How's your Winter mileage?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bgdrewsif @ Dec 21 2006, 05:08 AM) [snapback]365014[/snapback]</div>

Ah, I bought a brand new 2007 a week ago, and so far I am averaging a consistent 29 MPG!! Temps have been cold here in Oregon. Most of the week highs were in the 30's, and two days the highs were below freezing, and we had snow.

I have been watching my Energy and Consumption screens carefully. I have noticed that the ONLY time I see an arrow going from the battery to the electric motor is when I first start the car up, or when I start moving after a traffic stop. And it is only for a couple of seconds. The gas engine then immediately kicks in. So I seem to be running on gas virtually all the time.

Also, I noticed that my battery NEVER shows that it is fully charged. Is this normal? It varies from showing 2/3 to 3/4 charged. And even though the Energy screen shows the battery supposedly being charged all the time, the CONSUMPTION screen is seeing very little in the way of watts regenerated.

So what the heck is wrong? I test drove a used 2004 in Sept that did not behave at all like this when I rode it. It gave 44 MPG, and was regenerating lots of electric power. And it seemed to mainly run on the electric motor at low speeds.

Did I get a Lemon? Are the 2007 models having problems??

I love my new Prius in ever other respect. But gee, I could get this kind of mileage from a Corolla or Civic.

Lance

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(LanceinOregon @ Jan 20 2007, 02:46 PM) [snapback]378346[/snapback]</div>

I don't know if there are issues with the 2007, but I believe what you are experiencing is perfectly normal.

When the temperatures get really low, then the gas engine comes ON and tends to stay ON. And it is at this point that the Prius becomes the most challenged hybrid vehicle from a fuel economy perspective. While all vehicles with a gas engine suffer in extreme weather, a Prius just compounds the losses by carrying extra hybrid related gear that contributes very little (sometimes, nothing) to moving the vehicle.

A gas powered Civic or a Corolla are similarly affected by the cold temperatures. In fact, I can guarantee to you that a gas powered Civic or Corolla will easily slip into the 13 l/100km (19mpg) when operated in a city environment and low temperatures. But worse yet, plug in a device like a "ScanGauge" and you should be ready for a greater shock: You'll see that in most short trips a gas powered vehicle such as a Corolla will do MUCH worse than 19mpg. Just imagine how other less efficient vehicles trully do when monitored like that?

Now, for the coldest of weather: could you have a better vehicle? Perhaps.
But since you already own a Prius, let me assure you that for year-round fuel economy performance it is very hard to beat it.
Please be patient and understand that ALL vehicles are affected by the cold weather. Neither physics nor Mother Nature will allow any car to even come close to its EPA ratings when challenged by the coldest of weathers.

Respectfully now, referring to an alternative such as a gas powered Civic or Corolla as being better or even comparable is nothing but unrealistic and wishfull thinking.

The batteries will never "display" as being fully charged. This is by design and is very common. In the cold weather you'll see the gas engine constantly adding charge to the battery as a means of maintaining a steadier State of Charge and ensuring a longer life for the battery pack.

One other thing that helps immensely is checking the tire pressures to ensure that they remain high and ensuring that the engine is warm(er) prior to using the vehicle. A block heater can help if you can get one installed to meet your winter FE related challenges.


Cheers;


MSantos

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(LanceinOregon @ Jan 20 2007, 12:46 PM) [snapback]378346[/snapback]</div>

You need to give us more info like how long your trips are, what type of drive they are (how much city and highway), what are your speeds, about how much you're stopping and starting/moving again. Also, do you have the heater on, AC and front defrost on? Are you using the auto-climate control If you have the heat on, the ICE (internal combustion engine) will definitely tend to run more, esp. when the engine is cold. Turning the entire HVAC system to OFF until the ICE is warmed up. If you run the AC, defrost or possibly in auto, the electric AC compressor will run, further hurting your mileage. Short trips will kill mileage on any car.

Also, check your tire pressures. You should have them at least at the pressures indicated on the driver's side door sticker, if not higher.

I suspect that if you ran a current Corolla or Civic under the same conditions and same route, you'd get a lot worse than 29 mpg.

FWIW, when Consumer Reports tested the Prius, they got 35 city, 50 highway and 44 overall per http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/bu...s-206/index.htm. A Civic EX manual gets 22 city, 40 highway and 31 overall. From earlier issues, here's what they got for these cars:
Civic EX auto: 18 city, 43 highway, 28 overall
Corolla auto: 20 city, 39 highway, 29 overall

 

Hi Lance, and welcome to PC and I hope your issues resolve, as the Prius is indeed a great car. Several factors can negatively impact winter mileage in a Prius, but not to the extent you describe. Other factors also influence lower mileage such as new car break in period, you learning and becoming familiar with driving the Prius. Luckily for you, you're in Oregon where, I believe, several members here have formed a Prius Owners Club, so you should be able to get some first hand advice and response in person from some knowledgeable and experienced Prius owners.

