Prius c has worse mpg than Gen III on Fuelly

58.6 mpg at what speed ?

I'm not a fan of warp-stealth. I take Hobbit's word for it that it improved his fuel economy in his G2 Prius, but I think G3 technology has, at least for most driving situations, deprecated its utility.

Specific to G2 tech:
Above ~ 42 mph the ICE will spin. Nothing to do about that.
So the remaining game is to squeeze the most efficiency possible out of the fuel injected. Hobbit identified conditions where small amounts of fuel were being used, but inefficiently. These map to ICE use in the 10 - 15 kW range. Fair enough, and a good idea to avoid.

Specific to G3 tech:
The SFC curves now extend efficient ICE use down to 12 kW so long as torque is not low. This lets the driver keep a steady power demand on the flat at speeds over 60 mph that are ICE efficient. The HSD takes care of the torque optimization, and is aided by a steady power input from the driver.

Hills require driving with load (DWL) up and coasting down.

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I am not familiar with the Prius 'c', but these techniques are good for 60 mpg @ 60 mph in the G2 Prius, and more in the G3 Prius -- about 60 mpg @ 63 mph.

 

Now that I think about it, last week the winds were relatively calm and probably helped my mileage a lot, I figure I take a 3 MPG hit when the winds are strong. My commute is a series of hills, maybe about 5 miles of flat road. My speed is variable depending on terrain, traffic and speed limit, 55 - 60 up hills, 65 - 70 down using warp stealth, I also have a 55mph construction area. If no one is behind me and traffic permits, I will slow down. Most drivers probably wouldn't have the patience to drive like I do but, with a fifty mile drive each way, I have nothing better to do than play the MPG game. Indeed! It's why I bought the car in the first place! Warp Stealth seems to work for me. I definitely saw an improvement in gas mileage after I started using the technique.

 

Ahh, that makes fine sense.

I drive the same, in similar terrain. Perhaps my only difference is that I gain some speed to around 70 mph before the hill to try and keep rpm below ~ 2500 as I go up the hill. To my way of thinking I am 'flattening' out the hill some by increasing power early.

 

Our gen 2 has 130K miles. Thinking of trading up I stopped by the local Toyota dealer and noticed the sticker on the C has lower highway mpg. Hence I found this thread.

I don't know about the rest of you but, contrary to predictions, our mileage is always better on the highway than in the city.

Sure you can get some great mileage at lower speeds - if there were no stops. But the city is full of traffic signals and stop signs. It's accelerating from those stops that reduces our city mileage. Our average is about 45mpg because of the city driving. It's only our freeway mpg that pulls our average up. Only when we drive 100% city on a tank of gas does our average drop below 40. Fortunately that only happens about once a year.

So I wouldn't believe the 53 city of the C, and I wouldn't want to sacrifice the loss of HW mileage. There's no C in our future.

 

With 16k on my c the lifetime average is 53.8. That includes a commute with equal parts 55mph hwy, 45MPH hwy, and about 4 miles of 35 and below. I routinely get 60mpg one way and 56 on the return. Just took a 400 plus mile hwy trip with average speed of 65mph and got 52.3. My friends with standard prii have similar commutes but acheive nothing near the c.

The c does better in the stop and go of city and northern virginia highway because of the smaller engine. I also never get below 50 in continuous highway miles.

Unless I have a sudden need for a bigger engine to haul around more space that i will rarely use there is no standard prius in my future.

 

True city driving like you describe, with lots of stop and go, and very little cruising, at any speed, is murder on mileage, for any car. What you describe is what Consumer Reports city driving test is like. But I would guess that for most people who don't live in or drive in a city environment like that all the time, their non-highway driving is more a mix of rural and town roads, with some, but not excessive stop and go, with speeds averaging between 25 and 45 mph. That's what mine is like, and getting 60 mpg is easy in those conditions, just driving normally. If I make even a small effort to drive the way my C has taught me is most efficient, it's into the 70s.

 

It depends on what KIND of city.
With a mix of driving in a light density, medium size city and nearby rural roads, our C routinely gets right around 53; sometimes better.
NOW....if you are in a high density, large city environment with LOTS of stops and an average overall speed below 35, that's a whole different story.

