Where is sweet spot? How to get 60 MPG in city

"Staying in Electric" is a common better-your-MPG misconception.

In reality, it does exactly the opposite. Accelerating with the engine instead is more efficient. Brisk takeoffs are the key.

Save the electricity for maintaining a cruise instead.

 

Here's what I do, though it only nets me in the low 50's for mpgs:

Use electric to get up to 8-13mph. In this time frame, this is usually when other cars are flooring it, but their car has to shift out of first gear, so you're not going to be upsetting everyone all the time.

Once you hit that 8-13mph range, accel 'briskly' up to cruising speed, or a little faster than cruising speed.

Once at or above cruising, 'feather' the accel. That is, take your foot off of it, then place it gently back on to keep up your speed.

It takes a lot of patience and time. It takes avoiding short road trips if possible. When you change your driving habits, give them time to become noticable - say a full tank of gas. Best of luck!

-m.

 

So far my experiences are different from other and my very best mieage is from going
all electric as much as possible.

That said, I think it is pretty clear that no one can get City mileage in a real City! But in
the country you can find places to drive like the EPA fake City loop and then you can
easily exceed their 60 mpg.

In real city driving the problems are traffic and lights. The more stops the more any car
will approach 0 mpg. The Prius just does it slower.

So to max mileage drive 35 to 45 and never stop! Accelerate slowly enough and you
can stay electric a lot, except on hills. Down hills is especially good because you can
go for miles sometimes with little discharge on the battery.

In a real city all you can do is try to drive wihen traffic is at a minimum, and then travel
so you arrive at lights such that you never have to stop fully.

To stay electric I accelerate from 1 mph to 2, then I concentrate on going 2 to 3, etc
1 mph at a time. Push the accelerator just enough to get this 1 mph increase each time.

Getting to 30 mph can take me over 30 seconds.

For upgrades go ahead and let the engine start and get the battery recharged. If you
can just do electric on down grades and flat areas, you should do great.

Watch out for bumps because they can shake your foot and make the engine start.

Anyway that is as far as I have got, trying to max mileage. Now it is too cold to
experiment more! Engine just runs and I get 32 mpg no matter what. It was 2 degrees
this morning.

When I got the car some days were 50 degrees or above, and I found the car went
all electric on its own for significant distances with no special effort and my mileage was
often well over 60.

Since your Prius is very new, I should note I saw a significant jump upward in mpg after
the 600 mile break in period. The car also ran differently and went into battery electric
mode more easily.

Finally note that the concept of going on electric is due to engine inefficiency at light
loads. So when the engine is going go ahead and load it.

Also I expect Toyota has adjusted the computer just about right, and so if you go
over a certain speed you will run on engine full time. You can still get good economy,
for that speed. Electric can only help at low speeds where the hp required makes the
engine run less efficiently.

So most of this is kind of automatic. Just make sure you keep a steady foot, minimize
braking as others have mentioned, and get out of accelerate mode (lift your foot
to tell the oomputer to slow the engine) each time you accelerate on engine power.

Some other things you can pretty much derive from the above:

It is good to coast where possible with no arrows.
It is better to coast with engine off.
It is good to minimize battery usage when engine is going.
(Others have said accelerate with no arrows in or out of battery, but still can't do
that much!)

And don't forget tire pressures, synthetic oil, and fill levels.

 

In my experience, short trips are a real killer. You need 10 miles at least, and probably more in colder climates, to get the car in peak efficiency. Then, it may take 10-20 miles to recover the loss you experienced in the first 10 miles.

I get mid 50's, driving 25-50 miles in a trip on US19, which has stoplights averaging about 1-3 miles apart.

 

I'm starting to see the effects of real cold here with temperature at 2 F
this morning. My commute to work is 8 to 13 miles depending on the route.
The car never gets really warm. Generally I am seeing 10 mpg for 5 min
then maybe 20 for next 5 minutes and then 40 by the time I get to work!

The good news is the bad stuff starts to happen at 40 degrees, and gets
worse to a point but then appears to level off, but heater use continues to
make things worse the colder it gets and I do use the heater.

