The best thing you can do to Prius Prime or all PHEV is short trips and charge every time.
If you dont charge it, you are just carrying useless batteries which is worse than normal Prius.
I suppose you didnt drive all the 1000km in 1 day no?
I am not familiar with the places you named.
In my opinion, hybrid and electric are not ideal for long highway trips.
You can clearly feel the batteries and motors are dragging down the engine at high speeds.
I believe the clutched system of Honda is trying to solve this.
Btw regarding the Prius Prime test report, study(s) have shown that if a person is not plugging in his Prius Prime he is not only losing money, but also emitting harmful exhaust fumes into the environment.
So if someone is using PP or any similar vehicles, please make sure you charge it. https://insideevs.com/news/63034 ... g-plugged-in-study/
So I have 1 short trip, 1 medium trip, 1 long trip shared.
I pay a lot of attention to fuel economy so my numbers are usually 50% better than normal person.
I think your observations are based on older gen Toyotas.
Camry would fire up engine immediately to warm up. The NiMH battery takes long time to recharge and drive up to 70km/h for ~2km range only.
Corolla do not start engine at all if GPS says the battery is enough for trip. The Li battery only need 1 minute to charge and can drive the car up to 110km/h for ~20+km.
If not enough, then it would fire up to charge battery as it calculate best point to do so.
Besides, you can bypass the engine heat for AC.
P.S.: There are 2 versions of Prius batteries.
They give very different fuel econ numbers in real world.