2010 Gen III MPG vs my old 2007 touring

Unless your '10 is jacked up, there's not a chance in hell you'll get lower mileage.

- You live in Az. Flat roads and hot weather. Ideal conditions.
- You already got 56 mpg in your 2007. Very good, at least 85th percentile.
- The 2010 has a higher mileage rating by about 10%.

I predict you'll get between 60-62mpg. Good luck to you.

 

What about the very hard core hypermilers? Are they yet getting GenIII to match GenII?

That new record of 118 mpg and 3040 km on one (Japanese) tank was not a GenIII.

 

Since your car is brand new, you're still in the break in period so you'll more than likely see lower mpg numbers. That's my experience anyway for the first 500 or so miles.

 

After 25K miles on my Gen3 I think I can safely say the mileage isn't quite as good as my Gen2 (2005) was. My Gen3 is getting about 52 - 54 MPG (corrected) this time of year for local driving; my Gen2 under the same conditions would have been about 56 to 58. Not much difference and it might be due to more ethanol in the gas, I haven't been able to find out how much they are actually mixing in and it seems to change from time to time, in this state anyway.

By "corrected" mileage I mean subtracting 5% from the CONS indication of the Gen3. That seems to be Toyota's built in error for the Gen3, my Gen2 did not have this error.

Overall I'm willing to accept a little mileage hit because the Gen3 is a much better car to drive, better front seats, better highway manners, etc. AC should be more efficient in the Gen3 also, especially in the ECO mode.

 

Wow this is puzzling. I had the impression that Gen 3 fuel economy is better than gen 2.

 

I'm pretty sure the third generation exceeds the second on the highway by a good bit. Due to the lower RPMs because of the larger engine.

 

Gen3 better for most people and driving situations.

For hypermilers, it is a little heavier, and I think it is harder to find and hold super highway mode. The weight hurts in town and the general lack of SHM hurts on the highway. These are the frustrations I've heard on the fuel economy front.

On the other hand, it skips warmup if already warm, transitions to stage 4 without stopping, glides up to 45 mph instead of 41, etc. These tend to help around town.

Average mpg for 2010 drivers almost certainly exceeds that of gen2.

 

My numbers may not be entirely typical. My car has the wider (215/45-17) tires and I live in a state that thinks it's a good thing to put lots of ethanol in the gas, up to 10%. On the other had I try to drive in a reasonable fashion, keep my tires inflated to a fairly high pressure, and I have been setting my AC to 80 degrees and driving in ECO.

 

<<shrug>>

 

20's?!?!? that has nothing to do with break in. drive a full tank at a reasonable speed and acceleration and if it doesn't improve SIGNIFICANTLY, take it to the dealer.

 

Bisco is right, mileage in the 20s is way to low. I noticed no significant difference in mileage during the break in period. Others have reported a few MPG.

To find out about the modes, ECO, Normal, and Power read some of the threads that go into excruciating detail on that subject. The short answer is they only effect the pedal mapping of the throttle during the first half it's travel, plus the ECO mode operates the AC in a more efficient fashion.

You have the same amount of power available in any of the three modes. ECO provides finer control, in PWR the change in power is faster for the first half of the gas pedal, Normal mode which is what you get when one of the other two are not selected is in between.

 

I have to say I can't see how to get in the 20s. My wife drives my Prius like it is a Corvette and even at 80+mph she gets 40mpg. I routinely get 55-60mpg with zero special effort.

 

With mpg in the 20's, I'd look for things like the parking brake being on, the tires being exceedingly low on air, etc. This is not break-in. Also, does the engine run smooth when it is on? If not, then something is not working right.

 

Best of luck on the G3! I noticed after a few long trips, my mileage is getting better. Also from AZ, we took a trip to Pinetop and back and got true mileage of 53.5 mpg over 382 miles ($20 in gas). That was better than I expected and we kept the car at 65 mph too. In town, not so good as I keep the AC to comfort (not using ECON anymore). For summers here (110 degrees) even with careful acceleration, I can only get about 45 mpg in town. Maybe in October when it cools off, it could be better.

EV is only for moving the car in the driveway or in a parking lot. Both EV and PWR modes do not stick so when you power down, it reverts to normal mode. ECON does stick from drive to drive. I'm really shocked your MFD went out - wow, 6K for repairs...what the heck happened?!

 

You can see my numbers. The 2010 has acheived its average faster than the 2006 did. Is this due to the experienced driver, higher tp & blocked grill from the start? I don't know. I was (am) expecting a 10% increase based on the EPA numbers (45 vs. 50). However it seems that some experienced drivers get higher numbers while others have gotten the same numbers easier.

The 2010's worst tank was 1/7/10 at 45.1mpg. This was the dealer's tank between two snow storms & sub freezing temps. The 2006's worst tank was 39.6mpg on 10/31/07.

The only way I'd believe a Prius got 20mpg on a tank would be if it was left running while parked in perpetual sub zero temps.

 

Yeah break in the mileage is pretty low. For the first 600 or so miles i got 46ish mpg. Now i have 650ish on the ODO, and the dash reads 61.7 mpg.

Just give it time, and you'll start to get great mileage.

 

We purchase our Prius in May 2009. With less than 1,000 miles we went from Seaside Oregon to Reno Nevada on our honeymoon and back.

MPG (calculated by miles driven and gasoline consumed) was over 50 MPG for the entire trip.

So, I do not believe you will loose more than 1-2 MPG during breakin period. At least based on my observatons.

alfon

 

I have a 35ish mile commute (starting at ~ 500 ft and dropping to sea level to work, reverse on the way back). Driving 55 mph, I'm averaging 58+ mpg over the life of the car (7500 miles, 4 months) with tire pressures at max front (44 psi) and 2 psi lower rear (42 psi). The mileage shown is calculated, not from the MID, which reads approximately 3 mpg higher than actual.

The EV mode is to allow for driving all electric. It has a number of requirements (listed in your owner's manual) but assuming you have a good state of charge (SOC) on the traction battery, the engine is warmed up, and you aren't accelerating too hard, you can travel in all electric mode up to 25 mph. It will drop out if you exceed 25 mph, your battery SOC drops (1 mile), you accelerate too hard, engine isn't warm enough.

There is no difference in overall horsepower between ECO and PWR modes. If you floor it in PWR, it has the same acceleration as if you floored it in ECO.

The PWR mode changes the angle of the throttle plate, which basically means if you push the accelerator pedal down a little, it gives a much stronger throttle response (making the car feel a lot more sporty).

The ECO mode has a different throttle position and gives you a lot more "play" in the accelerator pedal, presumably to help with pulse and glide. The ECO mode will help modulate the A/C, the compressor won't go on as often in ECO as it would in other modes.

"Normal" mode is when you don't select ECO, EV, nor PWR and gives a throttle response between ECO and PWR.

Even when my car is warming up (for the first 5 min) I'm usually around 30 - 35 mpg. I'm hoping you are more exaggerating than actually seeing 20+ mpg. If not, you should take it in, unless you only drive for 5 minutes, uphill, both ways, in the snow.

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