Is The Prius Losing Its Purpose?

That is something I tend to think about when someone is having trouble getting good mileage out of their Prius. They always say they were easy on the throttle or accelerated slowly BUT how are they braking? The usual tendency is for people to keep accelerating until the very last moment before reaching a stop sign. Instead they should be easing off the throttle WAY before the intended stop. I feel this is even more important than how you accelerate. My girlfriend nearly jolts me forward when she comes to a stop whereas when I stop you cannot feel it. lol

I know most of us know about coasting to a stop but some people do not so I will repeat our little Prius mantra...... Drive like you have no brakes.... Drive like you have no brakes.....Ooooommmmmm

 

Wow, that's too bad. Last time I rented a 2010 Prius, pretty sure it was cold leaving Toyota. Drove 1 mile to gas station, topped up and reset. Went about 6 miles on freeway, pulled into a Lucky's parking lot. It was reading about 48 MPG avg. at that point. Went to another store. By 11 miles total, it was reading a solid 50 MPG avg. After hitting the highway, it climbed up to 58 MPG and never went under 55 MPG average through the next 175 miles. Highway, city and a couple climbs up our steepest hill to CSUEB.

After refilling, it was apparently 59 MPG. The gage was reading about 57 MPG avg. It was just crazy good. I can't imagine any conventional with the same size and weight of Prius averaging half the FE, 28 under the same driving conditions. Maybe a TDI would get 34 under similar, but 55+, that's really good.

Was driving solo, no extra stuff in the car. IIRC, tires were set 39 front/37 psi rear. I'm no hypermiler either, I just take off a little easy and brake easy, do 65 ish MPH on highway.

 

Good point. I see this sometimes. There is a red light ahead, cars already stopped. I'm off the gas. Another car will be maintaining speed coming up to those cars, then jab the brakes.

I just say to myself, hey, it's your gas and brakes .. idiot. Enjoy paying for them.

In Prius, I only want to regen brake, not use fricition brakes if that's possible. Actually, is it?

 

It isn't only a Prius mantra. Over at cleanmpg.com they even have an acronym for it: DWB. Unfortunately some anti-hypermilers assume that it means running stop signs and red lights, which it definitely doesn't.

 

Mmmm, not so much.. Prius is actually somewhere between Civic and Accord in weight

Civic EX-L / nav (nonhybrid) - 2,795
Prius - 3,042
Accord LX / AT - 3,280

I see Prius as somewhere between a compact and true midsize. Wouldn't want 3 adults across the back in a 69" wide car would you? More doable in a 73" wide Accord/Camry.

 

It is possible but I'm not sure many people have the patience for how slow you have to go to actually come to a stop without using the friction brakes. lol

Seriously though. Next time any of you are driving and see a stop sign or light ahead, watch the cars next to you and observe how long they stay on the throttle before lifting to slow down. When I am really trying for max mpg I notice that cars fly by me after I have lifted off the throttle to glide to the stop. I am not going that slow either so it's not like I will cause a traffic issue but you get the idea.

 

To do the best "drive without brakes" on hilly terrain, half the time you are slow and half you are fast. Slow to crawl to red lights. Fast to make it past the green to avoid braking. You crest some hills slowly because you know the descent glide will speed you up and then you go fast again.

To observers it's like you are driving like a maniac. Sometimes racing, sometimes an old lady. Especially people behind you get annoyed.

Otherwise to control your speed you ride hard on the throttle and hard on the brakes. The ascents and descents combined with red lights is a real pain.

The worst is red lights at the bottom of hills.

City driving in very hilly terrain (lots of signals) -- it is very difficult to get 50 mpg, even if net elevation gain is zero.

 

Control your speed with the accelerator, not with the brake pedal.

