Can anyone school me on Hypermiling?

And you are clearly missing mine.

The vehicles do get much better MPG now than back then, but driver behavior has changed. E.g. back then, we still had the national 55 mph speed limit. Today many drivers are ignoring posted speed limits of 80 mph, and are being more aggressive all around.

But at least the per-capita traffic death rate today is half what it was in the early '80s. Or at least it was just before the Pandemic de-enforcement arrived.

And the air is quite a bit cleaner too.

We had American econocars, not German. Between us, we had four 1980s econocars, and the last one is still her daily driver. Only her '80 Civic was under a ton. My 2010 Prius (now same for 2012) was only 1/3rd ton heavier than the '80s econocar it directly replaced. Even my current AWD SUV is only a half (metric) ton heavier than that 80s econocar.

The safe way to draft is -- don't:
https://www.cleanmpg.com//community/index.php?threads/11079/

Drafting violates proper Defensive Driving practice. Don't become part of those multi-car&truck pileups.

 

And GDI particle emissions vs. the limits on diesels?
Why should they get a free pass?

 

They aren't in other markets, and I suspect they won't in the US in the future.
If you want that future sooner, write your Congress critter.

 

Can anyone school me on Hypermiling?
Drive the speed limit, have your tires at 40lbs, make sure your emergency brake cable is fully released, make sure the cabin air filter is clean, on your instrument panel have the graph of your batter on display, you see when it's charging and when it's draining, when driving on surface roads drive 32 ish mph, watch the battery, if you just touch the accelerator you'll see the battery keeps getting charged and you can go miles with either green showing or nothing showing, the definition of "hypermiling.

 

You can do mpg-awareness driving to up your mpg without going super-hypermiling and ticking off other drivers. My approach is to use each of these techniques as appropriate and safe:
1- Use feather-foot vs. lead-foot. I.e., Accelerate slowly and steadily. Go the speed limit, maybe a bit more if traffic is flying, but don't get bullied. It is the speed limit and the law. if it is multi-lane they can pass. If single lane and they unnerve you, you can pull over for a minute. When you get up to speed, ease off accelerator and it might go Ev and then use judicious accelerator pedal to keep at speed and let off as you can to get back to Ev.
2- Ease glide to stop by leaving plenty of room between you and the car ahead to use up on your stop glide. If you follow the 1001, 1002, 1003 spacing method, you will be perfect. That method is: start counting when rear of the car ahead of you passes a sign post or other object next to the road. By the time you say 1003, the front of your car should be passing the object. That is really the safe following distance and works at all speeds at least up to 70 mph. I have the adaptive (radar) speed control in my 2023 LE set to that. I won't someone tailgating me make me tailgate the car ahead of me. (As taught in defensive driving class). Do very lightly depress the brake pedal to make sure the car e-motor switches to generate and charges the battery and if you need to use more stopping power, ease into that. Well charged battery is a key to high mileage and light braking using the e-motor to charge the battery gets free miles and saves brakes. My brakes made over 100k and my mechanic said he sees that on Prius.
3- If the cruise control is letting the car out of Ev too much, try canceling it and lightly using accelerator to keep it in Ev. Once the battery gets low enough the engine will have to come on to keep momentum and charge the battery. You can try cruise on and cruise off to see what is the best keeping in Ev for the terrain the road is on.
And the rest about minimizing AC use, etc. helps, but with those 3 things and not negatively affecting traffic/drivers around me, I consistently average 64 mpg calculated and when there are no cars near me and I can do these to the max, my record with the new Prius is 87 mpg on 17 mile drive home from work one evening. I hypermiled in my 2002 (I think that was my year) HCH and once got I in the low 90s MPG. I never hit the 99 mpg goal with that. Maybe one day with the 2023 LE! The computer in the 2023 really works to keep you in Ev as much as possible. I have seen it at 60 to 70% Ev many times. We regularly get 53 - 54 mpg in our 2013 Gen3.

 

Some would call this the hypermiling bible.
https://www.cleanmpg.com/community/index.php?threads/1510/

 

Yep, forget the "drive like the accelerator has an egg under it" (which works good for non-hybrids like my Tundra)....to get maximum MPGs in a hybrid it's "pulse and glide"...which means get it up to the speed limit quickly....go ahead and gun it to get up the the speed limit and then glide....try to keep her at a steady speed!
My commute to work is just over 40 miles and it's over some hills and valleys so I've tried all sorts of techniques and was surprised using the cruise control doesn't give me the best MPGs but the pulse and glide does....my best mpg has been 64.5 mpg. I've also driven like a bat out of heck (Cruella Devile-style, drive it like you stole it) and surprised I, still, got about 55 mpg.

 

Are you asking how to pinch every last penny?
That's easy.
Drive as slow as humanly possible. Ta'Hayl with traffic flow, right?
At the end of the week you will have saved 2 bucks vs driving like a normal person.

If you really want to pinch it hard you should have bought an EV!
With the new tax breaks and discounts it would have been close to what you paid for that Gasser.

 

-Always stay in ECO mode
-Whenever possible, take your foot off the gas when traveling downhill. Just coast. Use the battery display to let you know what driving behavior leads to battery charging.
-Avoid heat/AC as much as possible.
-Go on a diet. Ha.

I usually get 600-plus miles on one tank of gas, unless it’s winter. It’s not uncommon to get 650-plus miles.

Here is a video from Toyota:

 

And here’s another video from
Toyota detailing hybrid fuel efficiency practices:

 

Try neither ECO or PWR for a tank; see if it makes any difference.

To be fair, I’ve heard 4th gen (and presumably 5th gen) shifted the pedal response markedly, so that 4th gen ECO is rough equivalent of 3rd gen ECO.

At least on our 3rd gen, I found ECO got tiresome fast; the pedal travel was way too much, so much so as to be more difficult to modulate, and my leg would get tired.

 

That’s an interesting idea. I have never driven my Prius using any other mode, not even for one mile. And I have never used EV mode.

Maybe it’s time to try. Although I am hesitant to jink it since I have never had any problem with my Prius.

 

Other than its effects on HVAC, ECO mode vs. regular makes zero difference, if you adjust accelerator position accordingly (i.e, to request the same power level, i.e., keep the HSI indicator at the same indication).
In some circumstances, depressing the accelerator slightly (to eliminate or almost eliminate regenerative braking) will yield better results than taking your foot completely off it.

 

Hey I was playing around with the pulse and glide method, in Eco mode, and actually got 74.3 mpg on the drive to work the other day. A/C and any fan was off, windows down (it was a cool morning.)
74 mpg
Tip: During these hot summer months, when you are about 5 minutes from home, turn the A/C and refresh OFF and put the blower fan on HIGH....dry out those A/C innards to help prevent getting that nasty A/C smell Toyota's are known to get. (You may even smell some of it as it's drying off....that's a good thing!)