My winter mileage decreased from and average overall of 49 mpg to 41 mpg. Simply due to winter, and the winter mix of gas the oil companies use. There are things you can to do minimize the winter effect, and I've tried a couple, which has raised my winter mileage up to about 45 mpg per tank. Still, you should probably not be getting 29.. That is low even considering new car, new owner, winter weather, etc.

Maybe you could post more information about your driving habits, your trips, i.e. local, highway, city traffic, etc. as well as the terrain in which you drive. Best recommendation I could make would be to go to a Prius Owners meeting and let some of the others take a look, but if you'll post some more info, we'll all try to help if we can.

Welcome again, this will work itself out, and I'm sure you'll love your car as we do....

 

Oh, do not get me wrong everyone. I love so many things about my new Prius. This Mileage issue is the only issue that I have noticed. In every other respect, the car has met or exceeded my expectations.

I do drive very short distances. My commute to work is only 4 miles, and involves no freeway driving. The entire Eugene/Springfield Metro area only has about 220,000 people. And I live almost exactly in the middle of it. Most of my trips are about 10 min. Max trip would be around 20-25 min at most.

Today, I took a longer drive, and for the first time, the battery power indicator turned GREEN in color on the ENERGY display. What does that mean? It has always been BLUE in color before. Does that mean the batteries are cold, or not fully functioning??

Is there really a "Break-In" period? If so, how long is it? I only have a little over 110 miles on the car at this point.

After today's drive, my total overall average MPG increased from 29 to 30.5 MPG

My previous car only got 19 MPG driving here the way I do, so this is still a significant improvement. I guess I misread the Consumer Reports Data. Thanks for the clarification on that.

I showed off my Prisus to a friend yesterday. Toyota should hire her to act in a Prius ad. Ha ha! For her reaction to just about every feature I showed her was to repeatedly say to me: "DON'T YOU JUST LUV IT?"

I had to answer her by saying: "YES!!" each and every time

I think she was a little jealous, besides being blown away by the car. She is a Honda owner, just like I used to be.

My son, who drives a 2005 Honda CIVIC, is totally dismayed over the fact that I am abandoning Honda. But to me, a CIVIC Hybrid cannot begin to compare to a Prius.

Lance

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(LanceinOregon @ Jan 20 2007, 07:43 PM) [snapback]378445[/snapback]</div>

By getting a Prius you've chosen a great car. I'm glad you're enjoying it.

However, do not mock the Honda Civic Hybrid. It almost achieves the same milleage as the Prius (less than 1mpg difference, see actual mileage at www.GreenHybrid.com), and when comparing both vehicles in extreme low temperatures the Civic Hybrid II has been found to produce better mileage than the Prius - I can vouch for that in my experience as I own both.
Of course, when the temperatures are more moderate the Prius can easily pull an FE win for most folks.

Cheers;

MSantos

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(FishHawk @ Dec 20 2006, 09:41 PM) [snapback]364897[/snapback]</div>

Yes, I am getting about 38-40 mpg now, although I have switched to some new tires, Michelin HydroEdge, which has dropped my mileage down about 3-4 mpg. I normally get around 43 mpg in the winter here.

BTW - I do not recommend the HydroEdge as it kills your gas mileage. In hindsight, I should have went back to the factory tires, despite their short life.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(LanceinOregon @ Jan 20 2007, 05:43 PM) [snapback]378445[/snapback]</div>

I gave some hints at http://priuschat.com/index.php?showtopic=2...mp;#entry281157 along w/a link to some others.

Your short 10 min trips are really killing your mileage. One more thing, I forgot to mention, don't worry about running your HVAC system if you're above 42 mph. At that point the ICE must run. It's just that when you're below it or stopped and have a cold engine, having the heat on can tend to make the ICE run and waste gas. I've experimented w/this where the engine is pretty cold and I can hear it running at a stoplight. The moment I press OFF, the ICE stops.

 

After a tank that made me struggle to get it above 45 (stupid ice/snow storm and artic air), I filled up last night. Today's commute gave me a mid-summer 57.9 so far for this tank. Sure, that's not going to last, but it made me smile seeing a number like that again.

 

I have an 05 Prius with 47k on it, I park outside and I put four new tires on it in Nov/Dec....last year
I got about 45mpgs...this year I'm averaging 43mpgs...but I'm filling up with 7 gallons of gas...I'm thinking it may be caculating based on the gallons in the tank not the full capacity of summertime 11 gallons....
Right now its snowy and temps in the low 30's I'm getting 41mpg on this tank....

Our temps have been in the 50's-60's up until the last week and my average has still gone down...hmmm....

I guess based on a 7 gallon tank, 40some mpgs aren't bad!

I'm glad its not just me...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(cwerdna @ Jan 21 2007, 12:03 AM) [snapback]378539[/snapback]</div>

For short trips like discussed it would probably help hitting the "ac auto" button to turn the heater off at red lights. This should make the engine stop (as it doesn't need to heat up more to provide air into the cabin). On a short trip like discussed this might help.