 

It's best to keep an eye on the rearview mirror and temper your speed fluctuations if traffic is behind you and passing is difficult or impossible. If someone is behind me and doesn't pass when they had an opportunity (not paying attention, jabbering into a phone mashed against their ear), then I go back to whatever I was doing and ignore them. And then sometimes people seem happy to just ride along behind me.

It's equally important to be aware when no one is behind you and to go back to whatever speed variations will work best for the situation.

Sometimes when doing P&G on multilane roads, you can work your pulses and glides into the traffic pattern, pulsing as a knot of cars comes up to you and starting the next glide as they clear you. Then no one will even notice that your speeds are varying.

On two lane secondary roads where passing is impossible or difficult, I just drive the PSL if someone is behind me. Even then some folks get upset because they want to go PSL+10 or more.

And yes it's best to try to control speed with the accelerator (and terrain) rather than the brakes. The idea is to get the right amount of momentum and keep it, adding nudges with the powerplant as needed. Obviously this isn't always possible.

And annoying other traffic is not part of the plan.

 

I sympathize. After more than a year of ownership I still have been unsuccessful at properly training my wife. Long after I see traffic stopping and would have let off the accelerator, she is still on it and brakes. She also tends to accelerate much harder than I do, often going straight from accelerator to brake when I would have long been coasting. In the interests of staying married, I now just sit there and bite my tongue. I take it up over 50 mpg, she brings it back down (sigh). My daughter on the other hand, gets it...

 

We also have both, my 2004 Prius and my consort's 2007 4D Civic. The Prius is noticeably roomier and gets 45 MPG versus her 35 MPG. Of course if one doesn't need the room or doesn't drive much (or if you're all about the stick shift :_> then a Civic can be a sensible solution.

 

My GF is a very frugal sort - to make a living as an artist she has had to be. So she naturally tries to drive economically. I loaned her my Scangauge to use on her Saab wagon, and she was horrified when the iMPG was low, which it will be during accel. She started coasting it in N, minimizing braking, etc. all on her own, I never tried to influence her. Usually I can't influence her on anything anyway! She took to the Prius like a duck to water, immediately at 65mpg on the HSI on her first drive.

But I do think the Prius displays are more complicated than they need to be. An elderly Catholic priest who lives near me in the condo complex replaced his old Camry with a 2011 Prius Three a week ago and asked me for help figuring things out. He thought he was getting 36mpg, but when I looked at the tripmeters (which hadn't been reset delivery because he didn't know about them), they showed 53.5mpg. Not bad!!! Goes back and forth from here to Hartford on a multilane highway, about 40 min each way.

 

Prius c subcompact is coming out with lower price also.

 

I do the same. It's not worth even opening my mouth about it. I did make fun of her last night for accelerating and braking so hard that I was moving forward in my seat against the seat belt; quickly. lol

LUCKY!

 

Overall, yes, very!! But she started suffering "Scangauge withdrawl" when I took mine back to use on the Prius. Complaints about not being able to see how she was doing. So I had to buy her one.

 

My wife has been an excellent convert.

From 100% on/off in the Explorer (damn thing might as well have had a go and stop button) to matching or exceeding me in both the Prius and Fiesta.

We are both sub 50 mpgeer's with our traffic, commute and hills but what an amazing difference. I was always good for about 18 in the explorer and she would get 14 or worse.

 

Was wondering one thing about the touchscreen display avg mpg readout. If I haven't reset it over many tankfulls, does it reflect the avg mpg over those tanks accurately factoring a constant +/- error?

 

Is there a particular reason for asking that here? You have a Gen 2 and are asking in a Gen 3 thread. The OP doesn't have a Gen 2.

Only Gen 3s w/nav even come w/a touchscreen and IIRC, none of the trip computer functionality is available on/mirrored onto the touchscreen on the 3rd gen.

 

I didn't find any definitive answer in the search unlike other forums I am on. I didn't want to start a separate thread about it if it has already been discussed many times. It was a specific question as the trip on the touchscreen resets automatically after every fillup but not the avg mpg.