I use my car for uber so I put quite a few miles on it, about 5000 so far. Here's what I've noticed, if I just drive it moderately like a normal car I get about 40-45ish in the city. If I put it in Eco mode or even normal mode and drive very carefully minding the hybrid power monitor (which gets annoying after a while) I can get 50. Usually run the ac and I live in Los Angeles which is a mix of hills and flat land. Does this seem normal?
Yup. You might be able to leg it out to 55-60 if you bump the tire pressures up to 42-44, omit the A/C, and accelerate even more slowly than you do now. You can also use the brakes as little as possible, coast through intersections rather than actually stopping at those pesky stop signs, and other hypermiling techniques like grill blocking and drafting - the latter of which is utterly moronic. However (comma!) what little I know about Uber leads me to believe that these actions would be a little less popular with your customers who actually like things like air conditioning.....and prompt, safe delivery and pickup. Your call. I'd settle for 45mpg and higher ratings.
Keep in mind if you shut off, you have to climb back up the warm up stage. Not sure the nature of your trips, but you might benefit from better technical understanding of the warm-up phases.
Driving a cab and hypermiling is an uneasy marriage. That said, in addition to the above tips: obey speed limits, accelerate gently and maintain a generous following distance. The latter allows you to coast through your "buffer" when there's a slowdown ahead, often avoiding the need to brake.
Seems reasonable, although 40 does seem a bit low (but if you're in L.A. rush hour and the battery drains, then ya that's pretty good). I would just be aware of A/C usage (use ECO mode if traffic is heavier and you want to save some battery charge) and if you're crawling, once in a while, leave a larger gap and use the engine to accelerate instead of solely relying on the battery (again, with the small battery capacity, it will eventually have to be charged by the engine). Find terrain where you can take advantage of the Hybrid Synergy Drive. The Prius likes rolling hills because you can pulse & glide and pulse on the uphill portions and glide on the downhill while maintaining speed (whereas on the flat road, you'll lose speed due to friction and air resistance as you glide).
Isn't uber price preset for the trip before the customer even contacted you? You're not racing against time and traffic like a taxi. You should be able to drive it like you own it, not like you stole it. Also AC drops your mileage down 5 to 15 mpg for stop and go traffic, 3 to 10 mpg on freeway.
Frankly, the whole 50+ mpg factor of a Prius relies on COASTING. I drive 20+ miles each way to and from work...mostly on rural roads. I average 60+ mpg going to town and 70+ mpg going home (more uphill one way than the other). Sounds good, but overall, the tank rarely averages over 60 mpg. For most of this time, I'm doing 35-45 and able to use EV and coast for a good portion of the trip. In town, well, you're always starting and stopping, and the battery range is really limited, so the ICE has to kick in as needed. You can do slow accelerations to stay in EV mode, but once you are low on charge, the ICE kicks in anyhow. At least you don't tend to burn gas when stopped at lights. Likewise, once you go over 50 mph, you're always using the ICE, and at highway speeds, you'd be lucky to keep getting over 55 mpg. The Prius is one of the very few cars out there that gets WORSE mileage in town compared to "highway" driving.
I also find that city driving is generally worse than highway I get around 50mpg on the highway with normal 60-70mph driving fuel efficiency in the city depends on where I am, in the cobblestone hilly outskirts of center city I get something like 30mpg, in the city itself gives me 40mpg. note: I don't like slowing the cars down behind me so I pulse from stop using gas from rest and then coast/use ev to supplement speed. I also have the AC on most times smoother flatter roads definitely give me better mpg than bumpy ones
Huh? Typo? The vast majority of cars do much worse in the city driving than the Prius. The Prius design is much better at maintaining city driving efficiency in spite of frequent braking and speed changes.
Ah. You're right. However, I've found, so far, that unless I'm doing interstate high-speed, I generally do poorly "in town" (stop and go) compared to the back roads (consistent 40-45 mph with few stops).
Often times, "poor" city mileage in a Prius is really due to the engine having just recently started so the driving is on an engine that is not at its ideal operating temperature yet. If you are driving in the city after being on the highway with a warmed-up engine you should get good mpgs in town.
I'm also in LA, so our experience is similar. I'm getting just over 50mpg in ECO without A/C, but when I'm running AC it drops down to 47mpg. Which for how hot it has been recently, I'm really happy about.
I live in OC. Much of my commute is 405 traffic. In the mornings, light to medium traffic, I get about 47-57mpg. On the way home from work, hot (heavy AC) very dense traffic, I get between 41-45mpg. I put 1,300 miles on my 2015 Prius so far and my lifetime average is 49.7
I don't drive in the "city" per se, but my daily drive is on suburban surface streets mostly 35-45 MPH speed limits, moderate stoplights. My best tank of that kind of driving is probably about 47 MPG. Whereas I can easily get 50+ on long freeway trips. I went from Philly to the Outer Banks in late summer (A/C running the whole time) and back and averaged about 57 MPG for the trip. I don't really understand the EPA cycle. The Prius does much, much better than conventional cars in city driving but it's still clearly worse than on the highway in my experience.
It may depend on what the EPA uses now for highway mileage calculation. In many places, it's now 70-75 mph, and that's going to have more of an MPG hit than doing 55.
Yes. Only time I see less than 50 is after a Trip A reset and and it takes a couple of days to get back up there. 15 miles, stop and go, 40% 4 lane blvd, 60% 2 lane semi-residential, mostly flat, some small bumps. I don’t get it; are you complaining ?
Like other's are saying, your conditions and MPG sound about right to me. There are a lot of factors that can affect the MPG of this car. Even if you dog it, you still get respectable number's in my opinion. Just keep an eye on the maintenance and you should do okay. One thing that does help, keep it in ready mode as much as possible. As stated above, the Prius has different levels of operation. Every time you shut down it starts all over again. In my signature is a link that discusses S4 mode. Once you understand that, you will have a better understanding why the Prius does what it does when it is cold or warmed up. Best of luck to you.
