How many miles you can travel out of a full tank gas?

This was a planned experiment, I also have 4 aaa calls to use up by June lol

 

My current tank might be a 500 miler in the works! Impressive numbers thus far on my commute at 55 mph on cc with the warm weather..

I backed out of my quest this last tank about 20 miles short..lol. Pretty sure I could have made 500 but had to get places and also had a $0.60 per gallon discount coupon from the local supermarket/ gas station so figured it was time.

Oh and I have a Persona w/ 17's...

 

MFD showed my average at 49.0 mpg. I figured with that I should be able to get close to 600 miles on the tank. However it quit at 522.

 

My best when still new to Prius was 651 miles @ 11.2 gallons, 61.9 mpg indicated - 58 actual. Will never do that again though. Now when I get to one pip it means get gas real soon, one pip blinking means next gas station. Last time I ran out of gas was in high school a long long long time ago and I learned my lesson.

 

It was quite a learning experience. How difficult it was to restart the car and how little distance my hv battery was able to get me after the red triangle came out and I ran out of fuel. From 5 bars SOC, it went to 1 bar in less than 10 seconds. Just shows how weak my HV battery is.

 

I note the indicated miles-to-empty number when I fill up. Adding that number to the miles actually traveled since the previous fill-up consistently yields a sum of about 650 miles. That says IF there are really at least 2 gallons left when the MTE reaches zero, then 750 miles should be easy.

I've never seen the flashing last bar, or MTE at zero. Do those conditions first occur simultaneously? If not, which is first?

 

The flashing bar comes first, with roughly 1/2 gallon (or 25-ish miles DTE) before DTE / MTE reaches zero.

But DTE has some behavior that can run it out early. If climbing a hill causes instant MPG to fall, DTE can plummet quickly and even snap to zero early. Unlike my Subaru, the Prius DTE can never increase without a fillup, no matter how many miles it coasts downhill without fuel. It even has a minimum rate of decrease, forced to fall at least 1 mile for each 2 miles traveled. E.g. on a 20 mile coast downhill, my Subaru's DTE can increase, but the Prius DTE will continue falling, losing at least 10 miles.

If you haven't already done so, read the very first post of this long thread (the replies are not necessary):
[WARNING] Running out of gas (Gen III) | PriusChat