Well... I did it...

In normal conditions I've never seen the state of charge fall off seriously, due to light braking. The car does a lot of things behind the scenes too, managing how much juice is used I guess, to keep to a decent level. The main times the charge will get run down are protracted low speed travel, ie: when traffic has bogged down to stop-and-go pace. As long as it's not protracted you're ok, but if it's multiple blocks, sure enough it'll run down to two bars, and then the engine fires up. Frustrating.

Even worse is low speed plus increased load. Perfect example is a parking garage we use. Spiralling up through the levels it's almost impossible to avoid the car slipping into EV, and the steady uphill grade eats the charge fast. Still, It is what it is: the charge bounces back once you're in normal traffic conditions.

 

I think the easiest to implement advice that will give you the biggest return is Mendel leisk's 2nd point about avoiding braking (by the way this works great for a regular car also). Braking is wasted energy - the idea being that you could have used less gas if you would have stopped accelerating sooner and coasted to a stop than accelerating until later and then braking. This is true even if regenerative braking. Regen braking (that charges the battery) recovers some, but not all, of the energy used in accelerating to that point. So coast when you can, then use regenerative, light braking. If you have to use hard braking the regular brakes will kick in like any other car (basically if the bar goes all the way to the left on the HSI).

Bottom line, coasting instead of braking, and light regenerative braking instead of hard braking is better for the gas mileage, the car, and safety as it forces you to anticipate and pay attention more as mentioned above.

Enjoy the new ride!

 

Best way to think about that ... in a conventional car, braking is a total waste of energy. The car is moving down the road at speed, which took energy to make happen, and now you want to slow it down or stop it, so all that energy has to go somewhere, and normal brakes turn it all into heat, and it just makes your wheels hot, the heat escapes in the air, and you never get any of that energy back

The Prius improves on that because you get some of the energy back. Instead of it all being lost as heat at the wheels, some of it gets recaptured and sent back to the battery ... where some of it is lost as heat in the battery, and some of what's left actually charges the thing, so next time you want to pick up speed again, the battery can give you some of that energy back ... and some of that escapes as heat on the way back out, too .. and a certain fraction of what you started with really does end up moving the car.

In other words, you're always throwing energy away when you brake; what's different about a Prius is you're throwing away less of it, but it still isn't a win, or even a break-even.

-Chap

 

Greetings and welcome aboard!

Relax and enjoy the car.
My company uses them for service vehicles and believe me, they're a lot tougher than they look!!

The only way you're going to hurt the car is by not keeping the oil topped off.
Make sure the tires are at least inflated to factory specs - but that will only affect the tires and your mileage, not the rest of the car.

Good Luck!!

 

I agree with this strongly.

 

My main piece of advise is to not pull up close too far when parking in spaces with curbs or concrete stops in front of you. The bumper is low and it's easy to crunch the bumper cover and the spoiler underneath, and maybe other stuff. I made expensive repairs to my recently acquired 2010 because the original owner had beat it up pretty good there. That was reflected in the purchase price. I wanted it to look nice, and ended up using all the savings from the lower purchase price to fix it up, so I'm about even. Now I have to be careful to keep it looking good. Your 2011 may already have battle scars in front.

I agree with those that saying to drive it as a normal car. I do some hypermiling techniques like gliding when it makes sense, slowing down ahead of time when approaching a red light, and driving such to avoid the need for braking or heavy braking (when it makes sense), but I did a lot of that with my Subaru too. But trying to keep it out of the power zone when accelerating from a stop on a higher speed road such as an expressway doesn't make sense to me. I did try that at first, but then found that my fuel economy actually seemed better most of the time when I ignored the monitor and just drove. Admittedly these were not controlled comparisons, but I saw enough that I'd rather go my usual moderate/not fast acceleration from a stop rather than a snail's pace acceleration (that annoys cars behind you) if I try to stay well below the power zone or limit myself to 3/4 of the Eco zone. I do that only in low speed limit situations, such as neighborhood/subdivision roads with no traffic.

 

Yup. You can save gas without being that obvious about it.

 

Hope you're enjoying the Prius! When I first test drove one, I thought the car was broken too when the engine shut off at the first stoplight I hit. Until the salesman told me it does that to save on gas. Now having the engine shut off seems like second nature in a hybrid.

You'll also love the buffer the Prius provides against the sticker shock of whenever gas prices go back up. And since it's a Toyota, it'll run for a long time with minimal fuss.

Here's a really good video you should watch in order to maximize mpg in the Prius. Don't expect to learn all this at once. It took me months to get "pulse & glide" down, for example.

Just a word of caution. Once you get addicted to the silence of electric driving, you may be craving for more. Hence why I'm driving a Chevy Volt now. But the Prius was a nice "gateway car" for that lol.

 

That's an excellent summary of the braking issue. It's always best to plan ahead to avoid all unnecessary braking. Instead, use up that energy constructively by coasting whenever safe and practical with the HSI indicator in its zero (disappeared) position.

 

I just got my 2006 and love this car. It's different from other vehicle but this forum is great for any of concern. Enjoy you Prius.


iPad ?

 

I got my car yesterday and I didn't notice the turn off until after I got it home. I was like "did my car just turn itself off?". But it went when It needed to do. I have to say I have a heavy foot but I really love the Prius One thing I miss from my old car is tiptronic so that I could slow my car down without braking, which is the only thing that is taking time to get used to.

 

After a while you will really enjoy being stealthy. Soon the cars with engines running while idling will be the troublesome thing.

 

Congratilations!

 

Aww! I'm glad you didn't return it. I love mine so much. I'm like "where can I drive to today?"

 

You guys, this has been such a helpful thread. I just got my 2013 on Tuesday. Oh my goodness, I love driving this car! I'm still getting used to it, getting the mirrors adjusted the way I want them, etc., so obviously no advanced hypermiling techniques yet. I feel accomplished if I get to work and remember how to turn it off properly.

@Mendel Leisk 's posts #9 and #12 had some really simple, easy-to-apply advice. I read the entire owner's manual, but there's a lot of info to digest there. It's nice to have some simple rules of thumb while I'm getting started.

I also appreciated the repeated advice of "don't worry, just drive it like a normal car!"

I have a Prius-driving coworker, and it's so fun to share our stats at lunch ("I got 59.3 on the way home last night!")

 

Congratulations, and welcome to the club...

 

How many times do you think I've heard that from new owners over the past 15.5 years of driving a Prius?

Just 3 months into my ownership (December 2000), we experienced the second coldest & snowiest winter in Minnesota history. That quickly got me over any timid feeling about the technology. It was put to the test right away.

The latest was over New Year's. We took a trip out to Wyoming. We'd hit a tiny patch of ice from time to time... going around 70 mph. That's an interesting experience. On the way home, it was a little warmer and the side of the highway that doesn't often get wind. So, a sustained 80 mph then.

In other words, you can push the system in a variety of ways without any concern. Take it from this owner who had a 2001, upgraded to a 2004, upgraded again to a 2010, then upgraded to a 2012 plug-in model.