54.5 mpg - 600 mile tank! finally! Also, EV-MOD!

wtg on the 600 mile tank.

one thing i noticed that helped mileage is using cruise control as much as possible. i have started using it on city streets now.

it takes a lot of adjustments because of traffic but it does seem to help alot. also, accelerating fairly briskly up to the speed you wish to stay at. since i dont have the EV switch, i couldnt help but notice that its nearly impossible to stay in EV mode no matter how slow you accelerate. (could be because i have air conditioning running all the time lately)

but as far as gas goes, here in the Pac northwest. ALL GRADES OF UNLEADED REGULAR is exactly the same.
there is only one refinery here so only premium grades have any difference in them at all. this is true throughout most of the country. Premium grades have additive packages added to them after they are pumped into the tanker that will take the gas to the service stations. until that happens, all the gas comes from the same place.

also according to a special i saw on the history channel about gas, premium grades are not worth the extra money and in many cases, are not necessarily better for your car.

 

Premium grades of gasoline are primarily for high performance cars. Putting premium gas in your Prius, or any other "regualr" car is a waste of money.

The only time stepping up to a higher octane is justified, is if you can hear obvious pinging in your engine under load.

 

I am really hoping to get close to or achieve my first 600 mile tank in my classic soon.

Driving more in the city than usual at the moment and generally at lower speeds and currently the weather is nice and warm.

Currently the MFD is reporting 60.5 UK MPG after about 340 miles - half a tank of fuel left!!

Fingers crossed

 

The Prius is adveritised locally as a 500 miles per gallon car and that's about as much as one can obtain with regular use of the air conditioner (a must in the summer) and refueling soon after the last bar starts flashing (avoiding the risk of running out of gas).

I feel that 600 miles to a tank is the maximum one can get with a mix of city/highway driving and driving normally (faster than snails). Above 600 miles per tank one enters the realm of fiction or the twilight zone.

 

The most I've gotten is 47 mpg.

 

Congrats Mark! Overcoming this feat myself recently, I know exactly how you feel. Now I'm aiming for my second 600 mile tank

-m.

 

if i was a longer-distance commuter around here (long island) i would be able to achieve similar results because it does seem that i get my best results in that sort of 15 mph to 45 mph congested travel on parkways. today i did about 35 miles of that kind of driving and averaged about 53 mpg.

with that kind of driving it seems easy to just allow good distance to the car in front, do a lot of coasting or 20 mph EV travel, and so on. i had a couple of intervals on the info screen that were right up to the 99 mpg mark

 

I am doing the same as "Jackhole" only averaging around 45 - 47 MPG. I commute 47 miles one way to work without any traffic and ALWAYS travel at the speed limit. + or - 2mph.
I am not complaining though, it is a lot better than my 97 Jeep Grand Cherokee.

 

I could have almost gotten a 600mi tank on my last one.

I was at 570 and was down to one (solid) bar. Even though I have a car outside of the fuel gauge fix range (serial number 101xxx), I was still paranoid about it misreading, so I filled up. Put in 11.1 gal. Both the consumption screen and doing the computation gave 51.3mpg.

 

ya know i kinda wonder if part of the problem is the CA gas mix. there are 47 different mixes of summer gas and 23 different winter formulas.

i wonder if in order to reduce the polution levels in CA, they have not weaken the gas a bit and that accounts for the lower mpg's. it seems that a lot of people in certain areas of CA are getting about 45 mpg too.

any one down there getting 55 mpg like me?

 

I am getting 52.8 MPG and the Air Cond. is ALWAYS on in my car, on Automatic Setting at 72. So far 465 miles and no refill yet - but i'ts probably comming very soon!

 

really? that jives with what i was getting with air set at the same 72º.

in fact my mpg's were right at 53.1 during the summer.