2006 MPG???

One more thing. In an earlier posts, I incorrectly stated that my owners manual said that my tank held 11.1 gal. Recently I re-read that part, and it states that my tank holds 11.9 gals in warm weather, 1.3 gals less in cold weather due to shrinkage of the bladder.

 

Greetings,

I have an '06/06 and am getting ~47mpg. I've taken my tires to 42/40, changed my oil at 1500miles to Amsoil 0W30. I try not to accelerate while going uphill but maintain my speed even losing a couple of mph only to gain them back going down the other side. I try to throttle the accelerator while going down to have no arrows. This is difficult when the engine is cold or at higher speeds. Sometimes shifting into "N" since I'm not generating electricity anyway. You always lose everytime you convert energy so storing away in the battery is less efficient than allowing the car to roll unrestricted. Temperatures have been 25-40 and lately quite windy. Always seems to be a headwind which cuts down the milage.

In regards to the displayed vs. the calculated mpg, the four tanks I've tracked one calculated is over displayed and three displayed are over the calculated.

Lifetime calculated 47.1
Lifetime displayed 48.0

Kaos1

 

Is it possible that individual Prius get individual gas mileages based on their overall ICE construction and not on their drivers? Just a theory but how much mileage variance is based on the parts and construction of the motor and not the driving habits of the owner. There seem to be some regular standouts for mpg performance that have not been due to driving habits.

 

If you ask for heat early on, to my understanding there are two 750 watt ceramic heaters that supply heat till the engine gets warm enough to provide it through convection at which time they turn off. There is one for the driver and one for the front passenger.

When you first get in your car.. turn the heat on and you'll notice within 15 seconds you'll feel heat coming from under the dash hitting your knees.

The engine will take care of itself. You can worry about the ceramic heaters if you want, but I dont' think its worth freezing over.... the car heats up quickly and the amount you save in energy will not be tracable.

 

Is this the chart - Or something like this? Look near the bottom of the page.
http://enerjazz.com/prius/

 

I would suggest that the biggest difference in the gas mileages by the respondents in this forum are because of the weather 1st, and type of driving they do (a bunch of short trips will drink more gas than a few long trips) 2nd.

 

I just got my new baby a few days ago, and so far have been getting 41 MPG... i have to believe taht is due more to driving habits and being so new to the car than anything else. Most of my driving so far has been highway (took a 2 hour trip to show off my new car to the family), so that is sure to make it lower than it'll normally be.

Also interesting was when i was coming back from the trip. I got off the highway about 15 min from where i live and took a straight shot down the road, keeping my speed around the speed limit and really paying attention to what the engine was doing. When i checked my 5-min numbers for that period, the first 4 were in the 80-90 MPG range with the last one being significantly less (there's a big hill right before my house).

Just goes to show that the numbers aren't everything when you're new to it... i expect to hit 50 MPG for a tank inside of a couple of months, thats when i'll really start focusing on the numbers!

 

Congrats eagle!....Welcome to the forum... mine was getting about 39 to 41 most of the time too when it was new. I got one run at 45mpg and was estatic.. I figured out later it was a gentle downhill grade and I had a long enough run that the ICE "internal combustion engine" really got time to warm up good.

But now I'm getting 46 to 51.5 or so and I've got about 1500 miles now.
Hit reset for your average miles everytime you get a refill and you wil notice an improvement with literally every tank!

Make sure your air pressure are good 42 front and 40 rear is what many use.

Have a blast!.. I'm still just as excited now as I was when I first bought it!

Your car is not even broke in till 4000 miles!

Let alone what summer will bring!

 

Yeah, i can't wait for the improvement with breaking in... although the 5 guys i live with here all look at the screen and see 41 MPG and get all excited and want me to take them on all their road trips... 6 hours to chicago, 8 or so to NY... i love the car, but thats a bit too much driving! lol

I'm also getting my EV switch here soon (hopefully), and i think that will really help. I'll probably use it every time i head to campus (about 1.5 miles, half of that down hill so i'll be regenning a lot), coming back, though, will be a pain cause of the hill.

 

Sounds good for going downhill.. but it will disengage at 34mph, but regular ev mode will continue to regen if your going downhill.

Don't use it going uphill....its better to leave the big jobs for the ICE and give the petty jobs to the EV. There are nasty conversion losses and efficeincy looses. Saving kinetic energy that would be lost anyway is always wise and then you can use it later, but if you think EV is more efficeint than the ICE, thats not true.. only for very light loads and standstill situations etc.
Always remember that every bit of EV energy you use either "was" made with gas, or will have to be made back with gas or both.

When the ICE is on, it will get better mpg's if its not trying to charge the batteries too.

Uphill ventures takes tremendous energy, you'll see that EV is eaten up in no time and not worth the trouble.

but all these things will become obvious once you get to start using it.

It wasn't until I got mine that I found that trying to use it first thing in the morning is a bad idea because the cold battery just seems to lose its punch at about 20mph.

