How did I do on driving the Prius? Any improvement?

It sounds like you have a good car and a good route, but I'm lost on the above portion. What good is it to have a car if it's no good to use on a freeway?

I'm currently at 54.2 mpg in my 2007 with about 200 miles on the current tank. I drive about 22 miles each way to work. It's about 13 minutes from the house to the highway (25-45 zones), then 9-10 miles of Interstate 26 at 65mph (about 9 minutes), then about 6 minutes to the plant using 45 mph roads with a couple traffic lights..

My experience with my route is mpg starts taking a noticeable hit on the highway once you venture above 65 mph.

 

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Just drive your prius like a normal car and go on with life. It's okay to drive your prius on the highway. It's okay to drive it on small roads. It's okay to drive it fast, it's okay to drive it slow. It's a car that is designed to be a car and it is really good at being a car. No matter where and how you drive, you'll still get very good fuel economy. What's not good for the prius in reality, is to NOT drive it. If a prius sits undriven for a long time the traction battery can suffer. Having low miles on a gen 2 prius usually means bad battery. Other than that, just drive it and enjoy good fuel economy. BTW, there is no EV mode on the gen2. It's a hybrid, not a plug in. It almost never drives on 100% electric. In fact, gen2 is designed to not be able to avoid using gas engines above 42mph.below 42mph you can kind of play with it and make it go all electric for a short time, but then it will fire the ice to top off the battery later. You are essentially robbing Peter to pay Paul. In general if you drive slow you'll get better economy, if you drive fast you will get worse economy. Just like a normal gas car.

 

Maybe you could link to the post about which you're talking, so we can try to understand what the poster was saying.

There is no reason not to take your Prius on the highway and no reason to go so slow. 60-65 should yield acceptable MPG.

 

No.

 

Seems reasonable. I would be weary of a 2006 with say 45K miles on the clock. If you are getting good fuel economy and the state of charge graph remains in the upper region and not going up and down too much, then you are fine. I bought a 2007 with 175k back in 2017. It now has 225k and still on original battery.

 

EV mode was used via coastal cruise control

Is this the modification done on the cruise control circuit and activated using the cruise control stalk behind the steering wheel? IIRC, you had to pull the stalk toward the driver for 3 seconds to activate EV mode, or something similar?

I had a white 2005 for a while that had the paperwork/instructions for that style kit being installed. I had assumed finding that paperwork in the glovebox meant that modification had been performed to the car, but maybe it wasn't since I could never get it to activate.

 

With the quarantine lockdown in effect in London, I’m now working from home and barely get to use “The Spaceship” except for shopping trips, my weekly hospital appointment (I’m collecting autoimmune diseases ) and the odd sneaky cruise (after the hospital) down a long triple carriageway (and then home) where I’m very unlikely to be pulled over for breaking the quarantine.

Well, I filled up on my last commute home 2 weeks ago, and have only driven 43 miles in over 2 weeks - but....my gosh!
Look at my MPG for those 43 miles!

Since the lockdown, the roads here in my corner of West London have been...empty!

Further more, I’ve been perplexed to see the few cars on the road driving at well below the speed limit for once!
Real shocker that.
People driving carefully well under the speed limits and totally behaving themselves.

Anyway, that’s my MPG from matching the calm and serene driving mode that’s suddenly descended on the empty roads of London.
The real scary bit is - I wasn’t even trying....and I live at the top of a steep hill to boot.
How the hell did I get back up there and still end up with these figures?

I did have new tyres fitted recently (and it’s gotten much warmer since the quarantine began) - but doesn’t your MPG drop when you fit brand new tyres?!!

My take away from this? Toyota did something extremely right when they designed and built the Prius Gen 2. If I’m getting this MPG in an 11 year old car (and no, I wasn’t driving down hill nonstop), they certainly did something right!

Now I wish the roads were always this empty!


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Great job on driving and maintaining your vehicle! I think it is no accident that your vehicle gets this great mileage.

Great vehicle + Great driving habits = Great mileage.

I had a 2008 Prius with 140,000+ miles on it. It still averaged over 50 mpg in the summer when we traded it in in 2019.

 

You should believe NONE of what you hear......and only half of what you see.

What works best is to drive it smoothly and not too fast.......and ignore all of the other advice about "tricks or techniques".
If the freeway is your best route, USE IT. Just don't do 80 in a 55.

 

This car is great to drive on the highway. I drove 1400 miles across country with my daughter some years back and I spent like $60-80 on gas. I think we stopped 4-5 times for gas and each times it was like $15 to fill up. I was shocked every time and would just laugh.

And BTW I had this puppy up to 90 a few times. Drives perfectly fine. I am actually pretty surprised at how solid of a car this is.

 

Data Daedalus, Jealously forced me to "recalibrate" your display...

 

Actually, that would be 58.4 MPG US.

 

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