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.