How does everyone Average 50 MPG

I would keep tire pressure at 42psi (Front) & 40psi (Rear), keep the A/C low, keep overall weight low, and avoid driving over 70MPH.

Driving in ECO mode should help also.

 

Tyres at 50/48psi and drive it like you stole it when accelerating but go easy on the brakes.
Simple!

 

Okay Ive had my 05 for less than a week and 125 miles and MFD is 53mpg I have been accel slowly from a start trying to use the battery as much as possible. I driven on the freeway for about 50 miles the other day AC on and i noticed much better mpg at 63-66mph than 55mph because I was able to coast more often. I feel 50mpg will not be much of a problem for me at work because I will be driving the car all day and it will only be in warmup for the first few minutes of the day when I get back to work.I think 55+mpg will be harder to get but I feel confident. So when accel from a start I should use more throttle? How much 1/4 ,1/3 half? and when should I let off about 40mph?Any ideas as far as driving style?

 

Most of the experts on the forum recommend acceleration up close to (and sometimes into) the PWR region. The engine efficiency is still quite good in this range, and allows the car to get to its target speed more quickly than with a slower accel. If you accelerate more slowly, note that the instantaneous mileage is pretty low as you accel through 10mph/20mph/30mph. You don't want to spend much time at this speed if you're accelerating to a higher speed.

Also, if you accel with the battery, you require the car to replenish that state-of-charge (SOC) with the engine, and there are losses in that process. The fuel efficiency (FE) looks great while you're on battery, but you don't see the inefficiency later as the engine has to restore the SOC. So, another recommendation from many of the experts is to avoid battery use like that. I'm a newbie too, and this seemed counterintuitive to me at first but it works.

PS - Welcome to the forum and to Prius!

 

With winter arriving and cold wet weather, rain and water standing
on roadways and 10% Ethanol gas, required all year long in Oregon,
you will not see 50 mpg.

42 thru 47 mpg is more accurate.

Winter takes more of a toll on our Prius in MPG's than any other
car I have owned in my 44 years of driving.

alfon

 

I'm in South Carolina which is a probably a bit warmer. Before my 1st oil change I was seeing ~52mpg average (56 estimated by the computer). However after having my oil changed (synthetic) by the Toyota dealer near where I was working at the time it dropped to around 46mpg. I'd read in this forum where overfilling the oil could cause the mileage to drop so the next time I went to the dealer I told them to be certain not to overfill it. Still seeing 46mpg after the 2nd oil change. So I started putting premium gas in it, this got me back up to where it's estimating 52, actually getting around 49.
Not sure what's up.. think I may change the oil myself next time and ensure that it's not overfilled. The oil change seems to be the mileage changing event. I'll admit, I've been lazy and not actually pulled the dipstick and checked it myself, just harped on the dealer a bit to be careful about it.

 

I have changed my oil several times.

I use mainly Mobil One 0 X 20 synthetic. Once I used
Valvoline 0 X 20 synthetic because I could not
find Mobil One 0 X 20.

Anyway, I only pour in 4 quarts of oil for my
oil changes and I change every 10,000 miles and
normally nearly 4 quarts drains out when I change it


The oil stick alway shows the oil in the correct operating range about half way or a little more.

Alfon

 

Changed PSI to 42 all around (sorry - it's just easier) - gained maybe 1-2MPG. Very careful driving? Maybe 2-4 MPG.

All in all, I've come to realize that I will always get between 48 and 44 MPG. No more, no less...

From all my readings, I believe my living in a pretty hilly area (5 miles to flat land) and having several short stops (kids) does not help me. Would love one - just one 50MPG tank - but unless we're on vacation someplace

 

Even if you never see 50mpg, remember you are still getting milage that everyone else would kill for! Relax, and drive past the gas stations with a smile!

