how much fuel left in PriusC tank when it shows empty (the last bar blinks and car beeps)

I have a 2014C2 and mine beeped when I had the last blinky bar. I monopolized the EV battery when I could (and probably annoyed a lot of people) and drove for 22 miles, waited in line at Costco for 15 minutes and filled 8.6 gallons.

 

When low on gas I become very grateful for EV.

 

Well, EV won't take you very far at all, so it might be more appropriate be grateful that there's still enough fuel left to go a lot farther when the car warns you that it's low. (Evidently somewhere between 1.6 and 2.5 gallons for regular 3rd generation; I assume the c is not radicallly different.)

 

I have been out of gas on a regular car, and there are plenty of gas stations where the EV can take the hybrid. Even without EV the beep is a good reminder and much better than a passive gauge.

 

I think 2nd gen allowed you to run out of gas and subsequently run on battery alone, to low enough level that the battery requires special Toyota charger to recover.

Maybe subsequent models are better in this regard, will shut down sooner. Still, you could just fill up sooner.

 

I would never be willing to run on that reserve longer than what it takes to reach a gas station of choice. Last week I did that, getting eight miles beyond 0 cruising miles because of the destination. What the reserve helps is the choice about where to fill up. But given anything equal I would fill up as soon as the gas pump icon appears. In this car it seems like we have a bit less than a gallon as a reserve.

 

First time tested for two days when the last bar started blinking but I chickend out: 45 miles total including 12 miles local street to fill up 8.579 gallons. Usually it's around 8.2 - 8.3 gallons, and members saying the gas tank is more than nine gallons: now I know I can drive about 50 miles after it started beeping.

 

Cross posting my response from another thread:
I always reset my Trip A when I fill up. Since it shows me distance and fuel economy, I can calculate the fuel usage and give myself a sanity-check as to how much I probably have left. E.g. if it's indicating 700 km driven at 4.5 L/100 km then I know I've only used 31.5 L out of 36 and I can easily get in another 100 km. (Yes I'm a CDN using metric but the same goes for MPG too: Divide your distance since last fill by MPG and you get gallons consumed.)

It does seem though the car slightly underestimates how much of its own fuel it uses, to the tune of 1-2%, so keep that in mind. Still if you're tracking this you can do a much safer job of guessing how close you are to running on fumes.