New PW 16.8 mpg in a traffic jam

wow. I got depressed cause I was driving in the city in mostly stop traffic 2 weeks ago. All of this is with AC going as well. I got back up to 45MPG going home. This weekend I noticed I got back up to 50 mpg.

Still got over 4/5 of tank left I think.

 

what does the temperature gauge have to do with anything? every time i drive the temp gauge reads 110+ degrees here in arizona... and you can see my mileage below.

but yeah that sucks, in the massive traffic jam if you're moving 1 mile an hour then yeah the mileage will suck because you will deplete the battery, the engine will recharge, and you will keep depleting. Keep this pattern up long enough and the mileage will drop. Imagine if you were driving a regular car, the mileage would be more like 5 mpg.

 

Pshaw. My Jeep Cherokee could do that, if it had a tailwind.

 

I've gotten 14.3 going up a steep short hill.
Wish I still lived in Idaho. It would be interesting to see what I would get going up the Lewiston grade--about 9 miles at a pretty constant 6% grade.
And coming down.

 

I have had 0.8mpg displayed on the instantaneous MFD before. I generally get 11mpg to 15mpg going up the mountain to my house. Brings my total average mpg from 60ish driving around town to 48-49 by the time I fill up. When just driving in town I can maintain high fifties to low sixties, but once that mountain comes it sucks...

 

My vague fading memory is of 19 mpg going up, much better than the 13 of my Subaru. I'm overdue for my next trip through.

Full traction battery and high B-mode RPM. A serious waste of gravity assist. The Culdesac grade has a much friendlier downhill slope.

 

At the light just before bottom of hill 3.6 miles from fillup at Lewiston orchards chevron 78 mpg.
from light to top of lewiston hill 9.9 miles 26.3 mpg at 60 mph.

 

I don't have enough patience to get 78mpg with the terrain around here. Areas where pulse and glide can be performed are limited because flat doesn't exist. It seems like it is uphill both directions!

But I don't mind considering another car will get much worse, just wont show you. Actually, I rode in a friends H2 up the same hill (well mountain but we call it hill) and they have an instantaneous MPG reader in the dash as well. I couldn't make out what it said since I was the passenger, but it looked to be completely empty the whole way up, so I am thinking very low single digits...

 

Just spent about a half hour in an interstate traffic jam crawling along, occasionally stopping. I turned off AC for a while and opened the windows, but at about 93, that didn't last too long. Went through a few cycles of ICE on because the battery was too low.
I was pleasantly surprised by how well the Prius performed. There were one- or two-minute periods where the mpg was 25 or a bit less, and then the battery would power the car for a minute or two. I didn't reset the trip odometer, but I didn't lose that much--down from about 51.7 to 51.2 over maybe three to five miles of crawling, where the overall trip is maybe 250 miles so far.

Lot better than I would get in any other car I've had.

Trying to figure out why this result is better than the one austingreen reports. Was yours on city streets austin? Maybe that's part of the reason.

 

Taking a 250mile average from 51.7 to 51.2 (0.5mpg drop) in 3-5 miles means you had just as terrible of an average for that duration

 

Don't be depressed by the low MPG in a traffic jam. Your MPG would likely be much worse in any other ICE automobile. Your fellow jammers would see between 5 and 10 mpg if they had MPG gages.

Even in a traffic jam, your Prius engine will be off for a significant fraction of the time. When it kicks on, it will be running at a better efficiency than most of the cars around you.

 

Since none of my "1 minute" mpgs were much below 25 indicated (-2.5 for the error in my display", and some were at 100 (i.e., creeping in electric), I'm going to guess the jam was closer to 5 or maybe even 6 miles (the jam lasted most of the distance between two exits about 6-7 miles apart), and about 26 mpg as austin suggests. The rest of his explanation makes sense too.

 

Amen to that! Good old Pennsylvania, Appalachian mountains, and that interstate 80 having the east/west lanes split in many areas. So I truly do go uphill both ways. And I thought that my parents were lying to me when they would tell me the walking uphill both ways in the snow barefoot.

Able to squeeze 52-56 mpg (displayed) which translates to 47-51 mpg in real. I'm content with that.

 

MoPac, 183, 360 or 35?

 

Weren't they going to try to turn I80 into a toll road? I think that got shot down though, right?

Either way, I've driven through PA several times using 76, 80, 1/2 & 1/2 with a cut thru via state college/harrisburg. I tend to average mid-upper 40s depending on time of year, cargo, etc. Actually, I went to Philipsburg (outside state college) in December during a slushy, wintry mix day and still got 45. It's uphill heading that direction, and I had the cruise on part of it, heater, etc. I was pretty darn content with that figure given the conditions.

 

Ahh..I've been poisoned by the knowledge of Prius and how a hybrid works.

I feel pretty good about my gas mileage and efficiency in my Honda Fit...as long as I'm moving...but whenever I'm in a traffic jam or drive-thru situation? Bah...I watch my MPG's drop like a rock in a pond and wish I had a Prius...

So no complaining Prius faithful...worst case your still ahead of the game.