Prius C Fuel Efficiency Tips

I was a newbie to drivng a Prius about 30 days ago....then I did this...

Step 1: Read every forum on this site...especially the Gen III prius forums, and the Prius C forums, they have a HUGE wealth of information...

Step 2: Watch this video at least 3 times!!

Step 3: Have fun learning and playing the MPG game on your Awesome new Prius C!!

Good Luck!

-M

 

Your welcome! Have fun! This car is a blast to drive....and that's from someone who has driven 300+HP Infiniti cars for the last 10 years....

-M

 

Gliding is not the same thing as regenerative braking. If you are utilizing regenerative braking then you are losing precious momentum unless you are coming to a stop.

This is specific to the GenII but the same principles apply as in the above video. Since you cannot use the arrow direction as an indicator on the GenIII or c, disregard that part but the throttle application is dead on as also illustrated in the Naggy video above.

 

Wow going to 20mph is not going to work in a real city. I have been doing my glides with light EV application so that I can keep a more respectable speed. Living in that country side the video was made in looks like a good place to do it in though with little traffic.

 

City no but in residential areas it works spectacularly. Reisdential areas are set up for pulse and glide sessions. You pulse away from a stop sign the glide to the next one.

The key to great gas mileage is analyzing your commute and applying whatever techniques are applicable THEN figuring out a backup or 2nd best technique you can use in a specific location if conditions (traffic).

 

Try the links in my sig, though none are c-specific.
Congrats on the car and good luck!

 

Hypermiling is the collective term for all of these techniques used to conserve fuel.

 

Avoid using the electric motors when you are on the road since it doesn't have much torque. Make sure the gas engine is running while pushing your Prius going uphill. In traffic jams, try lightly pulsing the gas engine to get up to 12 mph and then gliding (min P&G) the rest of the way instead of relying on the electric motors to slowly pull the Prius through the traffic. Donot use the EV button. You want to avoid depleting the battery pack because that will automatically cause the Prius to run the gas engine to recharge the battery pack (to prevent the state of charge from falling to low) and that will cause the Prius' MPG drops like a rock. Regenerative Braking recovers between 30% to 50% of the energy lost from braking - it is more fuel efficient to avoid braking and to conserve your momentum. Prius will gets its best fuel efficiency when you can re-arrange your normal commuting route to be driven between 25mph to 35mph over 45 minutes/10 miles per trip with as few stops as possible. Trips shorter than 15 minutes/2 miles cause its FE to drop.

You can force a Prius to recharge its battery by putting your foot on the brake, putting the Prius in Drive mode, then using your other foot to press on the accelerator hard. The ICE will then recharging the HV battery but this is very costly in terms of MPG ...

I have been learning hypermiling on a 2010 Toyota Prius III for the last 2 years. I've achieve 60.9 mpg over 20k miles (calculated at the pump using 10% ethanol 87 oct gas). My best tank last year was 70 mpg over 727 miles 10.12 gallons. I am pretty sure a 2012 Toyota Prius c can beat those numbers. A Prius c doesn't display GPH, gallons per hour, or the gas engine's RPM, revolutions per minute, so a ScangaugeII is still useful to have. if the Prius c gasoline engine is anything like the Prius HB the most fuel efficient burn rate is between .80 to 1.20 GPH ( RPM 1100 to 1700)

 

To add to this: the "hyper" is just "above" as in "above the EPA rating". That used to be harder, but since 2008 you really have to be driving in difficult conditions not to be able to beat EPA. Beating the old CAFE numbers is another matter.

 

No, force charging should be used sparingly (or never). The car will keep it charged in an efficient manner. The situation you mention above will happen again (I guarantee it). It does not hurt the car, it is just the car doing what it is supposed to do.

 

I've been driving my 2012 Prius C Three for evryday commute. My drives are most often than not under the 3-5Km range, in the city, most of my drives are either uphill or downhill, since my neighbourhood is the top of a huge hill.

I've planned my routes to be fuel efficient: i go down to work using the steepest inclines, even if it's not the shortest route; and i come up using a detour that makes me go up on a less steep incline using the pulse and glide technique to go up and neutral to go downhill.

My best drive: 74,8 MPG going downhill: iknow, i can't believe it but it's true, a 2.2 KM downhill run, full EV mode... One of two accelerations to get to the parking...

On average, i get 47MPG going up, though.

Anyone noticed that while the engine is cold the Prius C runs at 15MPG? Than consumption drops rather rapidly, but the longest the commute, the more efficient the car is.

 

I think that number is just an artifact of your commute up hills. In general, the Prius GenII, GenIII will average about 30-35mpg when cold and driving on flat surfaces at normal speeds. Any hills or high speed driving when cold will obviously lower this number which appears to be the case with your car.

 

Once the weather warms up to over 60 degrees our
Prius ususally warms up in about 3-4 highway miles.

The first mile or so is usually about 30 mpg, probably a figure
most car owners would not mind getting with their
land yacht.

Once warm with dry level roads mpg's will go to the 50's on
the computer readout.

Getting over 50 mpg in the summer is real easy, even
my wife gets over 50 mpg's calculated and she does not drive
for mpg's like me.

 

I'm having an easy time using pulse and glide in the city. In moderate traffic, speeds rarely go to the posted limits of 25 to 35. I am using the power range quite a bit to maneuver (reasonable passing/avoidance moves...).

On the more open roads through the city with little to no traffic, I'm staying within 7mph of the posted limits and on level or slight incline/decline, it's fairly easy to stay on batteries for miles at a time.

All this being said, I'm getting close to 60mpg in the city.
As new prius c owners are starting to figure out, moderate traffic and stop and go INCREASES our gas mileage. So cool...

Anyway, all my long winded post is trying to say is that following the advice of successful high-economy drivers on this site yields very good results.

One last thing: I am very conscious of being part of traffic and I try to accelerate in a reasonable fashion that allows for the flow of traffic. In other words, I realize that if I try to use only EV from a stop light, this will have a negative impact on all the cars behind me.

 

i still find it hard to pulse and glide. I guess I need to get used to accelerating on the c. However, is it just me, or is it way too easy to get the c up to the PWR indicator. I try not to, and it always ends up going there...