Record your Prime and Gas Fill-ups

It's not a prime. It's a gen 3 2010.

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Oh. But the thread is titled "Record your Prime and Gas Fill-ups" and it's in the Prime Fuel Economy & EV Range forum. Natural to assume you were talking about a Prime.

 

OOF sorry LMAO. Didn't notice the Prime

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Easy to miss sometimes.

 

I have had my 21' Prime LE for a little over a week and I filled her up the other day. 822.3 miles/9.601 gallons= 85.6mpg! I know that's factoring electric range and all (51% EV Driving Ratio), but overall impressed! I did a trip a 202 mile round trip over the weekend just using the hybrid system, couldn't charge over night, and I averaged around 63mpg. This is a pretty amazing little machine!

 

I don't understand why we are all drinking the eMPG coolaid.

The reality is the Prime gets about 40-50 mpg running on electric, about the same as gas, in SCE land anyway.

Unlike the non-prime vehicles, where your MPG could be easily determined each time you top off your tank and recording the miles driven. It was always 10-20% LESS than the fake MPG on your dash meter. There is an algebraic formula elsewhere on priuschat to correct it, but the confirmed consensus is Toyota was misleading the owner. Well, they are still at it. If they really wanted to show the CORRECT MPG, you would enter your cost per kwh (~$0.25 and more for So Cal Edison), and enter your cost per gallon of gas. But they do not. They base it on the ridiculously low AVERAGE energy costs around the country. This is greatly flawed, for know one pays the average. They pay the highest tier, for the car is using power in addition to your household. Moreover, when you do the math, all those "special" electric vehicle plans ending up costing you MORE! Anyway, average is a statistically useless number, for median would be a better guide. Bottom line, do the math yourself, or use the calculator on Choose EV – Savings Calculator . When you plug in the correct numbers, purely from an economy basis, you find the only time you should plug your car in, is into your neighbors outlet. This whole 100mpg is a farce. (Unless you live in a state with very low energy costs, then likely the power is coming from oil, natural gas or coal. Whereas you are not really greening the world either.

 

Your wrong. With one charge I'M averaging over 75MPG and 200miles per day basis! I live in L.A!

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Picture for reference!

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Prius chat won’t let me quote another post for some reason... but in reply to Pearlblizzard..

I do understand what you are saying.. it definitely varies depending on how much electric only you’re using.. I have been experiencing better hybrid only MPG’s than the epa rating. Over Easter weekend we took a trip to visit family, we traveled 553 miles without a charge, used 8.8 gallons of fuel, so that put us at about 63mpgs for the trip. Maybe this is true to regular the standard Prius as well? I do agree the MPG gauges in the car are inflated some, but relatively close. Almost every car I’ve had has had over zealous mpg gauges. I had a 14’ Nissan Murano and it always said I was getting around 23-24mpg when in reality I was getting 18-20 mpg. It kind of pains me to think I drove it 140k miles and all the gas I used over the years LOL. I am impressed so far with my Prime. And for me it costs around $0.13 per kWh for electricity.

 

I appreciate your opinion, but the fact is I am not wrong. If you do the math and not rely on the INCORRECT reading on the car dash, you will see that your electric mileage is MUCH less than gas in California. I was surprised when I received my latest SCE bill and the tier 2 total cost per kWh is $0.34 (much higher than then the chart that SCE has on the bill that fails to include the actual $0.07 for the cost of the power, the rest are SCE fees). This brings down your comparative MPGe to around 30MPG. After I conclude my study over the next few weeks, I will post the actual results.

I am in no way stating I do not like the car. In prominently hill side and varied driving, while driving it like a "normal" car, always in power mode and getting an actual 52MPG is nothing short of phenomenal. This is my 3rd Prius, and with a net NEW car total cost of $18,500 (with all taxes, license, incentives and rebates) for a 2021 car is exceptional. The car handles better than previous ones, is more solid and feels of quality everywhere. The reliability is among the best cars made which is amazing for such a complex piece of machinery. Aside from the abysmal infotainment system, Toyota did an absolutely amazing job of producing this car.

What I detest is the fake information that the EV cars are more economical to drive, when it is easy for Toyota to NOT deceive the customer by enabling you to input gas and electric costs into your display. However, that would be against what they are trying to push. In addition, most low energy cost states rely on coal for half and often more of the energy they create. When you accurately factor the carbon footprint of coal vs gas per mile then add in the battery environmental harm, the benefit to the earth may only be marginal. Even California, the greenest state, is not set to be all green energy until 2045. That said, your EV is still using coal to charge your battery, although the pollution is elsewhere and we all know the globe does not comingle CO2 Just drive with your eyes open. The car charged from your wall current (nor any EV car) is NOT more economical to use in CA, and only marginally better for the environment. I like the EV mode for the car has more pep at low speeds around town. But I am not delusional as to the cost of that pep. In economics the expression is "there is no such thing as a free lunch", and the EV world continues to hold this statement true.

I will step down from my soap box.

