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>I don't recall them ever saying something like "Toyota claims it gets 20mpg, but we've worked out it only gets 3mpg on our test track".

They actually kind of did for Toyota Prius here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKTOyiKLARk



The Prius using more fuel than the M3 when driven at the same speed - it's still surprising, even though clearly they hammered the Prius while the M3 was puttering behind slowly. A bit of a ridiculous test.

The other thing they said though does make you pause to think, and I quite liked it: Rather than selling your fuel guzzling vehicle now, it's quite possibly much better for the environment if you keep driving it, but drive it slowly. Making a brand new car has a huge environmental impact, so large that the difference in fuel consumption would take a pretty long time to overcome it. In the case of a Prius it's even more complicated as the batteries are particularly environmentally unfriendly - and there's a lot of those in a Hybrid.


But that was a silly and contrived test, which had absolutely no bearing on the real-world fuel efficiency of the car. If you're choosing a car to drive around a track all day, by all means, avoid the Prius.

I do love Top Gear, though, and Tesla should have known better than to hand their car to them.




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