I have a longer commute (30-40 minutes) with a few red lights and I have played around with turning the heater off at red light on this longer commute. While it turns the engine off at red light (more) the temperature in the cabin drops quickly and the engine runs harder afterwards (preventing glide).

Keeping the climate control on auto and as low temperature as you can take (I do 65-67) will make the engine run none stop for the first, let's say 10 minutes but it will then shut down (for a while) at red lights and (more importantly) allow "glide" sections where it (seem to) shut down.I don't have enough data to "know" that keeping it at auto is "better" for me, but it seem so, and definitely not worse.

Once the outside temperature hits 40 I tend to turn the climate control off. The cabin heats up fast anyway and the engine still allow glides.

So my own rule of thumb (work for my 35 minute mostly back road commute):

<35 - Climate Control set to auto at 65-67F
~35-<75 - Climate Control "off"
>75 - Climate control set to auto at 75F

YMWV (Your Mileage Will Vary)

I think it depends a lot on your commute. When driving on backroads how you use the climate control matters. On the freeway it matters A LOT less. I almost always use the climate control on the freeway as I see no difference in my MPG (pretty steady at 50 year round).

 

My best tank so far -- and no surprise that it's in the winter. Here in FL the Prius does quite nicely in the winter, where we never need to turn on the heater, and I only have to use the air conditioner when my pregnant wife is in the car and ridicules my hypermiling objective.

Hope to beat 55 mpg on the next tank!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(LanceinOregon @ Jan 20 2007, 07:43 PM) [snapback]378445[/snapback]</div>

Those distances are the primary cause of your poor mileage. I have a 17-20 minute commute, and the first bar on the energy chart (5 minutes) shows about 30 mpg, then it jumps up to 50-60 mpg for the remainder of the trip. You're perpetually running in the first bar only. For the cold weather, I would think an engine block heater would help you quickly get the engine warm.

Break-in period is kind of vague. You can essentially drive the vehicle in a normal manner right from the start (avoid over-stressing it with jack-rabbit starts and long heavy accelerations, but that's normal for Prius owners anyway). After about 5K miles, the mileage does improve (is it due to the oil change?), about 5-10% I'd say. Warmer weather helps considerably on long trips, but even so, the first 5 minutes are rather poor.

For all those short trips, I'd recommend a bicycle in decent weather. A car isn't needed to just go a couple miles.

 

My 2 cents here.

I bought my Prius end of May '06. Spent most of the hot summer getting 50-52 MPG. That's with running the AC. My commute is 25 miles taking 45min to 1 hour.

In the fall when I turned off my AC my MPG went up to 54-56MPG. Same driving conditions.

Now in the winter I'm getting 46-48MPG. I keep my car garaged at night. It gets down to about 50 degrees in the garage. I've noticed that my milage bars in the morning are low for the first 5 minutes and then go back to their normal 50+MPG for my drive. On the way home, after the car has sat outside in the cold parking lot, things are quite different. For the first 15 minutes the bars don't get over 35MPG. A cold engine block is a mileage killer. The only thing that might help is blocking the radiator. There's no place to plug in a block heater at work.

 

Cold weather has finally but a damper on my mpg.Average mpg is now in the mid 40s.

 

After a very warm fall and early winter here in northern Massachusetts, (temps in the 30 to 50 degree range), it has finally gotten cold, (0 to 10 degrees). Mileage that was in the upper 40's has just bombed to the very low 30s. It seems that getting down around 0 really hammers the mileage especially if one does short trips. Two weeks ago with temps in the high 40s a modest trip gave 52.4. Of course my 1997 Honda Odessy has dropped from 27+ mpg to just barely 20. I can't wait for spring.

 

IT REALLY DEPENDS ON THE DRIVING-
On 1/20- fill up was 48 MPG, 206 miles driving about 60 miles each trip
On 1/24- only 40 MPG , 173 miles driving most trips under 20 min-
on 1/26- 41 MPG 247 miles but that was largely on the NJ Turnpike and a tire was a but low....

haven't blocked the grill yet, but I will after this oil change-
still 47 MPG for the first year with hydroedges!

 

Last week here in Ottawa the temperature every day when I drove to work was below -21C (-6F), and even in the afternoons when I was driving home it was sometimes below -21C. My MFD mileage reported 7.1 litres/100 km (33mpg) in US gallons.
I saw a lot of green on the battery indicator, and it seemed a lot of the time when I was stopped at a light the engine was running continuously with no arrows going anywhere - just heating the water. I only saw the engine stop burning gasoline once, for a few seconds after I had been driving continuously for about 30 minutes.
(I wonder if it isn't more the catalytic converter that is being heated, rather than the radiator. And I wonder if it wouldn't have been a better design to heat the catalytic converter electrically in cold weather. It uses waste heat in summer, but in winter there isn't much waste heat.)
Whatever the reason, it appears in Ottawa's climate my previous Jetta diesel got better city mileage in exceptionally cold weather than my Prius does. The AC system in the Prius provides more stable and more comfortably-heated cabin, however.