Bad mileage myth?

"The car had been on since they picked it up".

Omygod! That is the funniest thing I've ever heard about the Prius. How,...just how do these people survive in our modern world??

Just..WOW. I am not surprised by many things these days, but that one is a sad reflection of the, uh, ignorant society we live.

 

I've found that I get better MPG with I accelerate fairly briskly off the line so that I get up to cruising speed as fast as possible. Even moderate acceleration results in pretty low instantaneous MPG and as others here at PC have pointed out the most important thing is to minimize the distance over which your efficiency is bad and maximize the distance over which the MPG is high.

Oh, and turning the car off helps too! What a sod.

 

Just goes to show us, no matter how sophisticated the car is, it can't always negate the idiot factor. Their salesman should have explained how to turn the car on and off though, mine made sure I knew how to operate it.

 

Having purchased two Prii at that dealership and knowing two more guys at work who also purchased there, I am quite sure these folks got a complete overview of how to operate the car. There is one salesman who handles all the Prius sales and he drives one himself. I will ask him about this customer the next time I see him.

- Tom

 

Dave, I'm not talking about stoplights. (Though I think the recapture is more like 30 to 50% than 3 to 5%.) I'm talking about when you shut off the car to do an errand. When you start it up again it burns a bunch of gas in a warm-up cycle even if it has not had time to cool off. It seems like if I stop for groceries half-way home, my trip mileage is significantly worse than if I don't.

 

well that is true to a point, but i think that is mostly because its a lot colder for you than for me. i do frequent short trips and stops and always try to do the stop the farthest away first to get my Prius warmed up. then the short trips back do fairly well with the mileage.

and yes, accelerating briskly does help. because its nearly impossible to accelerate at any speed and get much more than 25 mpg. but even at 65 mph, at a steady speed holding to 50 mpg is easy.

and the regen capture is very very small when compared to the energy used to get the car up to speed. to put it in perspective, it takes something like 30 horsepower to maintain the Prius at 65 mph. but try accelerating with nothing but a 30 horse power motor

 

You are most likely right, I was just trying to think of how they could not possibly be that dense.

 

Yours only drops to 12 mpg at full throttle??? I don't remember the numbers, but I think mine drops to single digits if I floor it. (Which I used to do when it was new, because it's the most powerful car I've ever owned. - Now I accelerate with the flow of traffic, which I'd characterize as moderate acceleration.)

 

wow you have a solar roof on your new Prius?? I was told it was not available yet as there are problems with it & the battery. Wonder what's going on? Jan

 

you were told wrong

they are available, in limited quantities, as toyota underestimated the demand (probably assuming that in this economy people would not want the $1800 solar sunroof). I saw a figure of 7% as equipped with the solar roof (which comes with NAV).

this i am told is being corrected and higher quantities are expected in August or so. my solar equipped IV should be delivered late next week.

also, there has been info that many of the initial solar roof cars were delivered to the pacific northwest, and very few to other regions.

finally - what you heard may be a reverb of something that did happen. Toyota attempted, i understand, to make the solar system "charge" the traction battery but the set-up created interference with other systems so they stepped back the purpose, for now, to only powering the vent fans.

 

does anyone know what is the additional weight of the solar/sunroof over NOT having it? is it a considerable weight difference?

 

I belive someone here posted it was 28 lbs more by having it.

 

These would be the same people that, in a 'standard' vehicle with an MPG rating of 25 are actually pulling 15-18, because of their driving habits.

Just consider that if someone is getting 'abysmal' mileage with a Prius, how much worse it would be with something else!

Even my DH, driving exactly one mile to work, in the winter, was able to get 44 mpg or better, generally. Weekend trips to get groceries helped to bring it up a little, however.