P&G, warp stealth, SHM....

1) 48 is very good this time of year how far is your commute one way?
2) it is very difficult to glide over 40 mph
3) can't explain shm or ws, sorry.

 

'Warp Stealth' is a fancy term for using only the electric motor while going fast enough that the internal combustion engine is spinning. (42 mph and above, the ICE is going to spin.)

http://www.techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/warpstealth.html

Super Highway Mode is a fancy term for a sweet spot for the engine. I don't believe it can be found easily without a scan-gauge.

 

You can do better.

At 42 mph or above the "yellow arrow" condition is what you should seek. Highway driving is significantly different and generally requires more refinement than P&G.

The good news is that above 42 mph and while driving on the highway you will never really be concerned with dropping the main battery bars below 6 because the increased speed regenerates and charges the battery quickly. The other good news is that if your trips on the highway are longer than ~8 miles A/C and heating have limited impact on your mpg.

The bad news is that the battery is anemic for carrying the Prius forward in anything else other than heading downhill. So while using the battery only when going downhill by feathering the pedal (yellow arrows only no orange) is crucial for better mpg it is not sufficient to get you better mpg than what you are already getting. Scangauge helps a lot because it can indicate RPM and with some easy programming kWh which will both tel you if you're accelerating efficiently. Absent scangauge or more advanced instrumentation you could try and accelerate so that your MPH is equal or 1.2x the instantaneous MPG displayed in your energy MFD screen. This is not fast accelerating and you should be patient with it as you are learning about the car. By all means if the uphill requires don't hesitate to go to MPH=2xiMPG but only when it is really necessary.

Without care and without SG I used to get about 48 MPG in highway driving in MD. With SG and by looking at RPM only I got about 53 mpg during this winter. In a recent trip to Philadelphia and back I got 58.8 mpg without driving particularly slowly. You can read about it here:

http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...super-highway-mode-lower-speeds-50-55mph.html

 

48 mpg, for a newbie, in Winter no less, is great!
I am lookng forward as to what mpg you will be getting on July 4th, middle of summer!
Let us know. Just keep doing what your doing, your doing it right .... 48mpg ..... hmmmmmm

 

FirstFlight, it's going to take a lot longer than 3 weeks for you to adjust to the car but you are on the right track.

NJ covers a lot of territory. What are your routes? If you are stuck in NYC traffic or flying on NJ3 that may be about all you'll get particularly in the winter. If you can change your route to slower county roads that would help.

It would help if you can cut back on the cabin heat. Try setting the heat around 72. The car is happier when it is 15-20F warmer than it is. Patience.