'16 real MPG

It'll take a few getting in the road, and some Fuelly reports.

 

Really?...Consumer Reports test is nutty - 33 MPG City for Gen3...nobody on the planet gets that low. CR are doing something dreadfully wrong. Their result might have some limited value as a torture test comparison of different models, but that's it. CR Highway at 55 may have merit. Maybe take 90% of CR's 55 and maybe that's a good test.

 

I've found that some of their other recommendations aren't so hot either.

 

i don't buy their recommended washing machines anymore. i thnk they're taking payoffs under the table.

 

I guess its possible but I think that its more likely that they just don't consider all of the issues I do or weight them in the same way.

I use them as a a useful source of relatively unbiased information but draw my own conclusions rather than simply adopting theirs.

 

good point. i don't always find they ask the same questions i have though. but i suppose it's worth a read before deciding.

 

That is the problem with their auto score. It weights the wrong things the wrong way.

Bob Wilson

 

There is no need to assume things, CleanMPG did steady speed tests, I am not sure how did you miss this. But steady speed mpg of G4 is a lot, lot better at speed than G3. This is not a mistake. We posted a lot about this when it came out last month.

You did not read a lot if you came to conclusion that MPG will not rise, in fact everything from real life reviews show that it will rise a lot more than official rating. No offense meant, but go to cleanmpg once site works and read up on steady speed tests.




Merged




here is the thread:
Steady State Speed vs Fuel Economy results | Page 8 | CleanMPG

Keep in mind that steady speed tests dont take into consideration that Prius will now glide at 70 mph, this will be big thing now in G4 and this is likely main reason mags and blogs easily get 55 MPG now where before a lot of them wrote about hitting 30's when driving hard.

 

Small Sample Size for sure...
235 miles in, my Prius 4 has averaged 62 MPG. This is mostly the same commute/errand driving that I did with my 2008 Generation 2 that would have averaged 54 MPG.
One thing jumps out at me is that the new Prius does not have the extraordinary penalty at start up that the 2008 had. The older Prius would run the engine even when fully warmed up on every start. The 2016 doesn't seem to bother. That allows for extraodinary success on short runs when the battery is charged and/or downhill or other positive situations. (I documented on another thread that I got 88 MPG in stop and go traffic on the way home from the dealer).
Of course, I don't know how close to reality the computer is to "real life". My 2008 Prius averaged 3% under what the computer reported.
The other thing I noticed is the optimistic range displayed. Full tank was over 800 miles. We'll see when we get closer to the bottom of the tank.

 

For all of you that say that the car is optimistic, could it be that the gas stations are ones at fault? I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but there you go

My record with the gen3 is 72mpg for a distance of 140 miles.
Average about 50, or 45 for less than 5 km trips.

 

From reports by Wayne Gerdes at CleanMPG, 4th gen reports mpg accurately, even slightly pessimistically.

 

Our stations are regulated and tested. I think that they are accurate.

 

i think so too...

when i fill my 5 gallon jug, it's pretty close.

 

Considering the weather condition Wayne had and still achieving 62 mpg, the gen 4. Prius must be a big improvement !
Absolutely Impossible to do that with gen. 3 !
You can hypermile as much as you like with the gen. 3 Prius,but you would never ever achieve 3.8 Liters/100 Km under those conditions Wayne Gerdes mentioned !
Also keep in mind that the Prius is a Japanese car,CR and MT might not be allways objective !
German car magazines and a german institution similar to CR will allways favor german cars,no matter how good the foreign competition is !

 

I think Wayne says something to that effect, that he achieved significantly higher mpg, 4th vs 3rd.

 

The biggest difference will be known within a year when we see user mileage records. This is the difference between 'hypermiling' and 'engineering.'

Good engineering accomplishes high mileage by default and does not require special driving techniques. You don't have to change the driver or distract them from safe driving. This is what we're seeing in the 2016 Prius including the cold weather, control laws.

I'm going to suspect that the new control laws extends the amount of battery operated EV modes while the engine is warming up . . . keeping the engine in low fuel consumption, warm-up. This has been the major energy loss year round. Certainly the automatic grill vanes helps in both faster warm-up and reduced drag (not 'parachuting' cold air.) It is also possible the exhaust heat capture system runs longer than just 40 C coolant range.

When I did my 1000 mile tank, driving stunt in 2013, a key element was driving the car for a minimum of one hour on every trip. This diluted the ~3-4 minute warm-up into insignificance. This is also well within the range of the existing traction battery. There is also another potential gain.

The previous Prius targeted 60% SOC regardless of speed. A better approach is to let the SOC increase to say 65-70% when a warmed up Prius is traveling at speeds under 30 mph. The car is traveling so slowly that there is plenty of 'head room' to absorb even maximum regeneration. Then when the car 'cold starts' the next morning that saved charge can be used to off-load the engine while it warms. In effect, variable SOC so the parked car has the charge needed to increase EV while the engine warms efficiently.

Now my 2010 studies indicate there are two critical engine temperatures:

• 40 C - allows the engine to stop if heater is off and also turns of exhaust heat recovery
• 55 C - allows the engine to stop even if heater is on

Yet my 03 engine hack indicates 35-40 C is the only real, engine won't choke temperature. I've successfully spoofed 70 C and the engine worked just fine.

Understand these are tests conducted on the 2010 and 2003 Prius that have shown there is (was) a lot of margin not exploited in the earlier Prius. If our Toyota engineers have done any tweaking in these control laws, the payback will be immense across the board.

Bob Wilson

 

I am talking from my point of view,and it is simply not possible to get that kind of mileage with gen. 3 under the weather conditions reported .
If the weather is good and at high outside temperatures getting 62 mpg with gen.3 is possible but it takes very sensitive driving to get there !

 

Sounds great...at this point, Toyota may be down-playing MPG so we don't slapped with hybrid taxes for under-paying road taxes.

I wrote an email to a Tennessee state senator yesterday about his new fee proposal, and I wrote a new protest song for Idaho hybrid fees

 

I'd imagine you could have a lot of fun with that. Even if they don't believe in climate change, environmental protection or sustainability, most proponents would not be too comfortable answering why they want to support a proposal which hurts the US, its citizens, and its armed services.