It will be easy to figure out what is efficeint and what is not.. if you have to press the pedal alot to get anything out of it, its ineffecient, if it just seems to go with a little pedal pressure, then you know the battery is happy and ready to deliver the amps.

I don't actually know if this is the battery itself or the computer "saving" the cold battery from abuse or not, but that is just what I've witnessed.

All in all, there are times when you really don't need the muscle of the ICE.. use EV then, but only on the easy stuff.
If you make a habit of draining the battery every chance you get, you'll find that the ICE punishes you as it gets crappy mpgs for about the same amount to time you used EV to drain the battery, it will get crappy mileage and use about the same amount of time to charge it back up!

You pay more to charge it up, than you save in using it.

The best idea is to use it when you know kinetic downhill ventures will give it back.. otherwise, just let the computer control it.

But there are times when the car doesn't know if you are in a parking lot or on a freeway on-ramp....
but using your knowledge, you can disengage the ICE and give it a rest... but if you work the battery on a hard job, that rest you give to the ICE will not be long enough to pay off an you'll have to pay it back the hard way... with gas!

Sorry to be so repetitive... trying to be thorough.

 

What is the fastest speed one can drive at with the consumption graph at 99mpg? I have a regular, level stretch of about a mile where I can gently push it up to 40 mph if the car is warmed up. There is a slight downhill right before this stretch that helps me build up speed. Just wondering if I can get it higher. Does this mean that I am running on electric alone during this stretch? I just passed 43 mpg on this tank so far. Would love to keep this trend going!

 

I think so...42 mph is actually the official cut-off point....
But if you just came off a nice hill or mountain and your batteries are full enough green that either its full to the tippy top or the second green bar from the top, then you will be able to do that at even faster speeds.. up into the 60's..... I can't get it to do it at 70 or above, the ICE comes on no matter what when I try to maintain speed.

But this glory ride comes to an end as soon as the battery is drained enough to deplete the top two green bars "which normally never get that high anyway unless you just came down off a nice hill".

then you will be limited to about the low 50's until the next green bar gets depleted and you go blue, then you will be back to your 42mph limit again.

 

I'm new to this also but I got my first 99 mpg bar coming back into Albuquerque on the Interstate. The hill coming in from the west is ~9 miles long (It's called 9 mile hill so I'm assuming its 9 miles). I started in cruise control @ 75 (posted speed limit), dropped to 65, then 55, and finally 45 at construction zone. I actually got 2 bars at 99. I believe that the ICE spins above 42 mph but it is still possible to achieve 99 mpg bars.

 

Completely understood... I was never planning on trying to use EV mode on the return trip for that exact reason. At the same time, i just hate to see my MPG's drop so low when going up the hill

 

Excellent, thanks for the explanation Windstrings. This is the most fun mode to drive in so far. I'm also encouraged to read that your mileage is at 45+ with only 1500 miles in our climate zone. Temps are going up and we're hovering around 43.1 with 920 miles. This is with mostly hilly driving with a mix of short and medium trips.

 

Please be aware that...
- The supplement heater is called PTC or positive temperature coefficient heater.
- They are 400W each.
- The PTC heater will be on only when you set MAX-HEAT setting.
- The outlet will go to the rear passenger's too.

Ken@Japan

 

Just go ahead and punch it and get on up the hill, you will see the battery assist in the load and your low mpg's while getting up the hill will be very shortlived.... many believe that dragging it out actually makes it worse... the atkinson ICE does best at high rpms on effeciency.

you willl notice that mpgs really don't drop that much to really get on it versed dinking around about it, and the time is cut that your in the low mpg zone.

 

Thanks for the info ken.... there is very little literature about it... although I usually run my aircond off and leave recic on and set my temp to about 72.. My auto is off too. I still feel the heat if the ICE is on and its cold in my cab..... running pure switched EV is does not engage however.

 

I believe that I have the ideal MPG commute. 16.4 miles, 8 on the 57 south (usually 35 - 50 miles per hour), and another 8.2 on surface streets. I only have 3 "hills" on my drive. My commute, and the warm climate here in southern California = 56.7mpg over the 1,946 miles I have had the joy of driving my 2006 pkg#3 Prius. I am a rookie, but I feel that the route, and the temperature are huge factors in your mpg. I know that many PC'ers that have not had the mpg results they hoped for are victims of their route, and weather. I love this car!

 

I did not know that about the "PTC". Do all packages have the auto climate control? Using the auto climate control, I noticed on mine, on a cold morning, it will not come on for awhile. ICE will run, then after a couple of minutes of ICE running, the "AC", as they call it, comes on slowly, with a very low fan speed, building as the miles go by and the ICE starts warming up the system, I guess. Still talking about those cold mornings, it seems like about 15 minutes, and 5 miles before the auto climate control finally gets fully on.

So, if I were to bypass the auto-climate-control, and manually turn on max-heat, I would get the benefit of a PTC, regardless how cold the ICE is?