highway mpg

[jayeliot]

[font=Arial:49af5f73c5]Thinking of buying a Prius. Concerned that all my highway miles will drag down my mpg. I have a 39 mile commute, 31 of which is highway at a speed of 68 mph. How many mpg might I expect to achieve ?

Does anyone in this forum have a similar commute and if so, what are the mpg ?

Thanks[/font:49af5f73c5]

[efusco]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jayeliot\";p=\"109460)</div>

[font=Arial:4bb4456426]Thinking of buying a Prius.  Concerned that all my highway miles will drag down my mpg.  I have a 39 mile commute, 31 of which is highway at a speed of 68 mph.  How many mpg might I expect to achieve ?

Does anyone in this forum have a similar commute and if so, what are the mpg ?

Thanks[/font:4bb4456426][/b]

At that speed a lot of variables come into play as to what kind of mileage you can expect. During summer and warm weather when there's little wind and if you can maintain that speed with CC and no slowing or speeding up to pass then I'd say you should be able to achieve around 48-50mpg.

Throw in some rain, some wind, some cold temps and some traffic with slow downs then speed ups to that 68mph speed and you could see mileages into the high 30s at times.

After break-in and when you learn to optimize that 8 miles of non-freeway driving I think you'll be consistantly averaging in the high 40s...but a lot depends upon how you choose to drive the car...just drive vs going for peak mileage.

[micheal]

Evan had some good points and another factor is elevation changes. If you have a pretty flat route and you can pretty much keep a constant speed, I think you would be able to surpass the 51 EPA. If you have a lot of hills and use the cruise control, it will be lower.


It takes some time to learn just the right amount of gas to keep your speed constant, so you might see some fluctations. On the interstate that are fairly level, at 72-75 mph, I get around 50. If my wife drives and is stopping and starting a lot, it is lower around 47-48. From my experience on fairly level highways at 65-70, it is possible to get 55 mpg+

[tleonhar]

I have a 40 mile one way commute with about 30 being in the 68MPH range. Had the Prius since June 1 and am averaging 48 to 53 MPG. The things that will bring my mileage down is Minnesota's love affair with putting stoplights on highways :cussing: I have 4 of these to contend with on my commute, not syncronized of course, if I catch all of them red, my average will drop 2 to 3 MPG.

[Micky Lee]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(micheal\";p=\"109588)</div>

... and use the cruise control ...[/b]

Are you sure about the use of cruise control? I thought it would be better than accelerating manually.

[MyPriusMarvin]

We are still getting used to Marvin, our new Tideland Prius. Our commute into Washington D.C. is alot of highway driving as well, and we are averaging 52.2 miles to the gallon so far. We only have about 300 miles on Marvin so far, so we are still breaking him in. I'm very, very pleased so far.

[silentak1]

I commute 30 miles highway everyday and im averaging 49MPG. My highway MPG is actually better than my city MPG which is around 46mpg.

[helmkera]

I just made the run from Chicago to Oshkosh, WI, on Tuesday -- about 360 mile round trip over mostly flat divided highway. Except for a little traffic jam in Milwaukee, I was cruising with the traffic flow (60-70 mph). The consumption computer displayed 50.5 mpg on a new car with approximately 1000 miles. I hope to do a little better after that first oil change, but am very happy with these numbers.

[sleeka]

Our Aussie Prius is now 4000km old, and our last tank gave us 4.7 litres/100km (which is 60 mpg). That figure was for a mixture of city and highway driving. We have been averaging around 4.8 - 4.9 since new, so this is the best yet.
Needless to say, we are very happy with our Prius!!!

Cheers from OZ.

[micheal]

Are you sure about the use of cruise control? I thought it would be better than accelerating manually.

The best way to do hills from my experience (and from what others have said) is to gain speed on the downslope and lose speed on the upslope. The amount of traffic can dictate how much you can do this. I try to shoot for about a +/- 5 mph swing. By doing this, I was able to drive sections of colorado I-25 with an overall elevation increase at an average speed of 75 and 51 MPG.

The cruise control on the other hand is pretty aggressive at making sure you maintain your speed on the upslope and the downslope.