a 2023 LE trim level (all prices including destination), so you can also save some money up front in addition to later on with refueling costs (the Limited trim we tested starts at $35,560). The car’s sleek new exterior shape does result in some trade-offs in terms of interior space and outward visibility, but if you can look beyond them (pun intended), there’s a lot to like in the new Prius if you’re in the market for a fuel-sipping hatchback.
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