Yep, warm weather is here too, at least some of the time. My Lexus CTh is used mostly for long highway trips thus precluding 60+ mpg tanks, but I have a 28 mile route I drive a couple times a week where I try to achieve best fuel economy. The route is rolling hills, ~ net zero elevation change, with few signals, driven at speeds of 50 - 60 mph. Yesterday was my first 70+ mpg result on the ScanGauge (SG). I have not verified SG to calculated accuracy yet.
How about this picture? over 200 miles, average speed above 50mph, and 62.4 mpg Anyone can glide, but not for 200+ miles. And if my gauge is off 2-2.5mpg, that still puts me at 60mpg.
Some failure modes result in continous attempts to charge the 12 volt battery, because it has low voltage. In other failure modes, the 12 volt battery appears to be fully charged, but has low power reserves; that will not pull down huge charges from the inverter, so replacing it won't improve mileage, just reliablility. http://www.mpoweruk.com/failure_modes.htm
Record breaking warm temperatures helped me do this. (8 80' days in Chicago in March. Before this, no March had more than 2 80' days, and I think there were 10 altogether in 147 years). Not the best picture, but you can see I'm at 53.4 mpg for 301 miles. Note that I still have 4 pips left on the gas gauge. Not too shabby considering that 95% of my trips are 6 miles or less (most are 3 miles).
Mine commonly showed 9.x and 10.x volts on the MFD, I'm sure it was charging almost constantly. I had to use a battery charger on a regular basis because the degraded battery wouldn't charge fast enough in normal driving.
This includes my commute to work (<5 mins), 2 segments of interstate driving with posted speed limits of 75mph and the Prius was following traffic between 80mph and 95mph. Lots of rain (every evening during commute), 1 hail storm, and some idling at the airport due to a cancelled flight. This is also on Micheline X-ICE2 winter tires which are sticky and the exact opposite of LRR tires.
And ... if everyone "car-pooled" to-and-from work, there would be at least 50% fewer "pov's" heading either to work or back home during so-called rush hour; just imagine how THAT would help traffic flow.
And if everyone grew wings and flew from one place to another, I predict it'd be much easier to find parking at the mall! This might work if there were but 2 or 3 cars on a given city block... and the blocks were a mile long... no pedestrians... and no left- or u-turns... traffic lights cycled every 15 seconds... and everyone had died from a zombie apocalypse. Might I suggest you crack a book on queueing theory? There are several basic formulas that would tell you the conditions necessary for such a utopia... and without giving away how this story ends... let's just say you'd have to live in the middle of nowhere to see such traffic.
Care to point out which formulas of queueing theory you are talking about? I am quite familiar with the subject.
Well, I recently started hypermiling so my overall average says 45, but if you limit A/C use and utilize P&G along with 42/40 air pressure it is pretty easy to get those desired higher numbers. No finger on this one, I need two hands just to hold the camera steady. If you don't believe me, oh well. At least I tried.
nice one, Justin This one (two tanks ago) was taken last month. I wasn't able to take a pic of the recent tank though.
I do. Well enough to know that you don't know what you are talking about. If you did, you would cite something.
Oh, so you know my credentials? Then tell me which of my studies were flawed! I'd love to know... all my published works have been peer reviewed... but my peers can make mistakes.