How to pulse and glide on a Prius C

Are you pushing down the fuel pedal just a bit to cancel regen during the glide ?

 

There is your problem. P&G only works below 45 mph in the G3 HSD, 42 mph in G2 HSD. I am not sure exactly where the threshold is for the Prius 'C'

For your route, drive with load (DWL) instead. Clearer explanations than I can provide are available at cleanMPG.com

 

Remember that the C is optimum at lower speeds. My first tank of gas averaged 61 something mpg and I was getting a feel for p&g. It is quite different than my 06 IV but better in many ways for Kauai driving where the max limit is 50 mph.

This week I am ignoring most of the eco screens and just driving it to keep up with the flow of traffic to see what difference it makes.
I agree that we just need to drive for awhile and experiment with various techniques. As a rule, I stay to the right and let the impatient ones pass me and keep my starts and stops as smooth as possible.

 

Is it possible that the c is set up differently than our liftbacks, making P&G more difficult? Only took one out for a short "spin", but I can tell you it did not react the same as our Gen II and III to this technique. The c we drove still managed extremely good MPG.

Would be great to get more input on this subject from long term Prius drivers that have purchased and have some seat time in a c.

 

I don't measure by speed. It depends on the terrain and the traffic. The C has the advantage of two screens.
I keep the eco screen on the top. It gives a green indicator for the eco level or power level.
I set the bottom screen to car and switch back and forth between the two modes on that screen. The one showing the wheels is handy to adjust foot pressure.
At speeds above 42mph, i try to shoot for the indicator that shows the gas engine feeding the wheels and the battery- all energy moving to the right... Or gliding lightly with the charge moving to the battery.
A glance at the upper eco screen will confirm the mode.

Even when accelerating, a minute lift of the toe can change the energy pattern into the desirable pattern.

The least desired pattern is when the battery and the gas are feeding the wheels at the same time. But going up a steep hill, this can't be helped.

When gliding, a minute toelift can also bring the screen to black where there is no drag and no drain on the battery. That is optimum.

 

I definitely feel that the C is set up differently than my 06IV. The C "wants" to stay in EV mode longer and seems to prefer battery ops more than gas.
Also- the C battery does not max out on drag charging as fast as my old car. There is one long hill on the way home that always greened out my battery and kicked out of drag mode. The C has not maxed out the charge for me yet on that same hill.
The lightness of the car may have a lot to do with it too.

The C is also able to stay in EV mode longer than my old car whilst climbing a gentle grade at a slow speed. The last hill to my house made my 06 use gas every time while the C can get me all the way to my driveway in EV at 20 or so mph.

 

That's kinda what I noted on my brief c drive. It decides on EV mode quite a bit more. I'm sure that the weight of the car had a lot to do with it when they were setting up the drivetrain parameters in development.

Love that EV capability up the hill. That's definitely impressive! Great info to learn!

 

I noticed P & G also little difficult on my new Auris HSD. But I have to admit, I havn't drove yet even first gas tank to empty. So there might be little learning curve still. Auris is said that it uses 3rd Gen Prius stuff. Just in different body. So I hope p&g technique tips applies to this car also.

Total ODO meter so far 140km (86miles)
Fuel consumption 4.9l/100km (49mpg) based on car computer

As said above... im going to "just drive it" now, and let's see after few months if p&g is possible with this car. So far car feels so good!

 

The only problem going on here is that P&G isn't for the freeway- the car decelerates too quickly at that speed.

You CAN glide on the freeway if going down a steep enough hill to make it advantageous, just don't pulse/glide over and over. It's not worth it. P&G is for city speeds.

This is another thing that could be more clearly explained if we had one single thread pinned and locked at the top of a forum that went over all of the hypermiling techniques.

 

the car will get alot better milage no need to p&g just lower your highway speeds try to pull away easy and the milage will be there i get 70 in the city staying off the highway and even when i take the county highways 50 to 55 mph i still get around 70 and thats not hypermiling thats just driving easy

 

I noticed that monitoring p&g technics from car dashboard differs slightly compared to Prius on my Auris HSD. Finding arrows.. or better to find "non-arrow" state on graphics is quite narrow on Auris. Better to observe power gauge and find zero spot or slightly above as teached many times on this forum and on Youtube videos.

Currently mpg is 56. And the best result at the moment 71! But that one was quite short trip (few miles)... so 56 is more near the truth. Pulse and glide really helps!

 

o.k. so explain what the heck is pulsing and gliding?

 

Pulse and Glide is a concept handed down to us c newbies by the Prius liftback elders.

You can start here: Anyone have success getting the c into glide mode? | PriusChat

Or you can brace yourself and pick up from: What every newb should know | PriusChat

 

Oh thanks so much! Watched the video. Doing most everything suggested on the video except using the slight accelerator depress and backing off on the downslope; I was just letting off the acc. pedal completely on the downslope. Will try it and see if it works. With the lighter weight of the C as compared to the liftback, I wonder if it will be effective?