What is your Real World Fuel Economy

I think temp is the issue here. We might have just one or two 55+ degrees days here in Chicago since I bought my car last October. My highway commute from a suburb of Chicago to Chicago, usually gives me 51 mpg on computer, i.e., 48~49 real mpg. My combined mpg is lower than that as I stated earlier. I am very happy with Prius and coming from Highlander even 44~45 mpg is a big difference, but I want to do better than 50+ mpg on the entire tank at least once.

 

Wow, are you guys driving the newer generations? I just bought a 2007 last month. We live in Metro Twin Cities Mn. Been driving it all over. Average is 39-42. Always loud, like the muffler is missing. Seems like it is working REEEALY hard to get up a hill. I feel bad driving it when it feels like it is working so hard.
The mileage is considerably better than our Sienna, but nowhere near what most of you are saying. Should I bring it in to the shop? I checked the online records and it shows that they just had it in the shop in Feb, right before I bought it.

 

Wow, sorry I put this in the wrong category. Of course you are driving a newer gen. Prius C. Sorry.

 

Temp is pretty huge. Once temps drop below 60F, mpg drops off noticeably. Below 45F and even your tires start to change. New c owners can expect to see their numbers climb quite a bit this summer assuming they don't run the AC too hard.

 

Ditto

 

I have found “Driving Without Brakes” to be a very easy to use technique for improving MPG (and it just makes sense IMO). Even though I do not drive a hybrid vehicle, I see around a 30-50% improvement in MPG by using this technique. I can imagine that using this in a c will net MPG’s over 50 without too much hassle (used primarily in town). Give it a try and let us know! This is the web address where this technique can be found: EcoDriving 101 – Driving Without Brakes (though I actually found out to do this on my own ).

 

I have not kept individual MPG's for city/highway but after 5 fill ups I have never averaged below 51 MPG and that is actual, not indicated.

 

I drive 74 miles each way to and back from work. I go through 6 traffic lights, 7 stop signs, across 2 mountains that are 2 to 3 miles up, on small very crooked 2 lane roads, large straight 4 lane roads and a 1 mile stretch of gravel road. I drive it in the same amount of time as with my previous car, I will not go slower or waste my time to get an extra mpg. This is real world driving. I have averaged 55 to 56.7 mpg fror the 3900 miles I have had the car. This is calculated milage at each fill up. I have a 2012 c3. I am very well pleased with the car.

 

I filled up my 2013 Prius C 2 on 07-19-2014 (exactly one year after purchase) at a total car mileage of 5399 miles. I covered 537.2 miles (cruising range 0 miles) since the previous fill with MFD showing 67.2 mpg. Car took 8.482 gallons (shut off at 2nd click) for a calculated value of 63.3 mpg. This tank included some parkway driving in Connecticut but mostly suburban driving at speeds up to 40MPH. Generally short trips covering 10 to 12 miles per day at average temperatures around 65F. Actual fuel economy for 5399 miles over one year is 55.25 MPG. Lowest mileage tankful during January 2014 was 45.9 MPG in very cold weather with ten mile trips to work. Love the car...

 

Driving normally, I usually average about 52 mpg without too much trouble.

If I utilize hybrid car techniques such as Pulse & Glide, I can usually get 60-65 mpg on my way to work and back.

It's about 19 miles or so to get to work, of which about 12 of them are on the freeway. I also work third shift, so the freeway isn't too busy at night, and traffic is still moving fairly fast enough at that time in the morning that I don't have to worry about gridlock. Those moths that keep ramming into my car at night though lol...

In case you were wondering, in the winter time my mpg usually drops to 42-45. I do use snow tires (which also came in incredibly handy during winter 2014 with all the snow we had), block my grille, but no block heater. So yeah, that's a pretty big drop, but still better than my old civic.

