Pulse&Glide... I finally did it!

ECO mode can help a lot with this. Also you'll find that there's very little battery drain if you err on the "propulsion" side of pure glide.

I don't know what the temps are where you are, but summer will give me back a good 8-10 mpg from right now.

 

Congrats!

Tip: Don't worry so much about trying to use the energy flow arrows. Use the HSI display and simply keep the bar in the bottom left corner of the ECO/EV section. You lose such a tiny bit of energy that it won't really harm your mpg.

Pulse so the display looks like this (top image):


Then glide so the display looks like this:


Pulsing to 45mph then gliding to 25mph got me 109mpg for 62miles while I was out practicing. It also got me 95mpg for over 233miles but included some reagular freeway driving for 65 of those miles.

 

I thought the glide was with no bar showing at all on either side? Ive been doing it wrong the whole time?

 

Your right, but it's just easier to just keep it close and about the same as far as mpg goes. Keep up the good work!

 

In a GenII your method would be the right one. In the GenIII it is so difficult to maintain a no-bar status that it's not worth the effort. A small amount of bar showing is just fine.

 

That's good to know. I don't have an issue keeping no bar showing though. It's much easier for me in Eco mode though since the pedal is less sensitive.

 

I have a gen 3 and personally I do not like using any of the battery on a glide, so I have no bar showing on my glides. I feel it drains my SOC (state of charge) too fast, especially on the longer city drives.
The only time I would use any battery on a glide is when I'm about to jump on the freeway or I am close to my destination and I have above 55% SOC.

 

I know his thread is a month old but I'm new here and to my 2012 Prius IV. I'm trying the pulse and glide but I live in Los Angeles with lots of stop and go traffic. I mainly drive streets and most times I pulse I get caught at the next red light or someone slow pulls in front of me. Any suggestions? Thanks.

 

It's really hard to pulse and glide When traffic is heavy, Quite roads are about the only roads that work and even then try not to hold up any traffic. It makes people upset. The minute you leave some room in front of you, someone is going to jump in. Just the way it is. Sometimes you just can not pulse and glide. Enjoy! Your four, nice car!

 

If you are on the freeway and in heavy Stop and Go traffic (or on surface streets with lots of red lights) it is very difficult to get good MPG's. Best you can do is try to drive like you don't have brakes, that will help a little.

If you are on the freeway in slow and go traffic, that is a great time to pulse and glide and get great MPG's.

 

Thanks for then insight. I am enjoying the car and this pulse and glide makes driving engaging. I also noticed that if I get into the power area briefly for a quick acceleration, then glide, it helps maintain the mpg. It's funny in a way how I'm complaining of low mpg in a car when it reads 44 mpg. I called myself a Prius snob. Ha ha.

 

This is the comment that I was going to point out, but Justin nailed it!
If it wasn't for SR-2 uphill run, I would be in the mid 50's, not 48/49 in summer!

I believe this would be Warp Stealth in the pic below,



Going down the SR-2 hill, I can no bar it a good portion on the way down. Note speed is 68, climbing to 75, no energy transfer, no bars! When I come to my transition ramp, I just lift the foot, car slows down to 70, transition through the ramp, hit another downhill run which is a 78 mpg strech until I hit the 5, flat terrain I pulse and glide there, 5 minutes more, I am at work.
Uphill just plain sucks!

 

I'm a little confused....you guys mean no arrows right? No bars on the HSI in Justin's pic is easy to do on a Gen 3 but the no arrows on this screen (see below) is very difficult to maintain.
I've never driven a Gen 2 so I'm just wondering if that's what you mean.

 

Yeah, It took me a while to figure out, but one thing that helps is you can set a X Gauge on a Scan Gauge that indicates throttle position in degrees. I found the sweet spot, and now I can do it by feel. It takes practice, but once you get it, you get it! Now you have to keep practicing and refine your technique!

 

Prior to the glide, I find that I get my best fuel economy when I'm more aggressive on the acceleration than when I slowly accelerate.

 

Correct. Because there is no HSI display on a GenII, we used the energy flow display. When there were no arrows showing you knew you were in a full glide with the engine off. In warp stealth, which occurs over 42mph, there will be arrows going from the battery to the wheels and the engine is spinning but using no fuel. Very little energy is used during warp stealth which is basically what happens in the GenIII when you have just a tiny bit of the HSI bar showing.

Confused yet?

 

The pros say to keep RPM between 1500 and 1800 on the GenIII and under 2200 on the GenII. Even at those RPMs acceleration is sorta slow unless you are used to hypermiling. If there is traffic I recommend just accelerating as needed, screw RPM management. Then glide when possible.

 

I'm a little confused, how do you know the rpm with out a tach.
On driv home tonight, I had several hills with lots of down hill sections (3 hour drive) and had the eco button depressed but several times the displayed showed some red in the power section. Am I supposed to switch to power mode or not and possible damage to vehicle (2013 Prius 2 with less than 300 miles on odometer. On Tuesday I am going over the hill to Missioula Montana and thinking I should use the power mode going up the hill and down the other side to avoid over reving the traction motor?