 

how to get 50 mpg;

1) dont regen
2) dont drive faster than traffic will allow
3) dont use brakes
4) if you have left late, take the other car

1) dont regen; regen is a way to boost your mileage and should be used as much as possible right??? WRONG!!!

regen should ONLY be used when you dont have any other options. regen is inefficient. will only recapture a very small percentage of the power you expended to attain your current velocity. now the problem we have is regen is frequently your only and best option, so when would it not be? when other types of energy are available.

now had a discussion about this at the Leaf forum which got no traction (in my direction that is) . but elevation changes can work to your advantage. in a rolling hills scenario (recently a writer drove 116 miles in a Leaf where part of the trip was rolling hills) you can POTENTIALLY boost your mileage by taking advantage of gravity as much as possible and regen as little as possible.

now this requires a clear open road and the willingness to drive above the speed limit. but supposing you are cresting a hill; speed limit is 50 mph and you hit the top of the hill at say 40-45 mph. when going down if you were to apply just enough power to neutralize regen (or go to neutral if the hill is not too steep. warning here, the Prius coasts VERY WELL!!), you will gain speed due to potential energy of gravity correct??

the velocity gained by the input of "free energy" will far outweigh the benefits of regen. at the bottom of the hill, lets say we are doing about 60-65 mph. we start ascending, now what we want to do is apply the same amount of energy required to maintain a steady speed of 50 mph. now, we are going up hill so that will not maintain our speed, but will slow our deceleration correct with the goal that our speed will be around 40-45 mph when we hit the top of the hill.

synopsis of trip; first half, no energy from Prius exhausted or gained. 2nd half burn rate equal to flat level driving at 50 mph. on the surface, perhaps a 100% gain in efficiency (friction, additional wind resistance, etc will all lower that, but some gains should be very highly likely)

2) dont drive faster than traffic will allow what is the reason a Prius gets so much better gas mileage than any other car on the road? batteries, HSD? Toyota engineering? well all that is a part of the reason why, but the main reason is the 24/7 feedback on performance staring us in the face. what i see constantly when driving around is people seemingly racing to park at the red light ahead. ok, maybe that is not what they are doing, but it sure seems like it. if you see a red light 3 blocks ahead but know its going to change within 20 seconds but there are 6 cars waiting there, what is your hurry??. it takes a good 5 seconds PER CAR to clear the intersection. although the light is that far ahead, if you are going to get there in less than one minute, YOU ARE DRIVING TOO FAST FOR CONDITIONS.

at this point i strongly recommend pissing off your fellow drivers... or at least "rigging the race" so the points they get for longest parking stint is reduced. i know they will not understand, but you are saving them money by not allowing them to waste their gas. unfortunately this does not work in multi-lane situations. about 4 years ago, a car following me up to a red light, went flying around me to rear end the car in front of me. at the time we were about 100 feet from a lineup of about 20 cars sitting at one of the longest lights in town. i tried not to laugh...really i did

3) dont use brakes this really should be part of #2, but lists dont look right unless there are 3 points and the last one is completely invalid. every time you use brakes unnecessarily, you are wasting all the energy expended to attain your speed. so increase your following distance, pay more attention to the traffic flow around you, learn the timing of the lights you pass regularly. do the UPS thing and plan your route to minimize left turns, etc.

there is nothing wrong with coasting up to a light even if you have to start several blocks early. waiting at the light will not make it turn green faster.

4) if you have left late, take the other car **sarcasm alert!!!** please ignore

 

I wonder how much variation there is possible between vehicles. My anecdotal evidence is that I had a 2010 base 2 for over a year and 15k miles. It was very hard for me to see 50 and I averaged 46 - 48 most of the time (en total mixed driving). Now that one was totaled and I replaced it with a new 2010 base 3. This one, not "broken in" yet, is easy to see 50. My average from a couple tanks so far is 54! I do try to follow good technique in braking and speed, but not a perfectionist about it by any means. It is quite a difference, hmm.

 

I am a new owner 2010 Prius III. My commute is a bout 50 miles mostly highway, I find that 73 to 75 mph keeps me just over 50 mpg and I don't try for max mpg. At 55-65mph I get about 45-47 mpg.
Around town I don't do as well, low 40's mpg. If I drive for good mileage around town I'd be pisssing off everybody.