 

My actual/calculated MPG for 64 tanks so far, is around 56.7 MPG, as reported by Fuelly, since I keep track of my fuel-ups there. My drive consists of a mix of hwy and city driving, with it being mostly hwy...75% vs 25% city driving. My daily drive to/from work is roughly 30 mi each way, so about 60 mi roundtrip. The area in which I live is not exactly flat, so there are small hills to go over...not mountainous mind you. I average around 60-70 MPG into work since it's mostly downhill, but only about 50-57 MPG going back since it's mostly uphill. Most times, it averages out to near 60 MPG roundtrip. If it wasn't for my occasional longer trips to California (I live in Vegas) and back, I'd probably be averaging closer to 60 MPG life-time average. The 'c' isn't as fuel-efficient on freeways...I'm lucky to get 50-53 MPG roundtrip whenever I do the California drive. This is still roughly twice the MPG's I was getting when I used to drive a RAV4 though. I do not really use the P&G technique...however, I do not exceed more than 5 MPH above the posted speed limit, whether on highways or in town, and accelerate smoothly from stops and allow plenty of time to brake smoothly as well. My best tanks usually occur in the Spring and Fall when it's not too cold or hot...worst ones are in Winter (cold temps cause the ICE to run more often) and Summer (hot temps cause more AC use which drains battery which then trips the ICE more often to recharge the battery).

One odd thing I've noticed is that my actual/calculated MPG is always higher than what is reported by the computer/MFD. I always try to fill up the tank as close to the max without overtopping so that I get a consistent fill-up, and so far, the calculated MPG is between 3-5% higher than the MFD. I'm not exactly sure what is causing this discrepancy. I have stock tires, inflated to recommended PSI in the manual and have confirmed the PSI myself using a tire pressure gauge, as well as taking it to the shop for regular maintenance, which they also report pretty close tire pressure (w/in 1 PSI of my reading). I've also Googled my route to/from work so I know how many miles I should be driving and according to the trip meter, it's pretty darn close...w/in 1/10 mile in most cases. A couple times I filled the tank to the top of the filler tube as a test and I still put in less gas than what it should have taken, according to the MFD's reported MPG. For example, if the MFD showed 57.4 MPG, 540 mi driven on the tank (I reset the trip meter every fill-up), I should have consumed about 9.4 gal...but yet, when I filled up the tank to the absolute max (could see gas in the filler tube), I could only put in 9 gal, resulting in a calculated MPG of 60. The next tank I did the same thing and filled it up to filler tube and still put in less gas than I expected...and the calculated MPG was higher than the MFD's reported MPG. I guess I should be glad that I'm getting better calculated MPG than the MPG reported by the MFD...since most times, people report that their calculated MPG is less than what is reported by the MFD!

 

I m getting 60+ around town these days, near 70 mpg at 50 mph, 60 mpg at 60 mph, and 50-52 mpg at 70 mph. Most of my tanks these days take about 9 gallons and get me over 500 miles. Most of my miles are hwy miles and ive been averaging 52-53 the past few months.

 

I did better when my route was mostly highway and 45 miles each way. 6 miles just isn't enough to warm up and compensate for a mistake in the driver.

 

I bought my C for a work car, driving 140 miles a day usually 6 days a week. My wife and I also drove the car other times and places to save on gas. We put 43197 miles on the car in exactly 1 year and averaged over 50 mpg through it all. I have now retired ( last day worked 4-2-2014 ) and we have put only 603 miles on the car since. This is due mostly to being away from home on trips and leaving the C home.

 

my commute is exactly 6 miles each way. I get over 60 mpg each time no problem

 

I have a 2012 prius c, I drive with an awearness that I am spending time vs money. I drive 95 miles round trip on so cal freeways. On your dashboard fully . Com I have 120 fill ups , 53689 miles traveled , I missed 2 fill ups , and it shows 56.3 mpg. My best tank was 60.6 mpg. My prius rocks!!!

 

how fast and aggressively do you drive?

 

2012 C with nearly 30K miles. Lifetime average of 46.9 mpg - best tank ever was 52.8 mpg. Yesterday I took it out of Southern Nevada for the first time. 508.9 mile round trip to SoCal - realized 41.96 mpg. Less than impressive (both lifetime and yesterday's trip) but not overall terrible considering that I drive the C like a normal car.

 

Low 70s mpg in town driving in temperate weather
Low 50s mpg inter-urban (highway) driving mid 60s mph
Low 50s all season mpg

Prius vagon
New Mexico and Colorado
High desert climate

 

No problem? Must be down hill both ways or an extremely low speed. My drive is 50 mph and I struggle to get above 50. I do it, but I have to pay attention to actually trying.