I'm starting to collect some data on my commute to work vs temp.
Not much yet but so far I am able to average over 40 when weather
is warm like 40 F or above and it goes down to 30 mpg at 0 to 15 degrees F

When it is below 20 degrees F I use recirculate a lot on the heater, which
helps. Heater stays on max, so the electric heat is going for most of
my trip.. When I am warm enought I use medium to low fan and turn
off recirc. to try to force more air out by the battery. This is after around
5 to 6 miles of driving.

If I drive over half an hour at highway speeds then the mileage gets over
50 and stays there.

There are four things that have to warm uip and they do so at different
rates:

1 Me
2 Engine
3 Catalytic converter
4 Battery

The battery is slowest and I think it takes well beyond half an hour to get
it starting to warm reasonably. EV mode seems tied mostly to this.

As for me I stay warm by plugging in my Prius each night I expect temps
below 20 degrees. Then in the morning I grab the other end of the cord
in the house and start the car heater warming the cabin. It is a Holmes
I have mounted to the back seat hooks with bungee cords.

After I eat breakfast the car is warm for me, and ready to start out.
Doesn't do much for the engine and cat however, so mileage stays bad
while they warm up.

I can't wait for warm weather!

I find I look for excuses to travel a bit, just to keep my tank averages
over 40! I just had one dip under that.

 

This is possibly the most dangerous driving style I have ever heard of! Anytime you are doing something completely out of phase with the rest of the cars on the road, you are putting yourself at great risk. Think about stopping dead in the middle of a freeway, if you want to explore this at the limit. Members of this forum: the prime goal of driving is not getting 60MPG, it is being safe! These oddball "techniques" to get high fuel mileage are outright dangerous, IMHO. If you are looking at the speedometer that much, I guarantee you are ignoring stuff going on in the periphery of your vision. And don't forget either about the road rage you are inducing in the guy behind you.

 

I completely agree with the above post by bobme. This car is going to be worse than driving with a cell phone!! I know that i'm constantly looking at that damn center screen to see if I'm at peak efficiency.

I've been thinking about this and I realize that I need to stop it if I want to stay safe and alive on the road.

 

But that is how I've always driven. I had diesels before, and that was
how they accelerated with the pedal floored. Same with my first Saab.
People behind me have to go around me same as if I was a truck.

Get used to it. If you want to drive like the rest of the traffic you will get
bad gas mileage like the rest of the traffic.

 

Sounds like something wrong with you car then. Ive driven many deisels and have never experienced this sort of problem.

 

Nothing wrong with my diesels, and I've owned 3 of them. I am sure there are faster ones
but my point is still the same. Some of my cars could get to 60 in about 30 seconds, and
my faster ones could do it in 20 seconds. Prius is a hot rod to me, but i refuse to drive
it like that.

The Prius is the wrong car for someone that wants to keep up with the average car around
where i live. As were my diesels. I've never owned a car as fast as a Prius,
and it is far slower than what any of my friends drive. They thiink I am nuts to drive a car
that can't cruise at 120 and can't get to 60 in under 5 seconds.

My point is you can't drive like other people do in any car and expect good mileage. Most
drivers could care less. They are only concerned about getting up to high speeds so they
can test their brakes really good at the next red light, and around here a good percentage
don't make it and just drive right on through the red lights too.

And I don't buy that dangerous arguement to not drive with the traffic. That is the
common justification i hear around here for speeding where most drivers seem to always
go 20 mph over the speed limits.

 

I am fortunate to live in a warmer part of the country (Dallas, TX area), so my mileage has stayed in the low to mid 50's.

My daily commute is 18 miles each way on a state highway with no traffic signals, but a jillion other cars.

When I go in early to our fitness center I drive 65mph the whole way and my avg goes down to the very low 50's (wind speed and direction factor in heavily). When I go at a more normal hour and slog along with the traffic I get great mileage. This car is a traffic stress reliever. The worse the traffic gets, the better my mileage is.

When moving along at 20-30mph with the pack I try to keep a steady pace, feather the accelerator gently, and stay on battery as much as possible. As long as you stay at 40mph and below the car will keep the ICE off for long periods. I can get several bars between 70-100 mpg during these segments.

You can see my mileage data and graph at www.enerjazz.com/prius. The two bad segments in late Nov were a round trip to Lubbock at 70mph. I had the unlucky weather of a strong headwind both out and back (a few days apart) so my tank averages dipped to the upper 40's.

Being good at looking ahead in traffic and anticipating slowdowns is a key. If you can coast well (or just feather in preparation for a slowdown) you'll see a big boost in mpg.

