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Comment by Alex3917 | Hacker News Reader

The problems with the Prius are basically:

  - Terrible in snow and ice
  - No way to defrost your windshield, unless you're already driving
  - Poor rear window visibility

If not for those things it would be great, but unfortunately they've made zero progress on fixing any of the core issues for the last 25 years. The new models definitely do look cooler, and I appreciate that they accelerate faster, but I personally care much more about the stuff that could potentially kill me when I'm driving.

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> - No way to defrost your windshield, unless you're already driving

I have a 2022 Prius Prime, and I am moderately sure with the car on and in park I can press the front window defrost button, and the ICE will turn on and start blowing hot air on the front window.

Also, while parked and plugged in at home, I can use the remote A/C button to start heating the cabin and front windshield while clearing off snow and clearing the driveway, and will be powered from my house. I'm not sure if this also works without being plugged in.

Can confirm, I have a 2017 Prius Prime, I keep it set to prefer all-EV driving, but I just got in and turned on the defroster to melt some frost off the windshield, it switches on the ICE engine. My only complaint is that it is not terribly smart about turning it back off during the same session of driving, if I turn off the defrost. I think in theory the heat pump would be able to provide the heat to do the job, but it'd use the charge in the traction battery up quickly...

It has been my experience that if the ICE engine in the Prius Prime switches on for the first time for any reason, it prefers to remain on for several minutes at a minimum, no matter what. I have a theory for why this happens, but it is purely speculation on my part.

> - Terrible in snow and ice

I don’t know what gave you that idea, unless this is a complaint about FWD vs AWD. They do fine around here in snow and ice.

Snow and ice performance is primarily (by a wide margin) about the tires. Next is the diffs and/or traction control for keeping both wheels moving when one starts slipping.

A Prius on snow tires does about as well as any other common FWD car.

Ours with snow tires does great. Most people probably don't have snow tires though, and they may have tires that perform worse-than-normal like LRR tires or full summer tires.

Snow tires are great on all FWD and are probably way cheaper than buying a new AWD car.

I expect they are referring to the traction control system. On ice, it's really hard to get started moving when it's constantly kicking in. If you're trying to get across one or more lanes of traffic to turn left (driving on right), then you can be in danger of getting hit unless you leave a lot more time to get across.

There's a hidden procedure to disable it. I keep it saved in a note in my phone and have needed to use it one (1) time ever.

- Press Start button twice.

- Push accelerator to the floor twice.

- Push and hold brake pedal and shift into Neutral then release brake pedal.

- Push accelerator to the floor twice.

- Push and hold brake pedal and shift into Park then release brake pedal.

- Push accelerator to the floor twice.

- Start car.

You should see the Traction Control warning light stay on to signal it’s deactivated. It will automatically reactivate when the car is restarted.

If you move the stick Down, R, Up, L, and hit Y, B you get mega turbo

I own a Prius and live in Vermont. It does just fine with snow and ice. As others have pointed out, proper snow tires make a huge difference, way more than any car tech. I also think the newer models have AWD as an option.

To defrost, you can just turn the car on, switch out of EV mode, and turn on the defroster. It works like every other car.

The rear window visibility is not the best. I do agree there.

New prime 2024 has no awd.

Ah I guess it’s just the regular prius? Bummer

> Terrible in snow and ice

New Englander here. I've owned two Priuses (2004 and 2010) and both have been surprisingly able to handle winter weather quite well. Not as good as my Outback, but in light to medium conditions and driven by an experienced winter driver they performed admirably.

The older one made it through a major blizzard in rural road and interstate driving across 4 states, albeit at a reduced rate of speed (45 mph, which drove up the MPG to 52, a record for that car).

We still drive the 2010 model. I'm hoping that Subaru will get its act together on hybrid by the time we have to retire the Prius, but I would definitely get another Toyoya hybrid.

Next Forester Hybrid will get hybrid technology from Toyota:

https://www.motor1.com/news/696979/subaru-forester-hybrid-to...

I own a 2024 Toyota Corolla Hybrid (similar drive train to Prius) and it defrost the window way faster than my previous Volkswagen Passat. Ice and snow handling has been pretty similar here in North Europe compared to my previous car, studded winter tires are the key. Visibility is also quite comprareble.

> Terrible in snow and ice

Are they worse than most front-drive cars? (And what about compared with a Trans Am?)

> No way to defrost your windshield, unless you're already driving

I've wondered about that. The Prius still gets its cabin heating from the ICE?

> Poor rear window visibility

Agree completely.

My experience with a prius in the north east was that it wasn't particularly bad in ice and snow and the few times I got caught in snowstorms it handled about as well as any front wheel drive car. I certainly wouldn't go out into a snowstorm with it if I had the choice, but thats true of almost any non-awd drive. The windshield defrosting situation was also a non issue for me.

Man I miss my prius, I sold it when gas was under $2...

Agreed. I still have a 2008, and it has gotten me through a couple nor'easters. Even with the original Goodyear Integrity tires. One of them was on the rolling hills of I-90 and I-84 through western Massachusetts and Connecticut. On every uphill portion I'd pass people who had gotten stuck, until I finally reached a place to stop for the night and wait out the storm. The front wheel drive seems to make it better than a lot of other cars out there. Put some CrossClimate2 tires on it, and it would be even better.

Cabin heating is done by heat pump but the gas engine kicks on for the front defrost. I don't know what parent is referring to wrt not being able to run defroster.

I haven't found any of the Prius I've owned to be terrible in snow and ice. They are front wheel drive and have traction control and it works fine.

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