Plug-In Prius Miles Between Gas Stations

My commute to and from work is about 14 miles. If I avoid the freeway, its actually a little shorter, although a little more time consuming. I'll obviously be charging at home. But we recently got a couple outlets installed at work for a Leaf owner, so I'll be using the 2nd outlet allowing me to charge up fully before heading home (I'll also have a full charge if I wanted to drive to lunch, actually).

Based on your calculations, 2000 miles per tank? Yeah, I'll be happy with that

 

EPA rates the Prius CS mode at 49 mpg. That would be a more appropriate assumption, especially given the obvious range comparison between a Prius liftback and the PiP.

 

Does the PiP have a program to burn off the gas if it has sat stale in the gas tank for a couple of months? I heard such a feature exists for the volt.

 

From what I've read, the Volt has a Fuel Maintenance Mode (FMM) that runs when it determines the gas in the tank is one year old. At that point, it will burn off all the gas in the tank. It appears the Volt will also fire up the engine every 6 weeks just to circulate the motor oil and to use some gas. However, I also read that the Volt has some kind of gas tank pressure and depressurization mechanism thats supposed to help keep gas fresh for a longer period of time. Volt owners, please correct me if I'm wrong.

I dont think it'll be an issue for me. If the production PiP is anything like the prototype cars, the engine will start its warm up cycle as you approach the limit of pure EV driving. Additionally, I was taught by my auto shop teacher in high school to routinely perform a "performance tune up" to keep your spark plugs and combustion chambers clear of any carbon build up (really, it was just a good excuse to take the auto shop's donated cars out to the parking lot to make some smokey burnouts).

 

No, but given the short range, the use of the gas engine for heat and the 62mph EV mode limit Toyota probably figured that there's no point.

 

even tho i have a 14 mile r/t commute with outlet at work, i go to see my dad once a week (40 miles r/t) and occasional side trips that will use the gas. occasionally. hoping to avoid heat, but defrost may be a problem.

 

I'll have access to a charging-station at work.

I take driving trips to biking trails in the warm season.

My daily distance is higher than average, see:









Most people don't have a typical pattern. The demands of life cause far more variety than you'd expect... until you start tracking it in great detail like that.

Of course, now that I have the data, it's going to be very exciting making the comparison... in a few months. I can't wait!!!
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Pretty cool data. I thought I was logging stuff. I only logged daily for a few months. You da data man.

With that you could run rather accurate simulations of different vehicles to predict efficiency of a PiP (clearly where you lean) a Volt or a Leaf. (Your data looks like a good Leaf candidate, especially if you can plug in on those 100m days (just to be safe). And/or keeping your Prius long trips).


I'm not going formally vote on PiP miles between gas stations visits as I'll never know personally. My travel is about 36m a day, so if I had a Pip I would have 24miles of gas usage a day so .5 gallons per day, so 720m per tank. My Volt is at 1750 miles since last fill up, still have half a tank.

 

John1701a: with all of your analysis of trip distance, what would you estimate the fuel tank range of your new Plug In? Nominal tank - not theoretical limit.

 

900 miles.

 

I take full advantage of the extremely short summer here. So, I think nothing of weekend biking trips and carrying 2 kayaks on top. Both are going to make my "tank range" fluctuate wildly.

To complicate matters, sometimes I'll be plugging in at work and other times not.

Then to add to that, I'll be filling up at the end of the month whether it's needed or not... so I can gather monthly stats.

It's going to take awhile to identify a pattern. But at least my usual 20,000 miles annual will give you something worthwhile. Those who drive far less will obviously have different results. But for a quick answer for me, I can't imagine going beyond 750 miles.
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It'll be interesting to see if the Volt haters on here jump on you for not factoring in electric consumption if you try to use that method (the way they do for us).

 

Thats what I've been trying to tell everyone for a while. I know from an empirical point of view the total miles/total gallons is not useful for comparing with other cars that don't also use electricity, but its important to me.

edit: I also did not mean to impute any particular ill will on your part and apologize if it came across that way.

 

Go ahead, use MPG as the attention-getter. I certainly will. You explain the high MPG by pointing out when and how often you plug in.

Excluding data has been the problem. We'd get a summary with no mention whatsoever of electricity usage. At best, it was just total gallons and total distance.

You can't just omit a fuel simply because it costs a lot less. It's still something being consumed. It will become a basis of comparison later, since electric efficiency varies just like gas. Look that the big picture years from now, when they are many other plug-in choices available.
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I can understand the confusion and annoyance around the use of total miles per gallon when discussing PHEVs but it is actually a completely legitimate and useful number even when used to compare against HEV and conventional gas car mpg.

In the world of dual energy sources (gas and grid power) these kinds of simple numbers no longer explain all aspects of fuel consumption. Now you need multiple numbers to capture and summarize all aspects of vehicle energy usage.

Yet, total miles per gallon is still a useful standalone number for one part of the total picture. It's the key number for people who are primarily motivated by energy security concerns and seek to reduce their use of petroleum energy.