Distance to empty number

How many pips showing on the fuel gauge? Are you seeing a correlation?

 

Could be first tank machinations, something got reset by dealership. It does sound you're on top of it.

 

If this is your first tank, fill it up now and start afresh with a full tank. First tank on any of my last 3 cars never seems to get it right until it is topped up. It seems to work on an algorithm based on your recent driving, but I've never quite worked out how it does it.

 

On 3rd gen all the gas gauge pips seem to show for quite sometime. Once they start disappearing its more linear.

 

It would be best to go by the fuel gage and only use the DTE for a reference.

 

Trust nothing until running the tank dry with a spare, 1 gallon can of gas.

Bob Wilson

 

the pip is quite linear, with 8 bars and almost exactly 1 gallon/bar. the dte follows along quite nicely, based on past performance.

 

Linear? My Gen3 gauge is more linear than any previous car, but still not fully linear. Note that from engineering and mathematical viewpoints, linearity refers only to the amount of fuel between each division or mark.

Like all before it, the top of the gauge is not at the top of the tank, and the bottom of the gauge is not at the bottom of the tank. These are gauge offsets, separate issues than linearity. Most cars have some safety margin or reserve below the Empty or Zero point of the gauge. However, my first car was one of the exceptions, running out while the gauge still showed more fuel remaining. That is one of the reasons for testing the low fuel regions of my cars. If I've never used it, then I don't assume it is there for future emergency.

No. The offsets wreck that computation.

Read the first post of this long thread for fuel safety margin guidelines on the Gen3. I'm not aware of anyone yet doing this test on the Gen4, but several hints suggests that it is roughly similar.
[WARNING] Running out of gas (Gen III) | PriusChat

 

This is the old "how low can I go", in fact it feels old hat just saying this. My dad used to use a stick to check the gas level on our Beetle, pretty reliable.

 

I have noticed that the DTE reaches "0" pretty much at the estimated point (adding the DTE number and the current tank mileage from a tank that is at least half gone). The gas light comes on by average 30 - 32 miles before that point. The average for me in 15 fillups are light comes on at 630 miles - DTE reaches "0" at 661 miles.

 

I am checking how the DTE is working and will report when I am finished with my 3rd tank. So far it seems just as useless as Gen3 was. And the fuel light comes up too conservatively (like with almost 7-10L of fuel still inside)....More data needed.