 

I hope you at least stay to the right lane. Not only is it dangerous, but it may even be illegal if you do it in the left lanes. Here is an excerpt from the California driver handbook:

"There are times when you must drive slowly because of heavy traffic or bad weather. However, if you block the normal and reasonable movement of traffic by driving too slowly, you may receive a ticket. When you drive slower than other traffic, do not drive in the “fast†lane. Move to the right when another driver is close behind you and wishes to drive faster."

If everyone else on the road around you is a great driver, then no problem, they will avoid you. But of course this is not the case. It might be the other guy's fault if he hits you, but that satisfaction will not remove the dents from your car. 30 seconds to 30mph is way too slow for any modern vehicle.

 

I strongly support bobme.
I've only had my Prius two days now, but I have the same objectives in owning one that I had ten months ago, when I ordered it. First, I'd like to reduce my personal dependence on Crude Oil. And second, and perhaps more importantly, I'd like to set an example so some of those gas guzzlers will change their ways.
If I'm going much slower than the rest of traffic, to achieve my 50/60/70 mpg target, I've cut that 2-lane road to a single lane. And the other drivers are going to have a problem with that! Do you think I'm persuading them to convert to a Hybrid? Likely not; more likely they'll think "no way am I going to tie up traffic like that slowpoke."
If we could raise the national MPG average to 27, we could eliminate reliance on offshore Crude. I can do a lot better than that in my Prius without slowing down traffic. And when I don't slow down traffic, I've got a much better chance to convince someone to join me.
Call it heresy, especially on this site, but IMHO that's what it's about.

 

I manage high 50s without tying up traffic. I'm usually driving either the speed limit in the right lane or a safe following distance. When I got my Prius I slowed down and discovered that most of the other drivers out there were already driving more sensibly than I was. Now when I see someone racing to be the first at the stop light, I realize that they are just the old me. A few weeks back I was driving with most of the traffic in rush hour at about five miles below the posted speed. I was keeping up with the person in front of me when some guy weaving through traffic came around me screaming out his window at me. He immediately applied his brakes to not hit the driver in front of me. He did a little more weaving to improve his position and I caught him at the red light ahead. I pulled up beside him and rolled down my window. He rolled down his window with an angry look on his face and I asked him if he wasn't planning on stopping at this light just like he did every other day. At this point he paused, smiled and waved and I drove on. I think some people are just angered by anyone that is in front of them on the road if they want to be travelling faster. It can't help when it's one of those greeny weanies with a 56MPG license plate. You will only sell the Prius to like minded individuals. The rest will buy a hybrid when it offers an improvement in horsepower.

 

You'd worry a lot less about tying up traffic if you ever drove the original
Saab or a VW. I drove one through the rockies and Ca mountains back
when I learned to drive. Top speed was 25 mph up some of the hills. You
might have 30 cars lined up behind you. I would eventually let them by
when I got to truck turnouts, etc.

If you could get to second gear (there were only 3) you might go up a
hill at 35 mph tops.

And I refuse to buy more gas just to help subsidize people that want to drive gas guzzlers so they can accelerate like they just robbed a bank.

But so far the Prius tends to annoy other drivers less than my old diesel,
except in one situation unrelated: When I have to pull out into constant
traffic flow very very slowly because I am scraping my nose! This is
real scary and I have never had to deal with it before.

As for someone's comment about watching the speedometer, that is how
I learned to do battery mode. Easy to do by feel now.

 

John,
I agree with you to a point, but IMHO 0-30 in 30 seconds is not reasonable unless you are alone on the road. My 'normal' in my Odyssey was 0-35 in about 6 seconds. That seemed to match the flow of people who weren't slamming from the accellerator to the brake and weaving. I can't imagine taking 5 times as long to get to 30 MPH. I'll have to time "normal" in the Prius with ICE only and see what I get.

Bobmme's example from the CA driver's handbook applies in VT as well. You certainly CAN be fined for impeding traffic.

And I know the VW up the Sierra Nevada's thing too. Took my '69 automatic squareback up to Tahoe in '77. Some of the hills were barely held at 45 in 2nd gear! The poor car.

 

Tomdeimos: Driving the way you do is not only inconsiderate and irritating, but dangerous and illegal in many places.