How to Pulse and Glide with pictures...

So we are coasting, but we choose to call it something else. Coasting is going from a faster speed to a slower speed without using the brake. That's what you are doing, but by pushing the gas/battery pedel you trick the car into not to regen the power back to the battery. But in the end you are going from say 35MPH down to 30MPH and then back up....I would hate to be the car behind you, having to deal with your inabilty to keep a consent speed.

 

Again, NO.
Going from a faster speed to a slower speed is decelerating, or slowing. And there are several ways to do that in a Prius. Some less efficient than others.......
"Coasting" doesn't communicate anything useful in this car. hwell:
What about all the times it's necessary to slow, or appropriate to vary your speed, or most significant, travel downhill ? All opportunities to exploit a glide, get infinite MPG, and increase ones overall MPG.
It's all about understanding what this remarkable car is capable of.
There are plenty of threads here for people that don't understand why their gas mileage stinks.

Be assured, if you happened to be behind me, there would be nothing annoying, nor discernable, about my technique. But don't expect me to wait while you have to stop at the gas pump, I'll just keep going. or should I say, gliding.

This began as a great thread designed to help folks understand and manipulate their Prius. let it remain so.

 

That would inaccurately capture the state of affairs. There is a reason Eskimos have many more words for snow than we do. Nuance.

I second that.

 

After reading this PDF article I am sure I am not getting the mileage others get just because of my short trips to work and not being in S3b or S4 mode. I guess the trade off for me is getting less MPG's and short distance versus driving the car needlessly to attain higher MPG's
When I posted before about getting better MPG's on my trips to the suburbs using the Interstate and country roads versus the City some people replied I must be doing driving incorrectly. It's nice to get the rationale for the MPG difference.
Thanks for the read...Terry

 

An EV switch/button might be helpful.... You can glide with ICE off earlier in the stages....

 

Consider having the engine block heater installed. Search here for many threads on the subject. It would at least help you avoid the warmup cycle on your way out every day.

 

P&G is nice and dandy, but now I just drive it really. Sometimes when bored and able to glide it will take advantage of it. With traffic so heavy around here, it's really hard to accomplish. And the commute home is all up a gradual grade home, no matter what you do this happens in my city going west. Unless you feel like going 7 miles out of your way to hope on the freeway, then you can go south to get home..which is down slightly..and great for FE.

Lately I have been able to keep the car at 42mpg or so on my trip home.

P&G drives me nuts after a while, slowing down..then speeding up. rather just cruise at 50mph

 

What about all the times it's necessary to slow, or appropriate to vary your speed, or most significant, travel downhill ? All opportunities to exploit a glide, get infinite MPG, and increase ones overall MPG.

Rush hour, stop and go traffic, is the one single real world environment where the original P&G technique is actually usable, because that is what the flow of traffic is doing. By leaving enough space with the car in front of you, you can take advantage of accelerating to a point then glide or stealth as traffic slows again. If you are lucky, you can time it such that you're running out of glide just as you are reaching the car in front of you and that car is then accelerating again, allowing you to Pulse again, or extent you glide.
The days I get into rush-hour traffic are the days my average MPGs INCREASE.

In regular driving, my "pulses" do not, necessarily, immediatley preceed my "glides."
A pulse is anyting that gets me moving, and every car must do it.
A glide is applied when possible, and most always in conjuction with slowing or moderate downhill travel, unless my speed requires stealth or warp stealth.
My glide may come quite a long time after the pulse, several miles or minutes afterward. But it's still P&G. Just a real world application of it.

My complete driving technique is, at every possible and appropriate opportunity, to lift that right foot, shut down the ICE and use the appropriate "no-gas" mode of travel for the moment.

Glide, stealth and warp stealth. They are what set the Prius apart from all other cars, and allow stellar gas mileage.

 

I guess if you are happy with 42mpg then you should just use the cruise and not bother with P&G. To give you a bit of perspective though, my son just completed a 930 mile tank using 12.573 gallons(73.9mpg-he uses P&G exclusively) in his '99 Saturn SL2 5-MT yesterday. I calculate that at over 175% above 42 mpg.

 

pardon this noob question,but why is "regen braking" bad when trying to glide ? isn't the energy being saved anyway?

 

There are conversion losses storing in the battery and again when converting to electricity then motive energy. If you want the highest efficiencies you try to reduce the conversions... so store energy in the car's momentum then glide etc. The battery is a great place to store what you can when you need to break, but you don't get it all back.