When explaining the Prius to people, I always get the most reaction by saying: "It takes 9 gallons to fill the tank and I can go over 400 miles on that". This seems to makes a much stronger impression than saying that I get 47 mpg.
That's true. A manager at Jiffy Lube came over and asked me about the Prius yesterday. He had no clue what I meant by 4.4L/100km (~54mpg) so I told him I'm at 278kms with over half a tank left and I expect 700-750km on this tank. He asked about the size of the tank and after I told him that, he seemed to understand.
Yeah, I was talking to a guy and when I told him 500+ miles per tank, so naturally he asked the size. I said, "11.8 gallons" to which my wife said, "just say 12." I knew the guy understood because he said, "actually, you could probably get another ten miles on the difference."
You and your wife should split the difference. It's actually 11.9 according to the specs on www.prius.com (I double-checked b/c I somehow got it in my silly head that it was 12.9). Sorry for picking nits.
:-D As for picking nits, when I say 500+ on a tank, it's actually more like 500+ on ~10 gallons. I don't have the nads to drive too far after that last bar blinks even though history hsa taught me that there's usually a couple gallons still in the bladder.
