Power Mode gas mileage?

My friend took a test drive in PWR mode and said he couldn't get it to have the ECO icon. I haven't finished my break-in yet, so I haven't used the PWR mode. I would be interested to know if anyone is consistently driving in PWR mode.

 

Is it bad to go PWR mode before breakin period?

 

no... basically the only difference between ECO, Normal and Power modes is how the throttle pedal sensitivity is programmed. Power mode makes you feel like driving a Normal car. The other modes reduces throttle response which conserves gas. If you abruptly floor the pedal, the car will respond quickly as in Power mode.

 

Reginaever - I have owned my 2010 Prius for 30 days today, and 95% of my driving has been in Power mode. I have around 1,800 miles on it so far and I've used Trip A to keep track of my mileage since day one. To answer your question, I'm at 50.8 mpg. Hope this helps!

 

MPG numbers depend on how you drive Prius, not what mode you drive with.
An aggressive ECO mode driver sees worse mileage than a conservative PWR mode driver.

Ken@Japan

 

Exactly right. I stay exclusively in PWR mode and get around 55/56 mpg.

 

I left my Prius in PWR mode for the last 3 days - HTML is right - it's not persitent, so you have to remember to press the button each time. I was already about 300 miles into the tank, with an indicated average of 57.8, and driving 150 miles in PWR mode took that down to about 55.2. I did giggle a lot - the car seems (relatively) responsive in this mode. I'd believe the 50 MPG estimate someone else posted, but it feels like a completely different car.

I think the HSI indicator maintains the same calibration, so a touch on the throttle pedal sends the bar right through the "ECO" range. I never got the "ECO" leaf iconto come on in PWR mode, and the car seems to prioritize keeping the battery full (by running the engine a lot) in case extra power is called for. In ECO and normal modes, the car seems more likely to let your battery deplete while you're gliding.

 

It's interesting that even though the ECO icon doesn't appear, you can still get over 50 mpg. I am at 52.5mpg after 360+ miles at an average of 20 mph. I would prefer to drive in PWR mode for the improved throttle response, but don't see myself attaining the same fuel economy.

If the ECO flag doesn't come on, how can you be driving in an efficient range? Anyone have an answer or probable response? Because if I can run in PWR mode and get almost the same fuel economy, I'm all for it.

 

One is left to wonder if it's possible to get even better fuel economy by carefully driving in PWR mode than in ECO mode?

Here's the reasoning:

1. You can think of the high-voltage battery as being an energy bank.
2. Like most banks, energy is first borrowed and then repaid when new energy becomes available.
3. Because of electrical conversion losses, every time you borrow energy from the bank, it costs you interest when you repay that energy.
4. Since the Prius battery is not recharged from the electrical grid, all battery energy comes from the gasoline engine. So this interest payment would be in the form of extra fuel burned.
5. So in general, running excessively on the battery (especially in EV mode) is bad since it contributes to this inefficiency.
6. Regularly running the battery down to two bars might reduce its long-term life, since nickel-metal hydride batteries generally prefer short cycles to long cycles. See the following link for more details about this:
http://priuschat.com/forums/knowled...ypercycles-prolong-prius-hv-battery-life.html

 

this forum taught me that we need to get up to speed rapidly, then coast/glide, instead of creeping up to speed in an inefficient use of the ICE.

so i took that one more step. I start off in eco to use the traction battery untill about 10 mph (unless nobody is behind me then i do more). then when i want to accelerate to the speed limit (say 50), i put it in pwr mode and goose it. you can keep the eco bar in eco while in pwr and get steady acceleration. giong into the red zone makes you go faster, but my sense is less optimally.

when i get to the desired speed i go back to eco. i know i could accomplish all this in pwr, but i find it more difficult to take off and glide efficiently in pwr vs eco.

so i am constantly changing from eco to pwr, never in ev (i think ev is a novelty) and never in "none".

