This morning, I noticed that my instant MPG would shoot up to 75+ mpg and stay there with little slowing if I held the gas pedal down in a narrow "sweet spot" about 1/4 to 1/2 inch left of the midpoint on the HSD indicator at around 42-45 MPH. Has anyone else noticed this? I was trying to do pulse-and-glide, but I thought glide meant keeping the indicator just past the CHG area. My apologies if this is already covered in another thread.
I use this technique quite a bit while using cruise control going down hills. I feather the throttle until the iMPG is 75-100. It definitely is much more efficient than simply letting cruise control do its own thing. What you are referring to is not a true glide.
I do this all the time on busy roads rather than P&G to maximize my MPG's while minimizing how mad I'm making people on the road. I can maintain anything between 39-45 at 70+ I notice the "sweetest" spot is at about 42 mph on flat road I can normally score 85+. I'll agree with markebele, though, this is no true glide and you are consuming fuel.
My tests involve averaging both directions of a 10 mile, back-to-back, using the same start/stop points on each end. This minimizes wind, temperature, and elevation effects: So what distances are your metrics taken? Both directions? Same start/stop points? Temperatures? Thanks, Bob Wilson
Bob, What I noticed wasn't sustained for very long, about 1/2 a mile or so because I was in a flat area between some small hills. I wasn't specifically testing for it, just noticed it and wanted to find out if it was a fluke or not. Judging from your graph, it appears that the Prius can get that kind of MPG in that speed range. Thanks for posting the graph.
