Portland to Sacramento on one tank???

SoldMyTruck - Since you are transporting a high-value, Estrogen-Fueled Passenger, most whom love and require HVAC-controlled cabin temperatures, I think you should plan on making one Pit-Stop/Fuel-Stop/Comfort Break.

 

Possible? Yes. Certain? No. Not with enough certainty that I would attempt it, especially when handicapped by premium fuel, high speeds, and cruise control. I want a few gallons of safety margin to cover various uncertainties and unexpected conditions, and you would have no margin at all.

 

If you were talking regular unleaded, (heck, go for E0 unleaded) a max of 60 MPH with hypermileing, I would give you a better chance, but why attempt this in the first place? Can YOU go from Portland to Sacramento without needing to pee?

 

My Gen 2 manual warns against higher Octanes, I do not see that warning in your 2011 manual, but it will not improve MPG as Premium has marginally less energy than Regular. It may improve power on a sustained uphill.

Octane rating - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Just for kicks, try Jimbo's challenge.

Can YOU go from Portland to Sacramento without needing to pee?

I'd actually be more impressed with that accomplishment.

And if you can't? You might find an additional use for one of those spare gas cans.

You could become the Charles Lindbergh of Hypermiling and Bladder Control.

 

If you keep your speed at 60mph and lower, don't hit bad weather, reduce the number of pit stops AND run past the flashing PIP then I bet you could do it. You may want to top off just in case. Gas stations get sorta sparse around the Williams/Arbuckle area.

I just made a trip from Woodland to Monterey and back with 477miles when the gas light started flashing. Mpg was at 50 and my cruising speed was 70-75mph. I made lots of in-town trips down there which hurts mpg. If I ran it passed the flashing PIP for another 100 miles I would have matched your trip idea. Slow down to 60mph and you'll have this one in the bag without having to risk the flashing PIP for long.

 

Not shutting the car off and leaving it in Ready mode during those stops will save fuel by avoiding the mileage killing warm up cycle, but only up to a certain length of stop. Does anyone know what the break even time is where shutting off the car is more economical than leaving it in Ready mode? I've never seen a posting on that calculation.

 

I drove from Camas, WA to Corning, CA which is north of Sacramento. I'm not sure how much farther you would have to go but I also started NE of Portland too. I traveled 524 miles on 9.82 gallons for a 53.4 mpg ave. I was not trying to get better mpg, I just drove it at 65-75 mph. I also had the CC set going up the pass which used more fuel but I was impressed how it held the speed no matter what the grade. It would be easy to do if you kept your speed at 60 & below & didn't try to hold a higher speed up the passes. If it's raining though it will be a bust. You will need dry roads & no killer headwind either.

 

At 65-70 mph, wind will be the deciding factor.
By the way, you will want to avoid draining the fuel tank completely, even if you have spare fuel in the car. 1 - 2 gallons is not enough to reset the fuel gauge.

 

So that means you'll be arriving sometime in the middle of the night with a good chance of running out of gas when many (most?) stations are closed or being patronage by "interesting characters". Factor in you'll have a couple of chances along the way to quickly and conveniently top off while stopping for bio-breaks and/or food. Finally, you'll be with a female who might be exposed to danger in a worst case scenario if left stranded.

Instead what you want to think about is being efficient. Combine your bio/food/fuel stops into one. MUCHO time saved.

 

Corning is almost 100 miles from my house (Woodland) and it's another 15-25miles into Sacramento depending on where in Sac you need to go. I agree that rain or heavy wind will kill this attempt.

 

Is this even an issue on the GenIII?

 

Maybe not as much as in Gen2, but I think there's still a warmup cycle that uses more fuel which always occurs after a start up versus leaving the car in Ready during a short stop. Gen3 certainly has a quicker warm up than Gen2, but doesn't Gen3 also have a warmup ICE cycle on restart even with a warm engine?

 

My thoughts exactly.

Could you? Maybe. Should you? No.

 

Premium gas 89 oct gas will not help but 100% gasoline (no ethanol) will. There are iphone/android apps and websites that can help you to find gas stations that sell 100% gas. Marinas often sell 100% gas. Non urban areas sell 100% gas too. Urban areas almost always sell 10% ethanol gas which has about 7% less energy than 100% gas.

At sustained high speeds at +70mph, use the recommended tire pressure setting 35 psi front, 33 psi rear. If you are going to hypermile and keeping your speeds between 50 mph to 65mph then setting the tire pressure a tad higher than the recommended 35/33ps at 38psi/36psi might give a slight edge boost in MPGs. Save upping the tire pressure to 44/42psi for when you dont have to go faster than 40 mph.

You can get a tad more gas into the 2011 Prius than the spec of 11.9 gallons. At the first fillup auto click off, shake the car, wait 30 second, then fill up slowly until the 2nd click - this will often get you +12 gallons in the tank -- because you've just fill up the fuel tank vapor pressure release valve too). This will extend your range a bit.

You still should get 50mpg if you drive nonstop so your range is about 575 miles. You might be able to extend that range over 600 miles if for part of the way you hypermile using a technique called Driving With Load (DWL)where you accelerated on the downhills and decelerate on the uphill grades. You can extend your range by giving yourself more time to get to your destination and lowering your cc top speed under 65mph. Using cc - a Prius MPG/range incrementally increases as the cc speed drops from 65mph to 50mph

 

My arithmetic say E10 has 96.5% the energy of 100% petrol on a volume basis.