I think the C is perfect for my kind of "city" and agree it's not a highway car.
My Fusion Hybrid gets only 3-4 MPG less on the highway (around 40) than the C and is much more comfortable.

My daughter has a C in Atlanta.........but her trip to work does not involve any Interstates and is slightly outside the peak rush and is on main arteries with a "preference" as far as lights go. She gets excellent mileage too. Having a speeding ticket or two in recent years probably helped with her "eco technique" too.

 

Same car
Different drivers
Different cities

What is so difficult for people to grasp ?
This is why 'real world' is such a crock.

 

I easily get 60 mpg in stop and go traffic in Charlotte NC in rush hour. My 6 mile commute this morning took 28 minutes and got 63 mpg. I get about 50-51 pg at 70mph and 59-60 mpg at 60 mph HWY

 

The C is smaller and lighter than the lift back. Less mass to get going, less gas burned. But the difference in MPG is not that much. If you need the bigger car go with the lift back.

 

i remember this drive as being mostly 60mph in the rain and lava. i guess the stoplights average the speed down. but 83mpg is great mileage for me. itz better than a moped. !!! itz my Prius c .!!!

 

I have just hit 1,000 miles, with 3 visits to the gas station. It's between 40 to 45 real-life mpg (as measured at the pump). On one 4.5-mile stretch, though, I clocked 58 mpg, in a great mini-city of Winchester VA in the evening hours - with very careful driving. I suspect I was going downhill a little, because on the way back it was only 53 mpg.

 

I just took over the C from the wife. The CT200h got sold and she now drives a new Leaf.

My wife drives 90% city miles (averaged 50mpg overall in the C), while I'm 90% FWY miles.

My overall average with the CT was 48.7 MPG over 55,100+ miles and 144 fuel ups.

I've only had 2 fuel ups so far and the first was 55.09mpg (still got some of the wife's miles on the tank), while my latest tank got me 56.89mpg. It's the same commute as with the CT. The C is just that much more efficient.

At this rate, I'll probably pay less per mile than my wife in the Leaf (we're still on the tiered plan with Edison and trying to switch over to the Time of Use plan).

 

Did you get one of those $89/month lease deals on the Leaf?

 

Nope. I plunged right in and bought it. With the rebates, tax incentives, the "free" level 2 charger, and the sale of my CT, it was an even-Steven deal.

My wife's commute is less than 30 miles a day (total). Even if the battery ends up being at 1/2 capacity in 10 years, it will still be adequate for that commute.

I gotta say that the C is a lot easier to get great MPG's compared to the CT200h. I've read somewhere that even though it shares the drive train with the Prius hatch, the programming is different enough. It is apparently optimized for throttle response rather than economy.

 

somehow the Prius C got an erroneous HWY EPA rating. The car gets about 60 mpg at 60 mph. So it should be rated at about 54 mpg HWY

 

That is not an error. The EPA label numbers don't reflect what the car can actually do (see CAFE ratings for that). Instead, EPA numbers are downgraded to reflect typical American lead-foot gas-guzzling behavior on the road. All vehicles are sharply and similarly downgraded from the actual hiway dyno tests.

Note that the regular Prius liftback can also achieve 60 mpg at 60 mph: Updated MPG vs MPH chart | PriusChat.

Don't complain, just lean back in the seat and enjoy how much better you can do compared to a median American driver in typical (aggressive) traffic.

 

Even if the C has worse mileage than the regular Prius, it's still pretty damn good!!!!! Don't care what anybody else says,I just love my C2, what a great car.

 

I thought EPA calculated the HWY numbers based on the actual mpg at 60 mpg minus 10%?

 

No, it is more complex than that.

From about 1985-2007, the EPA City number was a specific test derated by 10%, while the Hiway number was another test derated by 28%. The EPA's 2008 revision added more tests that are weighted in to drag the numbers down even lower.

For a better overview of the actual tests, read Section I of this CleanMPG.com article: Beating the EPA - The Why’s and How to Hypermile