I had 56.7 MFD on the tank that ended this morning, an increase over my first tank of 54.8 MFD. the main difference in the tanks was this pwr/eco dance i instituted in thie second tank.

 

I drive 53km (33 miles) each direction in stop-and-go traffic to/from work, nearly all of it driving on a highway that's three lanes wide for most of the route. Driving is fairly slow; it typically takes about an hour or more to make the trip -- I suspect this is a nearly ideal scenario for achieving maximum mileage from the Prius.

I reset trip-B for each direction so I can measure my mileage and compare driving techniques. Because the traffic is heavy, it tends to bunch up and it naturally pulses, providing a good opportunity to move into the right-hand lane and use a few hypermiling tricks without particularly upsetting other drivers.

In economy mode, I would always try to limit my pulse acceleration by keeping the HSI indicator just to the left of the red power band on the far-right. Unfortunately, this sometimes annoys other drivers since I don't always accelerate fast enough, creating a fair amount of space in front of me.

Anyway, I was a bit bored today so I decided to do my commute in power mode instead of economy mode. And that really changes the feel of the car; it becomes incredibly responsive and generally more fun to drive. I also decided to pulse well into the red power band and quite a bit beyond -- the idea being to fill the gap in front of the car quickly and then take your foot off the gas and coast. Because of the faster acceleration, this driving style is more fun and it doesn't annoy the cars behind you (at least not nearly as much as leaving a large gap in front of you).

I was surprised to find that this technique gave me the same great mileage that I had been getting in economy mode. When I finished the trip, the display read 3.2L/100km (73mpg US). The car's display is optimistic by about 10%, so the actual mileage would really be about 66mpg -- but that's still great mileage considering the faster acceleration in power mode.

 

Wow, thanks for all of that information man. I normally drive in ECO mode and keep the bar on the HSI in the far yellow when I accelerate, sometimes notching into the PWR bar a little bit. According to your experience I guess just getting up to speed in power mode and then driving efficiently it just as good as slow acceleration in ECO mode eh? I have around 400 miles on my car so I don't want to push it too hard running in PWR mode all the time. Anyone else have any more comments?

 

I think it's too early to tell (since I've only tried this for one day) if driving all the time in PWR mode is a good or a bad thing from a fuel economy perspective. Traffic and wind direction is always a bit different each time, so I might have just had a really good day. Also, I should be able to drive like this in ECO mode too just by pressing the gas pedal down a bit further and pushing the acceleration into the red and a bit beyond, and perhaps get even better mileage. It's just that I was encouraged to try it first in PWR mode because the car is so responsive in this mode.

Anyway, it's fun to play around a bit and see what works (and resetting trip-B for each trip allows you to measure and evaluate your efforts).

 

I drive extensively in PWR mode and averaging 57mpg for 2000 miles now. You do have to incorporate gas saving techniques to attain this, such as using EV and PWR at every start up from stand still, use Cruise Control (to keep up with traffic except uphill), and Neutral Glide (before stopping at red lights) as much as possible.

The fact that PWR mode still gives great fuel economy makes ECO mode redundant.
We are doing the world a huge deservice by driving in ECO mode, because it creates a bad/slow/whimpy image for the Prius. And this image extends to all hybrid vehicles so that less people would consider buying hybrids, thus less people saves gas, and more SeriuoslyUnsafeVehicles churning out 3+ times of CO2.

 

This is a HUGE assumption and really has nothing to do with ECO mode. People can drive like turtles in Power mode also. You are describing a driving style; Eco and Power mode are irrelevant. Additionally, your MPG cannot be directly compared to anyone else's due to differences in commute and physical geography.

 

I drive on ECO ALWAYS and get 62mpg and at least 600miles+ per tank (lots of steep hills).

 

Do you drive primarily on the interstate or surface streets? I have had my Prius for 2 weeks to day and have about 1300 miles on it, but my consumption average is only 44.0. I do live in a very hilly area and go into power mode frequently.

 

A more important question to ask would be, how long are your average trips. Short trips will hurt your MPG more than even hills.