Help - Mileage Sucks

oh, my bad. i thought OP had EV when running short trips. actually i've never noticed HV only mpg on such a short trip.

 

I'm going to out on a limb here and disagree with everyone. You shouldn't have to anything special to get stellar fuel economy in the PiP. Just drive it regularly. For example, I drive 53 miles one way to work. I don't do anything special. I start out in EV and I drive on the freeway in EV. When I arrive, I achieve 75 mpg. Why? Because the 1st 11 miles were all electric.

I suspect you are reading the numbers wrong. Your total commute plus errands is some 24 miles per day according to your post.

Quick back of envelope calculations: 24 miles - 11 miles EV = 13 miles on gas / 50 mpg in HV mode = 0.26 gallons of gas used per day. 24 miles daily distance / .26 gallons = 92.3 mpg is what you should be getting.

Thus, I think you were getting 620 to 630 mpg on your way to work. 10 miles to work means it's almost all electric with some ICE for heat. Anyway, an easy way to see if I am right is to divide numbers of miles driven by amount of gas you put in the car instead of reading the tiny display. If you're really lazy, then we can determine that with 1600 miles on your car and 92.3 mpg means you've only filled up the tank one time. If twice that means the tank is nearly full right now.

 

I bet in 53 miles your engine warms up. His never does.

 

10 miles driving home from work, I bet it does.

 

mine does when I travel to work (2.7 miles)

 

It is easy to caculate the MPG with a caculator. However if you have an iPhone there is a free app that tracks it over time. It is called Gas Manager. I just downloaded it from iTunes store and will start using it this week. I'm sure theer are other apps out there that people can suggest. Fuelly is often mentioned but it is only on Android.

 

I have a feeling its a heavy foot.

Prius needs to be driven much slower than normal cars to get stellar MPGs. I would expect to get your MPGs if I let a teenager drive my car.

There is no way you should see less than 200MPG on the way to work.

Oh, and plug it in when you get home. Those evening trips with a cold engine are killing you.

When charging it keeps the battery warm. You will also get 5 miles of charge rather quickly, maybe in 20-30 minutes.

Those short trips should be all electric. But using heat will use the ICE.

 

i call BS. i drive with a heavy foot, but i plug in whenever i can, and i have 74 mpg lifetime.
cruising at 75-80 by the speedo (so 73-78 in reality) will easily get you 50 mpg on a warm engine. on a cold engine it will get you 49 mpg because at that speed it will warm up pretty damn fast.
OP: I think you're missing a decimal point. We had someone else that ran into the same issue earlier. The car does NOT report decimal points. so if it shows 620, it is actually 620 mpg, not 62.0 mpg. If your commute is 10 miles in one direction, 62 mpg is unbelievably low. It means that the engine is running for like 8 of those 10 miles, if not more.

my advice to OP:
–do check tire pressure, just to be sure. if it's around 35, we can rule it out as the cause of this problem. if it's below that, do pump up the tires – they could have easily been at the wrong pressure coming off the lot.
–do look closely at the mpg numbers you're citing. i'm sure you're just dividing by 10 unconsciously.
–do turn down the heater. 75 seems really high. Set it to 70 if you feel like you really need it, OR use the seat warmers on HI – they warm up very quickly, use no gas, and are pretty damn toasty.
–do plug in as soon as you get home. that way, you can run those errands on all or part electric.

report back to us, would love to get down to the bottom of this. you are absolutely right, getting 53 mpg with 10 miles of EV every day is way too low.

 

I just love it that 53 MPG sucks! I can't wait until 99 MPG sucks.

One wonders what his LAST car got when driven like this.

 

That's right, you don't need an EBH. And the Gen II doesn't need to get over 75mpg either:



But good luck trying to do one w/out the other. Just sayin'

If the ICE (internal combustion engine) is below 50 degrees, then the ICE is cold. That may not be cold to Maryland folks ... but it is to the Prius.
That said, what's up with so many folks recommending "HV" mode, right after the same recommendation. Is there an echo? ... or is no one reading each other's posts !
.

 

I see that on many sites, we are all off researching to get our answers correct, and when we finally all post, they are like a chorus of similar answers, think of us as a barbershop quartet of advice. (I tend to post, then clean up and document my advice, but that just means someone quotes me unfinished, when my final edit says something different, ideally better)

 

I get about 60 mpg driving HV -- so are you flooring it from red lights or something? Are you racing up to the next red light slamming on the breaks and then flooring again? Seems awkward your MPG is so low. I also keep my tires inflated 42f/40r. I use EV for surface streets only, but I also charge at both ends. I hate using gas, but I have to on my commute (30 miles). Thinking of adding an additional battery pack.

 

You can feel confident we're not getting a complete story. Something isn't right. This video I shot shows how effortless it is to get great MPG even at high speeds...

 

And if you have an L2 charger, it doesn't take long to top-off EV.

 

Here is the regular Gen III version. I haven't seen one customized for the PiP, but this should still cover many of the potential problems.
Fuel economy complaints/queries? Please copy, paste & answer these questions, esp. if you're new

 

If you or someone else wants come up w/a modified version for the PiP, maybe there should be a thread to discuss the changes/additions and we can get it stickied.

There were actually some minor changes made to what I originally posted. I think efusco or one of the mods added/altered a few things. I know I didn't boldface everything either.

I haven't read this thread carefully and have no PiP but since he's doing the above, I suspect the ICE is running the whole time for that short trip and yes, short trips w/the ICE running will kill mileage.

I posted a blurb about ICE running to provide cabin heat behavior on regular Priuses at Why mileage gets worse in winter | PriusChat. I don't have a PiP so I don't know how different it is from the regular Gen 3 Prius (ZVW30).