Hi there,
Does anyone know if the Prius needs to be warmed up in cold weather? I work from home and most days the only driving I do is to/from my son's day care which is less than 2 minutes away. Is it better to just make the trip cold or is that hard on the car over time? What I did today was drive it there cold, let it run for the 5+ minutes I was inside, then drove it back warm. It just seems a shame that the longest time it is on is when it is in park, but I worry that even that short amount of time will be harmful over time. I would prefer not to run it any longer than necessary.
Thanks for any advice!

Shoot, 2 minutes away, I would just walk or get a bicycle. More time I could spend with the kid too.

But to answer your question, it's not good to never have the car come up to operating term. I won't go into it, but it's best to drive around 30 minutes at least one a month to get all the fluids hot and the oil lubricating. Now on a Prius, if it runs on battery the entire time, then this is not as big of an issue.

No need to warm up your car. Cars today are built to run right from start up.