 

If you simply charge the EV battery before you go on a "long" trip like that. You will get even better. I would assume somewhere in the 5-10 MPG BETTER. What I mean by this is fully charge your EV Battery. When you turn the car on "turn ev off completely" then drive like a normal prius. See when your ev battery charge is full and your not using it. It helps with ac usage, better acceleration, and even contributes to about 10-20 percent better mpg on highway by itself in my test this far. Yes everytime I get in the car I turn it off is a nuisance but on long trips it pays off not to use MOST OR ALL EV in the beginning. For example we have went to Vegas many times which is about 270 miles. In my 2020 Limited normal prius got about 45 roundtrip. My prime last week with one charge and turning it off as mentioned above gave me 69. This driving at 75 most the route. If I was doing 65-70 I would have got 72ish maybe better.

 

Oh and the gas thing. I get 32 miles per charge. Which nets me around 1.80 for charging cost. Gas is 3.80 avg in L.A. technically at .20 kwh so half gallon of gas is 1.90. there both netting me about 30 miles per half gallon vs charge price in kwh at home. Not to mention all the free volta charges I get, plus free charge points. There almost everywhere centrally speaking. Now the numbers from above are from when I didn't even know free charging existed until a few days ago. So even adding more bonus there. Just my opinion.

 

When I did my Non-EV hybrid only mileage test, I drove out the EV battery before filling up the gas tank and zeroing the trip meter. I left the car in Auto EV mode for downhills will charge the EV battery and improve the mileage, which is fair. Drove almost 500 miles and filled the tank. Simply divide gallons used into the miles driven gives you your MPG. Mine was 51.6MPG and my display inaccurately read 56.1MPG, off 10%. This ~10% overstatement is consistent with previous Priuses (Prii) and I would have expected Toyota to fix (LOL). My latest tank (still never plugged in) reads 59MPG so I expect perhaps ~55MPG in hybrid mode. Amazing, but not 75MPG as many wrongly believe.

My last car (Mazda 3) MPG meter was accurate to +-2% on every tank. Not sure why Toyota cannot fix it, unless the goal is to deceive the US drivers.

To test EV only mode, I have will use the miles driven each day only in EV mode refilling the battery nightly and measuring the actual kWh used with a kill-o-watt meter. I intend to not exceed 20 miles in a day and making sure the car does not switch out of EV mode. If it does, that days driving will not be used in the final calculations. I will average as many days possible to obtain an accurate cost.

 

In SCE land, electricity is $0.34 and more, so your cost per mile on Electricity is much worse. Just saying. What was your kWh used for those 32 miles?

If a full charge gets you 32 miles and uses 8.8 kw (full charge) and SCE power is $0.34, the actual MPGe is 39 with gas at $3.65 gal, making plugging in the car a poor economical choice since on gas it gets 50-55. BTW, 8.8 kw cost $3 is SCE land. Gas would have to get to $5 gallon to break even on cost.

 

My avg Kwh is 5.8-6.2 daily consistent. But might I also add that I cut off the ev battery around 10-15 percent to assist me with better acceleration and to help recharge the ev lithium as well. Once that ev percentage is gone without a decent hill forget it. Also is your math could be off depending on what model you tested. I did the math and ended up with 69.3 but OD was 71.3. that's just a couple percent off kind of like the Mazda you mentioned. Yes in my earlier prius (Ive had 5 now) did have about 6-10 percent off on my 2010 and my 2008. However my wife's 2020 limited is in the 2-3 percent if not better plus my prime. Stars are aligning for me. LoL

 

I think honestly you should do a test where I mentioned above. Where you do a full charge but cut off ev when you start engine. Especially for longer trips over 2-300 miles plus. I've found using all your ev or most of it at first, the mileage is much worse. How we applying it over a longer trip is much more beneficial, economical, and effiecent.

See I did a test with just 15 percent battery left on ev. All ev off in eco mode "as always." Normally get 54-55 no ev (already used) on this specific route. However leaving a little ev juice 15%+- and got 67-68mpg. So would this not be more beneficial for those with higher electricity cost if it did indeed give you much better mpg overall????

 

Isn't a full charge around 6.3 kWh for the prime? Also, could you share your math on the MPGe calculation?

 

I will have to try this method out. I have a longer commute for work around 52 miles each way. I usually try to spilt my EV usage up into 25% for the beginning and the end of my commute each way so I have some EV benefit for my commute. My next full tank I will have to try this and not use EV mode to see if I get better mileage.

 

8.8 kwh not 6.3 I'm pretty sure. I've read alot but could be mistaken. The math I e share on a previous post. I honestly have not used this site much. I just switched to the app and now even more confused on how to share and quote but will learn with time.

 

057"]I think honestly you should do a test where I mentioned above. Where you do a full charge but cut off ev when you start engine. Especially for longer trips over 2-300 miles plus. I've found using all your ev or most of it at first, the mileage is much worse. However applying it over a longer trip is much more beneficial, economical, and effiecent.[/QUOTE]

If the commute is only 100 miles or so I don't know how that works to be honest but do remember one time I only drive 130 miles or so but had like 88mpg. I have to look back and see in pictures. Let me check.