Adding a Garage to the Prius Chat Site

Have any of the site moderators thought about adding a fuel log garage to this site? After all, if this community is about conservation...wouldn't it be a good idea to promote that by tracking, logging and "showing off" our mpg numbers? It's also a great way to see how you're doing vs. other drivers numbers...good for competition and good for conservation to push each other to higher mpg.

I keep fuel logs on several sites (Ecomodder, Fuelly, Green Car Album, My Hybrid Car) and also keep my own log in an excel file. It's a great way to improve mpg and keep up to date on the performance of your car.

Drivers that already keep fuel logs could just enter their lifetime total mileage and consumption numbers so they are up to date and can log tanks from there. New drivers can start a fuel log (which is a great idea anyway) and watch their numbers rise beyond what they thought/expected to get in terms of fuel economy.

Most of the sites I log tanks on have leaderboards that help to push you to get better mpg. Just an idea...but would be great to see on here!

 

Nobody said you had to use the garage and fuel log function if it was on the site...it's just an option for those that are interested.

And...by the way...everyone should be interested in monitoring their mpg as it's crucial to keeping up to date on your vehicles performance and how efficiently you drive.

As for the 1 mpg in my sig...I haven't had to fill up my 2010 yet. Just set up the sig so it was ready when I fill up for the first time. And when I do...it's going to be a whopper! :rockon:

Plenty of room for all types around here RodJo!

 

Bob:

I agree there are some awful examples of fuel logs and the topic is hotly debated on other sites as to what parameters should be included. And just for that reason...only basic information is necessary for the purpose of tracking mpg on this site.

Fill Date, Miles Driven, Gallons Added, MPG, Notes

*The notes section can be a very valuable piece of information to others viewing your fuel log as it tells the story of your tank. City vs. Highway miles, weather, misc info that contributed to a high or low mpg tank...whatever you want to put in there is up to you to help you compare your tanks. You are really only competing against your past results since that's the only constant of all fuel logs/tanks registered on the site (given the wide array of driving conditions that everyone faces...no two commutes are alike and are generally incomparable for true mpg stats).

The more simple it is the better! For those that have a deeper interest in number crunching...there are plenty of excellent examples to create your own excel file or use another site's garage fuel log. PC is not a hypermiling/high mileage site...it's a site for owners of Prius...and because of this just the basics in a fuel log will do.

I would hazard to guess that less than 20% of PriusChat users keep fuel logs of their own...and we're supposed to be the "green crowd" leading the way in conservation.

 

Well there's plenty of fuel log options out there so for those with interest I guess we can use those or our own. If anyone has an excel spreadsheet they use to chart consumption and it has weighted averages for tanks to account for different miles driven in each tank please pass it along!

 

I'm actually looking for an excel spread sheet that already has it built in and will in the end give me a percent offset of HSI mpg vs. Calculated mpg after I have 40+ tanks input (taking into account the weighted averages of each tank).

So a tank that is 400 miles and 50 mpg is weighted against a tank that is 300 miles and 60 mpg. The 400 mile tank is weighted heavier than the 300 mile tank in the grand scheme of things.

 

I was looking at your spreadsheet Tony but didn't see that it weighted tank averages to consider tanks with higher and lower mpg based on higher and lower mileage. I think I may have come up with an excel formula to plug it into my own fuel log.

If you take a look at the my attached fuel log my calculated mpg vs. the weighted mpg is not that far off in 42 tanks with my 2009 Prius but I thought it would be important to see those numbers in case they were WAY off. In 42 tanks with my 2009 my MFD average tank was optimistic by 1.59%...the weighted average figure has the MFD being optimistic by 1.63%...not that far off.

For those that are interested (and are good at math)...if you want to take a look at my fuel log to check my math feel free to do so. I don't have any tanks input for my 2010 yet so the figures are just test figures to make sure my excel spreadsheet was working correctly. The figures for my 2009 Prius are included and are correct.

 

Nerfer...Was just saying I found Tony's spreadsheet to be a good one...but not for what I was trying to do with weighting the average tanks.

The end goal here is to as accurately as possible figure out the deviation between HSI mpg and Cal'd mpg...to keep a more accurate log of my "actual mpg." In my 2009 I had been using 2% as the deviation (which was a little higher than I should have been using but it was a safe number based on my deviation results in the end and was in line with what others were finding based on their data).

I read through Bob Wilson's thread about averaging 200+ PC user tanks and he analyzed with about 5% as the deviation figure for the 2010 Prius (HSI vs. Calc'd). I want to see how my tanks compare to his analysis since his does not take into account weighted tank averages and mine will. I am guessing our deviation numbers will be fairly close because he is very thorough with his data.

 

It's in his sig under "current mileage" link