Driving in the ECO Mode?

Live in San Francisco lots of hills and stop and go traffic. I'm in ECO mode all the time and my A/C is on all the time rain or shine or FOG at 68F auto mode. If i drive like prius owner and use the EV mode as much as possible and just barely go into power I can get 50 to 52 but if I drive like normal I get 42 to 44 and if I drove it like I drive my Yarus I think it will blowup. When I drive good in my Yarus I get 34 to 38 but mostly I drive vary hard with my Yarus with 500LB+ of tool and equipment and only get 24 to 26 but that is never turning off the engine all day from 7am to 6 or 7 pm +
After installing 3m christalene window tint the A/C run less and the car dose not get so hot from sitting in the sun. Tint all windows and front windshield.

 

Where exactly is "power mode"? I have a Prius C2 and there is Eco Mode and EV Mode, no "power" mode.

 

Power mode is only on the Liftback (and probably the V), not the c.

 

Which is why I am confused by so many people in this C thread talking about the use of power mode - there is no power mode on the C. Only ECO, EV, and "normal".

 

They probably mean getting the meter into the red zone. I believe it says something about power at that end of the range. More of a suggestion, really...

 

I think you are probably correct. I never use eco or ev modes. I want the real feel of the pedal when I touch it. In eco mode it just does not operate to suit me. I like letting the car do what it wants to. We still get great mileage in town and on the interstates. In the rolling hills I cut the cruise control off so I can feel the pedal and make the engine "talk to me". Got 52.5 driving the speed limit on I-57 and I-70 from home to Indy Sunday. I felt great, our first road trip. I don't need no eco mode.
Dan

 

I stayed out of eco mode for the first 5k miles or so, wanting to get the feel of the car unhindered. Then I figured it was time to see what the eco mode was all about. I was surprised with what I found.

Yes, it changed how the gas pedal felt and how the car responded. But it works well. I was averaging in the low50's. With the eco mode my last tank was 60.7. We have hills here so I'll never threaten the really big MPG guys, but I'm really pleased with what I'm getting now. It's hard, now, to take it out of eco.

When the time comes for each driver, put it in eco for a tank or two to get the hang of it. As usual, what you give up in time you get back in mpgs. You can't be the hurry up type and use eco to any great effect.

 

I used ECO mode on the highway today - 160 mile round trip. Tried to keep my speed no higher than 65 MPH. Got 60.1 MPG on the way out and 61.1 coming home. No AC on the drive out, used AC on the way back. Slowed down a tad on the drive home. Am very pleased with this car!

 

It seems far more likely that they were extending generic Prius advice (inappropriately as it turns out) to the C. This was the case for me. I apologize if I caused any confusion.

 

With ECO on I manage to get 80.1 mpg driving to work. With it off, I get about 76 mpg. I don't like the feel of Eco mode though especially when I'm on a hill waiting for the green light.

 

Sorry I did not mean power button I mean if you were looking at the display showing EV, ECO, and power. The bar graph.

 

Ah ha, that makes sense.

 

Tried the eco mode for a couple hundred hiway miles today. Could not tell it helped any. Got over 50 mpg with it off, on a 1700 mile trip. I suspect it only helps when running around town.
Dan

 

The Prius Gen 3 offers a total of 4 operating modes, namely ECO mode, Normal mode, PWR Mode and EV.
The modes are not explicitly intended for any specific type of road or traffic type, but enable to improve fuel economy by allowing more/less control on the request of power from the drivetrain via the gas pedal. For this reason ECO mode is better suited for city driving since there are frequent stops and accelerations, compared to e.g. highway traffic.

 

I've been driving my new C for a littel over 1000 miles now and have driven about half in ECO mode and half in normal. I have a 2005 Prius that I have put over 250 K of back and forth to work miles on so I'm pretty good at getting the most millage out of these vehicles. My drive is 66 miles one way in Southern California so the terain varies from mild to moderate hills both up and down and my C is averaging 57.7 mpg in ECO mode and 55.6 mpg in normal mode. In my older Prius my average was around 50 mpg. I find that in ECO mode, the C get's much better mileage in the city than in normal mode and certainly better than my older Pruis.

 

I have had my Prius C for around two weeks now and have left it on Eco mode the whole time total ave 70% city 30% country has been 4.4 lit/100 (53Mpg) I could easily feel the difference in the A/C when I turned Eco mode off, the fan speed increased and the air got a bit cooler. I'm still waiting to hit the advertised 3.9/lit 100!

 

Like squall, I drive in ECO mode all the time. Once you get used to it, you don't notice any difference. Whatever it's doing with climate control, it does seamlessly. When you first experiment with the two modes, going back and forth, you find that in ECO, it requires you to push the pedal a little further to get the same response you would without it. I suppose that helps to smooth out sudden and jerky reactions on the drivers part for more efficiency If you use the ECO Score gauge on the dash, and let it guide you, you'll end up doing that pretty much on your own after while, but I'm sure with ECO on, in the long run, you'll get better mileage.

As for cruise control, I would use only if you are driving a long way on completely flat surfaces. One of the things you notice watching the ECO Score gauge is that when going up hills, even small ones, you need to drop back a MPH or 2 to keep the bar out of the red PWR zone. CC won't do that. It also wont let you take advantage of your momentum and gain speed while coasting down long hills. It forces you to keep one speed going up or down, which could end up less efficient than your own ECO Score guided driving.

For those of you new to hybrids, or considering one, who are saying to yourself, Good grief! I can't be bothered constantly watching a gauge and altering my driving to suit it" - I have 18000 miles on my C. I used to drive 80+ on the highway, tailgate, go around slow pokes on the right, weaving in and out, and generally drive in a very inefficient manner. I don't drive that way anymore. Following the ECO Score gauge has become second nature, and is not a bother at all. Being on the road has become a much less stressful more enjoyable experience, even if I can't do zero to 60 in 7.5 seconds anymore.

 

Presumably because you think it's bad for mileage?

I do not know: I've found the Prius Cruise Control very good in that regard . Watching a scangage showing the instant mpg, when I engage Cruise it improves, consistantly.

If I had a quibble it would be that it's too good and staying in EV mode, aggresively eating up the charge. Personally when I see the charge starting to drop, say below half, I start trying to avoid EV mode, resorting to pulse-and-glide more. Cruise seems to have no qualms (or doesn't have the intelligence, isn't monitoring it) about running the charge right down.

Anyway, I'm using it quite often, whenever there's an opportunity.

As far as ECO mode, I just could not get comfortable with it's peddle response, way too sluggish. I appreciate it might be improving AC behaviour. But we don't use AC that much, I much prefer the peddle response in Normal.

 

It really depends on the terrain, Mendel. I find that I can do better than CC on hilly terrain. On average it's not bad to use CC but if you know what you are doing you can do better.

 

If it works for your situations that's great. On medium to long trips on flat roads with light traffic, cruise control can be very efficient. Unfortunately, I rarely encounter those three factors all at once. Usually it's the light traffic that's missing, and constantly messing with the controls (on/off, on/off, on/off) to accommodate the changes in traffic flow is not a fun drive to me.