This was the perfect morning: Sunday of a three-day holiday, starting about 5:45 am, and thus almost no traffic. Ideal weather conditions; warm, light breeze. There are nineteen traffic lights on the seven-mile route; on this day, most were green and several others I was able to coast down to where the light changed before I got to it. In all, just two full stops, and no "gotcha" stops (light turns yellow forcing a quick stop). The speed limits vary between 25 and 40 mph, and on this day I could pulse-and-glide, slowing down to as little as 10 or 15 mph a couple of times. Beginning and ending points are at roughly the same elevation -- indeed, no significant ups and downs anywhere on the route. So, I expect that this will be my all-time best: 83.1 mpg. Since the weather warmed, I have been regularly posting numbers in the 60's and some 70's, but I usually hit a lot more red lights, and there is always more traffic than there was this morning. [I want to post photos of my screens, and have posted photos before - but am not sure how to right at this moment. What I got is the files attached, below. The first one is this morning's run. The second is my current tank, 67.5 mpg (which is my best so far. It is 100% in-town driving, most of it back and forth on my commute). The third is overall since I purchased the vehicle in mid-December: 45.5 mpg, which is not so good. That reflects Winter, and my learning curve.] Since buying this car, I have become enough of a milage geek that anything under 50 is disappointing. And something in the eighties? Even though I did it today, it still seems impossible.
Go into the pop-up editor, then the full one, click in the text to place the cursor where you want the picture, then scroll down to the list of images, click "full image", or words to that effect. Repeat.
Well, I broke my all-time personal best, though it was on a different bit of road, a thirteen-mile (and one hour) stretch in the Maryland suburbs of D.C. (see below) I filled the fuel tank at Olney, MD, resetting the trip meter; then drove via MD 97 (Georgia Ave.) to MD 193 (University Blvd/Greenbelt Rd.), between about 3 and 4 pm on a weekday with moderate to heavy traffic.The first part of the drive is what passes for countryside in that area - former farmland converted to high-end subdivisions; the latter part is full-scale city driving, lots of stoplights and stop-and-go, with me doing my best to make gentle startups at all the lights. For a while my mpg was running in the mid-90's, but some bad luck with stoplights near the end left me with a total of 89.0 mpg. This car was made for this type of driving; it is an amazing piece of engineering. This was part of my first road trip with the Prius C, ten days and about 2500 miles. It was a mixture of interstate driving (wherein I sought to stay around 63 to 65 mph, with a good bit of cruise control on the level parts), the Skyline Drive and part of the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia (beautiful scenic drive, lots of up-and-down. The Skyline Drive has a 35 mph speed limit, the Parkway is 45 mph), and about 300 miles of two-lane 55 mph highways on my return home. Total milage: 61.8 on the screen, 58.5 calculated from fuel purchases. I am happy with this, though the "C" is much less of an overwhelming milage king on the highway than it is in the city. Now it finally feels like "my" car, after about seven months of owning it, a nice road trip, and four nights of sleeping in it. I love this car.
Is that for a tank of gas? If you went 687.1 miles on that tank, you should have joined the 600 mile club.
Yeah, that was almost a whole tank. One gallon left? (see picture at left.) I only check the gas mileage after going thru a full tank. (Short trip mpg numbers are pretty meaningless.) I think the actual number was closer to 65. It was just for fun. One time. I didn't drive over 35 mph, and no traffic. A more realistic drive, driving normally and keeping up with the flow of traffic, I will get 56.5 (calculated) at the 600 mile point. That's good enough. I'd still be happy if I only got 40 mpg! Retired, and don't drive much. High gas mileage is not really a priority. (Maybe I should buy a Tundra? ) I'd like to know how some of these Gen4 guys are going 700 or 800 miles on a tank? Do they never go over 15 mph? Some set their tire pressure at 50 psi. I like a smooth ride... my tires are at factory specs.
Some of them are the Prius Prime, or they are trying to get those high numbers. But yeah, one member actually documented that he didn't drive much faster than 45 for the entire trip, he'd pull over and wait on traffic to die, or resume the drive when it was later in the day, just so that he could join the 700 or 800 mile club. IIRC, we had one member with right around 1000 miles on a tank.
I think it turns into a game or a hobby for some Prius owners. Maybe even an obsession? I know my car is capable of getting better gas mileage, but I just don't have the patience to do the hypermiling all the time. I am perfectly satisfied with a 600 mile tank, and 55 MPG.
The PC has a smaller tank, so I struggle to break 500 most tanks. My best tank is 569 miles (60.44mpg). I probably could have eeked out another 10 miles or so... but that would be past my comfort threshold... which is already way past most folks.
So far we see 40s-to-60s, just a month and 1500 miles into the new car. We just drive it, no eco techniques applied apart from some ordinary cruise-control usage. It's working as well as we'd hoped.
That's outstanding, well done! I am on 2nd tank struggling to get 42mpg. I now have display set at Eco Score, and I'm getting good scores, just so-so fuel economy. Today I filled the Bridgestone Ecopias to 42 psi I come from a VW Golf TDI 5M that averaged 47 mpg it's first 200K miles. At that point I started using Biodiesel - and took a 4mpg hit. I think biggest problem may be the Houston summer. A/C is always on. Lower air temperatures in AM seem to yield better mpg.
Eco Score being good does not equal mpg's being good, just a heads up. The eco score is an arbitrary game that is fun to attempt, but not realistic in just about any model of traffic. If you're getting 42 mpg with Houston heat and using AC, that's not bad. There seems to be a sweet spot of below 90 degrees and above 60 degrees that this car loves. Also.... as much as it pains me, this car loves driving at 55 mph, me... not so much.
Well, I got 61 mpg coming back from airport early this evening. Higher tire pressures and lengthy trips are making a difference. This tank now up to 46 mpg. I don't mind 55 mph but one has to watch flow of traffic. Too much discrepancy is dangerous and definitely not worth it .
There's a strange situation here in Van on the Barnet Hwy: weekday morning and evenings: the right lane is High Occupancy Vehicle only. What happens typically It's mostly single occupancy vehicles, in the left lane, not too crowded, everybody going like hell, while the right lane is empty. On the rare occasions I need to drive it alone while the HOV's in effect, I usually throw in the towel, get into the right lane (breaking the law) so I can slow down to the speed limit. This is dangerous too: you'll get the hardcore speeders coming up behind you trying to pass all the left laners on the right side, can't win. Ultimately, I wish they'd just drop-kick the whole HOV concept there, it's not needed, the volumes are not that high (at least in my experience), it's underutilizing the two lanes, and it's dangerous.
In my Nissan Titan this morning. I got 11.8 mpg on the way to the lake. Now sitting at the Mercury dealer waiting on them to open because you know boats. Always something wrong... Gas but no fire and as a result i burned up the starter cranking. So this is gonna cost me. Too bad Toyota doesn't make an outboard. Mercury engines - both i ever had including this one are have been than reliable. But an staring at plugged in Prius Prime.
