I ran out of gas last night

Yeah, it is pretty wild when that happens! I was just driving along listening to tunes when I ran out of gas. Between the dash, the MFD and the beeps, I thought I had gone to DEFCON IV.

Same, I tried coasting in neutral for a ways, too. But, just called it quits and then called roadside assistance...

 

The computer bit me too, I had an average of 56.1 and had traveled 542 when fuel reserve light turned on. Given an 11.9 gas tank and having only traveled on less than 10 gallons of fuel, I reasoned I had more fuel left. I traveled about 20 miles or so when I felt some stutter decided to pull of the next exit everything seem stable had 5 miles to go to gas station so I decided to get back on the road (I-15 south).
Started up the hill right after the 215 junction reached 75 traveled 3 miles when all warning lights came on with including the big RED exclamation. Had enough momentum to go off the throttle and maintain 35MPH on the shoulder near the top had to go on electric, Full battery indicator drained pretty quickly. I was able to make the rest of the way on electric and fill up. The BIG RED exclamation and check engine light did not go away. Got home after 4 hours checked it and BIG RED went away but check engine light is still on. Will report on it tomorrow morning. These are the 1st Thousand miles on this 05 prius and I was interested in the actual figures for the 1st 10 gallons of gas, I had no intention to go into reserve or out of gas. For the 1st and 2nd gas tanks pretty much I used the Average MPG to know when to fuel as the first 10 gallons were burned, for example fueling after having reached 520miles and after 540miles on the same tank of fuel. And so for this one I was planning to fuel at 560.

Summary: E light turned on traveled 20 miles, vehicle shut engine off while cruising, but allowed electric to function allowing me to reach fueling station.Engine light remains on when restarting the system even after 4 hours after event occurred. For this tank AVG MPG 56.1 85 degrees.

 

I ran out the other day ~90 miles past the reserve beep. It was a combination of weirdness in the day though.

Just got a flat, so that drained the gas and batts right before. By the time I got the spare on and turned around, the tank emptied. Tried coasting to the gas station on 3-4 bar of batts, but a few lights messed up the momentum.

Made it to the gas station when the batts quit 10 feet away from the pump. Had to get a push to make it all the way... ^^; Wow, my first empty in 12 years, 236K miles of driving and filling on the edge.

So, got 550 miles @ 45mpg, and filled up a 11.9gal tank up to the filler cap.

This gives me a formula of (MID mpg + 8 ) * 10 for my maximal safe calculable range, and I was obviously about 20 miles past it.

For Hatfield, it sounds like (MID mpg - 3) * 10. Is there a smaller margin of "buffer driving" when your MPG is > 50? I know there's people out there that get 600+ miles to the tank on > 50mpg, so something weird is going on there.

So, lesson here is I like knowing the limits of car, esp the Prius, but YMMV on what your own Prius's range is depending on how you fill it up, any MID errors, and that evil bladder.

 

Oh yeah, this is a FWIW:

The max. speed the car would go running on EV only (after running out of gas) was 42/43 mph.

 

If you are at freeway speeds do NOT shift into neutral DO NOT DO NOT.
the Prius is nearly free-wheeling when "coasting" in drive, very little loss due to power generation.
The problem is when you stop coasting the HV system is partially discharged and you may need every bit of the power that you could have produced as opposed to the little bit extra coasting distance that you traveled.
I've run out twice now, I really do like to push it (but always have the poi ready for the closest station) and I've always had to hit my brakes or used power to get over a hill before I completely slowed down from coasting.
So the moral is POWER is more important and useful, for the greatest majority of the time, tan is a little extra coast.