My commute is about 70/30 highway/city and don't get me wrong, I'm getting in the 50's consistently on this commute, and I'm loving it. Greatly improved over my truck at 15 mpg on a good day... I was just hoping that ECO would be even better? I may have to give it another shot since most everyone is doing better in ECO...
ive switched back to normal. i admit that the main reason is the "feeling" of more throttle response. the pedal feels more like a normal car. i dont think im going to lose a whole bunch of mileage.
I've only put a few hundred miles on my Black C II but, I've consistently gotten better numbers the more time I'm in the car. Today's 35 mile commute home yielded 70.1 mpg. The only time I'm out of eco is a steep 1/2 mile hill. great car handles better than the '06 Santa Fe I traded in!
i myself.. as i've evolved in learning throttle control and how the hybrid system likes to be driven.. have turned off ECO mode and driving it much more in normal now. the added throttle response to get up to speed quicker helps a lot.
I'll see how my wife likes her new 'c' in regular mode.. It's never been out of Eco since we got it.. I wonder, on short trips, do you guys get 50 to 60% EV ??
It was somewhat warmed up. It had been driven 5.3 miles and had been sitting in the lot at work for about an hour, when I reset trip A for the trip back home. (I was there to pick up a parking permit sticker). However, I did hit 70 MPG cold-start driving across town last week. So, I'm not sure that a warmup during the summer has a lot of impact. On all our trips around town, we are seeing an ave speed of ~20 mph, (due to traffic etc), and we always see 50% to 60% EV mode.. I wonder if that's normal.?.
Nice! That much EV wouldn't seem normal for a "cold" engine but since I don't have an EV monitoring system like yours it is hard to say. It may just be yet another cool trick the c uses to increase urban efficiency.
You might be right. And the ICE turning off at stops has really got to help in bad traffic. We had to go into Somerville a week ago. They have the worse traffic on the east coast (IMHO). (17th most densely populated town in the USA). Starting cold. 10 miles in and 10 miles back. The MPG wasn't so great, (lots of hills to climb) but the EV time was impressive..
Even in our 2010 Prius with 4 people, 3,850 lb gross vehicle weight, confirmed by Dept. Of Oregon Transportation truck scale, on short trips with dry roads in temps 55 or abov its pretty easy on a 30 mile round trip at speeds 40-55 mph to obtain an indicated 55-60 mpg and this is in Power mode. However the true test is an entire tank, at least 400 miles, of real driving, like short trips to town, under 1.5 miles, wet roads and temps under 55 degrees, this is common weather here in the Northwest, nearly 9 months a year. So, after 400 plus miles check you true mpg calculated, you mpg gauge will be off at least 2 mpg over reading. I have received mpg indicated over 60 mpg in power mode. So Eco mode, I believe, only helps when running the AC.
The Prius Gen 3 offers a total of 4 operating modes, namely ECO mode, Normal mode, PWR Mode and EV. The modes are not explicitly intended for any specific type of road or traffic type, but enable to improve fuel economy by allowing more/less control on the request of power from the drivetrain via the gas pedal. For this reason ECO mode is better suited for city driving since there are frequent stops and accelerations, compared to e.g. highway traffic.