I am so freaking excited... 66.1MPG on the way in to work this morning:)

Brett, Don't be satisfied with 70mpg. A little more pulse/glide experience and you can break 75! Remember: Always keep a huge smile on your face while driving your Prius.

 

I strongly agree that net elevation change is highly significant, particularly with a Prius. 100 feet per mile will boost a normal flat-land 60 mpg to 150 downhill, or slash it to 38 mpg uphill. Even 10 feet per mile will cause a 7 mpg difference between the two directions.

But hills themselves don't necessarily change much, when the start and end points are at the same elevation and descents don't require much friction braking. Here is an example, a summer test run when my car was a month old. 72.1 MPG over a 71.6 mile round trip, cold start, returning to the same parking pad:



Here is the elevation profile. Ignore the fine structure (that is noise in toporoute.com's mapping application), the glitch at 14-18 miles should match the dip at 56-60 miles, and the outbound and return were identical except for about 5 miles near the start and end.

Other maps put the total descent and climb at about 3600 to 3700 feet each.

My MPG gets clobbered on round trips where mountain descents use lots of friction or engine braking. But on rolling hills without such braking -- or just a couple hundred feet of it, as in this trip -- mpg can stay very high.

 

I'm pretty sure you'll do better once you'll learn the route. :mod:
That was what happened to me when I got used to the road from and to work: here's the result of a 4 way trip to and from work in 2 working days:

75.9 MPG (3.1 l/100km) mostly with 30/50 MPH limits. :flypig:

 

Umm.. You may have missed his location: It's Orlando, Florida. When the oceans rise 100 feet due to Global Warming, all of Florida, all at once, will be under water at the same time.

Yeah, flat.

KBeck

(who spent 'way too much time floating on gray-colored large mechanical things..)

 

actually, when it warms up more you'll see your MPG increase a bit because the starting engine temp will be warmer.

 

If you could just find a route that's down hill both directions, you could get up to 99.9 MPG.

 

nice. try to break 70 lol

 

Facile - vivi nel piatto di Padova!!!
Easy - you live in the flatness of Padua!
When did you achieve this? summer or now in winter? how did you manage? what driving style?

 

Hi Pakitt :wave:
Hey u speak Italian that's nice!
Yes, you know Padoua is flat, no elevation.. But we also have some beautiful hills ... Check out on Google Earth
Well I got this during April or May 2010, the car was almost new.
My way to work is urban and suburban flat road (speed limits 50 and 80 km/h), and that's the same for our Prius friend in Florida. Temps around 20-25C. I guess this is similar too.
Driving style: relaxed, listening to the synth of Blade Runner music
Actually I was driving during early morning and late afternoon, so I met some traffic (lot of people going and coming back from work). Summer tires: Bridgestone ecopia 195/65/15, pressure 2,9b front, 2,8b back.
In these days for the same trip I achieve around 3,6 l/100km (65 mpg) on my on board computer: morning temps around 0C, afternoon temps around 8C (90% lower grill blocking). Winter tires Yokohama W.drive, pressure 2,6b /2,5b.
Greetings

 

I've observed the same thing. I can average 65 mpg (according to the car's display) on some roundtrips in our local mountain area, specifically Arrowbear Lake, CA up to Big Bear Lake, CA, around the lake, and back home (~38 miles). Besides using pulse and glide wherever possible, another key is to use stealth mode to drain the battery immediately prior to the big 1000' descent on the way home. As the ascents are not terribly steep, I can stay in ECO mode if I'm careful. The final six miles, which are mainly downhill, are driven with the gas engine off. That includes the last mile through our neighborhood, which involves a 100' climb and a subsequent descent. (Overall, the gas engine is off more than it is on.)

 

Congrats!

You're doing better than I am. I just did 52.5 ppg on my last fill-up in my 2010, which is my best tank to date (hey, I've only had three tanks of gas in it). I just increased the tire pressue to 40 lb front, 38 lb rear. Hoping this will make a difference. I also bought Chevron gas (87 octane) since it was only 2 cents more per gallon than the independent gas station down the street....

 

Today for some unknown reason (planets aligned maybe - but likely it was the 8C temperature, rather than the usual 0C) I got on my way to work 4.2L/100km - 56mpg, instead of my usual 4.9-5L/100km - 47-48mpg. On my way back, I got on the overall trip (back+forth), 4.2L/100km (which would have been 4.1L/100km if I hadn't had to wait for a parking space and the ICE hadn't started a warm-up cycle), instead of 4.6L/100km.
Add 6% to all above values due to MFD overestimation.

What an effect temperature has on the fuel consumption indeed!

 

Yesterday, I had to travel from my home in rural east Texas to Dallas and back, about 145 miles one way. This is about 20 miles on rural highway and 120 miles on interstate, and 5 miles of city driving. I wanted to see what kind of mpg I could get by setting CC to 60mph and letting it have its way. When I left at 6:30am it was 16 deg F, and I noticed after about 20 min the defrost mode was on. I've heard that is detrimental to FE so I turned defrost off with the MODE switch. Arrived at Dallas with 53.4 mpg on MFD. Left for home about 3:30pm, temp about 55 deg F. Set CC to 60 and forgot about it. Arrived home with 62.4 mpg on MFD. As best I can tell the only difference is temperature, except for the brief period with defrost on in the morning. I think the elevation difference overall is about 50 ft with lots of ups and downs on both legs of the trip. The wife and I were ecstatic with the 62.4. What a car!

 

Miss those hills and Lake o' the Pines north of Longview where I lived in the early 70's, haven't been back since then.

 

Yeah, I always thought the rolling hills added greatly to the beauty of our part of the country. Now, trying to maximize FE I swear everywhere I go is uphill both ways.