 

I hear you. I barely got 50mpg on my last tank but I think that's great considering my drive. All my stop lights during my commute is on 50-55mph roads. I alway get into the "power" band when accelerating or else I'd have a huge backlog of cars behind me. The only way I can stay in ECO is if I'm on side streets. I try to make it up once up to speed. Also due to the cold weather I'm not getting the best mpg's until the last 1/3 of my commute, when the engine is completely warmed up, even with lower grill blocked.

 

it is not the variation in the car. its the variation of the drive which can be infinite. i have been in enough driving situations IN THE SAME CAR where i struggled to get 45 mpg or got 50+ mpg without even trying.

speed, anticipation, traffic density, traffic controls, etc. all play a part.

but we also have other factors we dont consider; elevation changes, wind speed directions, temperature, road surfaces (did you know that different roads have different levels of rolling resistance?) and conditions. none of these can be changed.

that is one reason that i am going to enjoy my Leaf. it provides me data on my performance against other Leaf drivers (when they are available) in my same area. granted, even in the same city, driving conditions will still vary infinitely. but it does level out the control variances a little bit.

 

Basically if you ready a Prius and repark it around a lot all day, you're going to get really lousy gas mileage, I don't know how low, in the 20's or 30's.

If you go 2 miles to grocery store with lots of cabin heat on, you may only clock 30 something MPG's.

If you go 5 miles one way, park all day, don't use heat... in my 2009, I'd get about 45 or 46 MPG.

If I go 10 miles one way, park all day, I'd likely get about just about 50 MPG's, but I brake and accelerate pretty easily. With extended driving mine can read over 50 MPG easily.

Just driving around in 2010's over 20 minutes at a time .... usually about 54 MPG. Little more MPG in city, little less on highway, just like they say.

 

You will get better MPG at the slower speeds you stated. I assume you have not done much in the way of testing this or you didn't account for variables. Otherwise your MPG would have been higher at 55-65mph than at 70-75mph.

 

Well now that winter is here, my mileage has dropped to a low of 54 mpg from what was 60 mpg in the summer. Slush, cold engine, reformulated gas, 4 snow tires, etc. all take their toll. I expect my year round will be 56, compared with my old Insight 1 which was 62 mpg over 262,000 mies. My actual mpg is about 2 mpg less than my display over these first 10,000 miles. But it takes careful driving, grouping errands, watching the HSI, keeping the HP at 20 or so whenever the ICE kicks on, Tires at max sidewall, using the road slope to determine glide or burn etc.

 

Well, the Prius is also a lot more car than the original, or current, Insight! Lol!

 

Ted:

I have a Prius Gen III model V ATP. Right now, I am averaging about 43 MPG. I'm retired so I don't commute. I do lots of errands but try to keep the engine hot as you do. I run in regular driving mode as ECO mode didn't seem to add much to my MPG. I live in central MA so we have similar terrain and temperatures. 43-54 MPG is a huge gap. I'd like to know what you think out of all your tactics are the most important. Also does running your tires at 44 psi affect snow performance? How much rougher is the ride? (Of course I have to deal with 17'' tires which offer an inherently rougher ride). I too use the HSI screen, pulse and glide when I can. I try to deadband (I think that's the little spot on the HSI graph were there's no regeration and no power coming from the battery) whenever possible. I do a couple of trips each week at highway speeds (62-72MPH). I use regular 87 octane gas. I try to anticipate my braking. Right now my average MPH is 29. Climate control is set to 72, AC off. Since I purchased this vehicle in October, my best MPG has been around 48MPG, so any suggestions would be helpful and appreciated.

 

Last tank was 41.4 mpg, caculated, computer was 44.4. The lowest since last winter.

Short trips, cold temps, wet roads, all take a heavy toll
on the fair weather Prius.

In summer with dry roads, 60-75 temps, its easy to get
over 50 mpg. But when the cold, heavy rain hits you
you can expect low 40's for MPG.

All 4 tires inflated to Max sidewall pressure, 44PSI. Oil 4 quarts
of Mobil 0w20, so not to overfill. Tires are the best, Michelin Energy
Saver, 195x65x15. Everything for max MPG's.

al