Ok I get 487 miles a tank

That's what the EPA rated the car for so I'd say 50mpg is good. Sure it could be better but there is nothing wrong with your car if that is what you are asking.

 

50 isn't bad at all for your second tank. You have to learn how to take advantage of the feedback the car gives you. Accelerate slowly (and safely of course), anticipate stops, coast to slow down when safe, use the regenerative brakes as much as possible, brake early so that the 'charge' meter doesn't fill as you are stopping (a full meter indicates you are using friction brakes and thus losing energy). 76 is a great temp, highway miles are good. My commute is 80% highway and my most recent tank was 57.9 at similar temps. Keep at it and enjoy!

 

"turrible" as Charles Barkley would say... because it's better than mine! lol..

 

Answer: Your missing something big. You don't get something for nothing. You're getting 50MPG without adopting any new driving practices. If you want better than advertised mileage in your Gen 3 Prius, you'll need to turn off the A/C and adopt more economical driving practices. You can't have your gas and burn it too.

 

It depends on driver style. It works for some of us, but not for others.

Separate from driver style, ECO also alters the A/C somewhat, which may help slightly.

 

with 90% of your driving being highway, speed is the main factor in mpg's. if you you can slow down, you'll do better, otherwise not. 50 seems pretty good to me for your commute.

 

Look for info in "driving with load" and "super highway mode". These seem most helpful on the highway for me

 

Someone else can chime in if I'm wrong, but the regenerative brakes fill the battery during light to moderate braking while the friction (hydraulic) brakes during heavier braking result in lost energy. Having the battery meter fill while you're braking is a good thing, as this is stored energy. If it doesn't fill while you are braking, you are losing energy.

 

On the other hand, ANY braking means wasted energy (=wasted gas). Regenerative braking lessens the waste but if you can avoid the need to brake you waste even less energy. This requires looking much farther down the road than most people are used to. It also means leaving a much larger (and safer) gap between you and the car in from of you than most people do--they brake, you coast. It works quite naturally with the more gentle acceleration mentioned above.

 

Please help me understand this... 1) Braking is a waste of energy... 2) Regenerative braking lessens waste... 3) If you can avoid the need to brake, you waste even less energy...

It is my understanding that as Prius drivers, we want to brake smoothly to capture what we can and send it back to our battery so the "wasted energy" can be used to improve our mileage! Why do people want to coast to a stop without using their brakes when a long slow brake with the regen display a little less than 3/4 sends the maximum amount of what WOULD be wasted energy to our battery? I see this all the time, and it makes NO sense to me!

 

On large hills / mountains, the Prius battery will fill to max and the engine will then go in to engine brake mode
where the engine will turn. There is really no way to get around this unless you have a plug in prius which has
a larger batter capacity and will continue to charge on long downhill grades.

On normally flat roads or rolling hills I use brakes very little, similar to driving a manual shift vehicle where
you naturally time your stops and traffic lights.

 

First, thank you for responding to my question and not taking it the wrong way... I read your reply and understand why you would not regen if the battery is nearly at max, but why not regen on flat surfaces to capture energy for your battery? Or, do you keep a close eye on your State of Charge and regen when needed?

 

It uses more energy to get up to speed just to put on brakes to regen. It's more effective to not have to brake at all. I don't know how else to explain this. For best mileage drive like you have no brakes, impossble to do but gets you the best MPG.

 

It's quite simple.

You have kinetic energy in the form of motion. By applying the brakes you steal this energy and convert it to another form Which suffers from conversion losses. You have now reduced the distance you can travel without applying more energy. Better to allow the original form of energy to carry your further without suffering conversion losses.

In most cases you will eventually have to apply the brakes and you will recapture some energy anyway.

 

Thanks for the reply. I'm going to try this on the next tank and see what happens...

 

Here is another way to put it using a hypothetical situation:

There are 2 stop lights lets say 2 miles apart. I'm sitting behind stop light #1. When the light turns green, most people stomp on the gas and get up to 60 MPH between the stop lights. Then when they get to the next stop light (since it just turned yellow or red because traffic engineers just love to F with us this way ) they have to slam on the brakes to come to a stop to wait for the light to change back to green. Me since I don't like wasting gas, slowly accelerate to 30 MPH and go no faster. I of course am pissing off everyone else on the road behind me, but I don't care I'm getting the best gas millage this way. They can always fight to go around me in the other lane. Now what happens before I make it to the next light is that the light turns green. Everybody that was at that light jack-rabbits off from the stop and accelerates to 30 MPH before I get there. Therefore I don't have to hit the brakes on my car. I'm being the most efficient in my driving habits. It is not the braking that wastes the gas, it is the acceleration.

It's Newton's First law of motion paraphrased sometimes as: A body in motion wants to stay in motion. It takes the least amount of energy to keep your car in motion at the same speed then having to speed up and slow down.

 

That makes total sense, but it wasn't what I was referring to... If I am traveling down the road at 50MPH and I see a red light ahead, I gently brake to capture as much energy as possible back to the battery. However, I have seen people post that instead of braking, they coast to a stop, as if they had no brakes. That is what I don't understand. Isn't thoughtfully applied braking to capture more energy better than just coasting to a stop?