Mistakes of a Newbie Hybrid Owner

Driving Tips to Save Gas - Save Gas This Summer - Popular Mechanics

 

Wounder how testing with Prius would have shown in the data?

Atkinson + Hybrid are very different in efficiency over Otto non hybrid.

As I recall Wayne Gerdes posted that EV all the way to 15MPH then lite the ICE staying below PWR range.

I set records this way.

I also remember under brisk starts stay 2200-2400 rpm range for best MPG as efficiency starts dropping faster with our engines.

 

I think it's pretty clear that people slowly accelerating in EV are getting less MPG (not mentioning road rage). I try do it just below the POWER range (not always possible of course). The PM study didn't say WOT, they said "faster."

 

I can get better than 84 mpg on display for trips that are for 20 or more miles using pulse and glide having to stop at many trafic lights and merge with traffic. I think my best was about a month ago with 45 miles at 92 mpg. I am going to try to get into the 700 mile club on my next tank. My last tank was my best with 600 miles and I could have done better because I had a trip up the interstate and that always drops my mpg

O by the way you have only told us you did it, I believe you, but I will take some pics of my display when I start my 700 mile attempt. they will show trips of over 20 miles with better than 84mpg.

I will not speak for bill wilson, but I can see reasons one would want to use cruse to make up a mpg/mph chart, that reason being eliminating as many variables as you can to make your observations as accurate as possible.

 

I guess this is close open is 9 miles the other 19 miles. I am sure I will have some in the near future with more miles giving over 84 mpg.

 

What are you driving? And what Is your average mpg? I just did a 19 mile round trip pulse and glide lots of traffic lights and moderate traffic. this mpg with my prius C I like

 

WOW. It really took you an hour and 14 minutes to go only 19.5 miles, and with an average speed of only 22 MPH ???
Were bicycles and pedestrians passing you along the way ??

 

hahaha i think 88mpg is completely unrealistic here. I just got my car and have been driving quite normally and getting average 56mpg highway and city. I mean i got 300mpg going 5km on one trip but i was running on EV for 95% of the time and i was accelerating to 60km/h on EV only... which took forever lol....

Realistically this car gets 50-60mpg if you drive respectfully..

 

Very interesting thread. As someone who drives quite a bit, on the same route daily, I tested a bunch of speeds and driving styles to see what works best. One of the tests I did was to see if accelerating normally would have a negative impact over feathering it. It did.

I'm going to dissect what the car does when you accelerate from a stop to cruising speed, just to make it clear how I see this working. In a normal car, the engine spools up the rev band, as it reaches a certain point in first gear, shifts to second, and continues the process again, until you reach the optimal gear and engine speed for your cruising speed.

In the Prius, you don't have a standard geared transmission, you instead have a CVT, which basically maintains whatever ratio of "gear" is optimal at any given time for whatever you're asking the car to do. In the end, what really matters for efficiency is engine speed. The more RPMs, the more fuel used at any given amount of time. Less RPM, less fuel used.

Let's say a Prius C guns it off the line to reach a cruise speed of 45mph. By doing this, the engine will run at high RPM to give you high acceleration. Efficiency is far lower than cruise speed at this point, obviously. Once you hit 45, you cruise and the engine falls to the optimal RPM to maintain 45 mph.

Another Prius C could accelerate gently, allowing the transmission to do more of the work while keeping the engine RPM at a low level, let's say the same level it would be at if you were cruising at 45mph. The car would maintain this engine speed until you hit 45, where it will simply stay at that engine speed and the transmission will stop adjusting the "gear" ratio, and stay at that ratio to maintain 45mph.

High engine RPM for accelerating, then moderate for cruising = more fuel used.
Moderate engine RPM for accelerating, maintaining that for cruising = less fuel used.

Just because you get to 45mph faster doesn't change anything. The only situation I can think of that would allow faster acceleration to actually benefit the mileage, is if the engine could never reach efficient running speed while accelerating. This is not true though, and my own tests have proved it many times.

Each time I take it easy and run well within the ECO range, I always get incredibly good mileage. When I accelerate hard and then cruise, it always impacts me negatively.

Edit: Removed a comment about the CVT being a belt. I read in another thread after making this post that Toyota uses a CVT without a belt. I believed it because it was on the internet.

 

I absolutely believe that, mostly because once you use a little extra fuel by accelerating faster it is GONE FOREVER and nothing you do after that will ever get it back.

 

after shuting the car off today I noticed that the miles for the trip are not shown on that screen the 19.5 miles are the ev miles so it was more like 27 miles with 19 on ev. still not very fast. but some of the time is stopped in trafic, and I stopped at the park for a few min. without turining the car off. I have not been passed by any bikes or skateboards yet. this area is 25-35 mph speed zones with trafic.

my above post is in responce to someone who claimed to get 84 mpg on trips and saying that pulse and glide doesn't work. so here are some pulse and glide miles. I am driving almost all my miles in town and I am hopeing to get my prius c into the 700 mile club. if you look at my fuelly you can see that my average mpg is much lower.

 

I don't think that is true. I think the mileage show is the total traveled, of which XX% was EV.
Maybe someone else can clarify.

 

when I shut off the car the miles listed after ev were not the same as the trip summary that instanly shows when you turn the key off. also if you do the math 22 mph for 1hr 15 min would be a lot more than 19.5 miles

 

This is an example of my shutoff screen. Not sure what you're seeing.

 

I stand corrected.
Never payed close attention.
The two screens do show different mileage numbers and the one with the EV symbol appears to be EV miles only.

 

my screen is different I have level 2 options. I will attempt to get a pic of both screens and post.

 

Today I got a pic of both screens.

 

You can view the first screen anytime. It's part of the rollout circle. Just keep hitting the button and it's after the Energy Monitor on the screen.

 

My rookie mistake was thinking the EV button was the only way to be driving in EV mode.