Sat, Mar 8, Houston Hybrid and Hypermilers Club

[Dan.]

Houston Hybrid & Hypermilers Club (aka H³C)

Basic discussions about hybrids and techniques to maximize fuel efficiency (both hybrid and non-hybrid).

Sat, Mar 8th@ Noon
La Salsa Restaurant, Cypress Texas (Houston Cy-Fair)
15202 Mason Rd (Northwest Houston Metro Area)

There is a banquet room as you walk in to the left. I'll get some fliers up so you know your in the right place.

La Salsa is just inside the Fairfield subdivision. Mason road is after Mueschke if on 290 westbound and after Bauer if on 290 eastbound.

Google Map Google Maps

Agenda
-General Hybrid discussions over lunch
-Driving Clinics

Hybrids:
-2007 Toyota Prius with EBH and Factory EVb
-2008 Mercury Mariner Hybrid.

There are a few other places to eat if you want some other food.

I'll have my ScanGauge (fuel consumption display) so we can hook it up to your car to see real-time fuel usage. It works on most cars made after 1995. One thing that helps is knowing your engine size (displacement). This is usually represented in liters, cubic centimeters or cubic inches. An example would be a Mustang 5.0L V8.

I've created a new domain for the group called 106mpg.com.

Website: 106mpg.com - Driving Clinics
Email: 106mpg@gmail.com

Meetings will always be held on the second Saturday of each month.
Mar 8
Apr 12

Facebook Event: http://facebook.com/event.php?eid=8743022731
Facebook iCalendar: http://www.facebook.com/ical/event.php?eid=8743022731

11011011

[sugar land dave]

It's a wee bit of a drive, but I am going to try and make it there. It would be good to meet some more Prius owners.

[Dan.]

(wed. bump)
I've received a few confirmations and should be updating the facebook page. I've also started a facebook group that future meetings will spawn out of. Facebook is free, Meetup.com is for fee.

11011011

[Dan.]

Meet is tomorrow!

[Dan.]

Great Meet. Ended up with Oscar, Chris and me (from HP), Mark, Dave and Natalie.

I swear I saw Cheap!'s Prius on US-290 while we were doing the clinics. Ha... small world.

We had an '07 Prius, '08 Prius, '06 FEH, we did swing by and peek at my '08 MMH after the meet though.

Many thanks to all that came out. I'll have a bit more on the meet in a bit.

11011011

[prius_in_texas]

Dang! Sorry I didn't see the post until tonight. One more week, and I'll have been a Prius owner for a month! Maybe the next month or two, I can make it.

[Dan.]

Just PM me your email address and I'll make sure you're on the mailing list.

11011011

[sugar land dave]

Thought I would put in a quick summary of the meeting.

The restaurant where we met was a a straight-forward place with mexican cuisine at a fair price. Over about a 20 minute period everyone arrived and ordered a light lunch. Dan was kind enough to have ordered some chips and dip so no one would starve while awaiting the main course.

Chris came to the meeting in a Gen 1.1 Prius and gave us a history of the early Prius and his dealer experiences. Dan entertained us with various tidbits of Prius trivia. Mark briefed us on his Ford Escape Hybrid and how he had been fortunate to locate it. I brought a smile to everyone when I told them how I had been in a Navigator, had wanted a Toyota truck, and yet had wound up in a Prius. I had some trouble hearing Oscar since he was furthest from me, but he seemed to carry his own in the conversation. Natalie kept entertaining us with stories of her homeland and how much nicer things were here.

After lunch Dan quickly got about sharing vast quantities of information, first within a group setting, then via individual instructional drives. EV switch, electric block heater, grille-blocking, Tire pressure, scangauge, synthetic oil, stages of engine warming, pulse and glide, and super highway mode were subjects discussed and taught. Though I previously did fairly well with mpg, after a short trip with Dan, I used super highway mode and his version of pulse and glide on the trip home, resulting in an increase of 3 mpg on my mfd displayed mileage. On my short trips later, I actually managed to increase my mpg by a couple of tenths each leg, where I usually would struggle to break even.

Mark was kind enough to let me drive his Ford Escape hybrid and it drove nicely with larger-than-Prius electric and ICE motors. He showed me how the Ford can force EV mode by tapping twice on the brake while driving below 40 mph.

I didn't get to ride in Chris' early model Prius, but those who made that run said that it was quite interesting. I know Dan had a big smile on his face.

Oscar received the "best for last" prize by getting to drive Dan's Prius. I think that's as good as it gets.

I think I should point out, just for the record, that there was a toll-house cookie store near the meeting, and Natalie forced me to eat a large chocolate-chip cookie. The things I suffer.....

[sugar land dave]

Shameless

[Dan.]

Here's some Meeting Minutes to augment Dave's (which are pretty complete as is).

TIMELINE

• 12:30pm - Everyone Arrived and ate - I've always thought it's pretty important to have some secondary reason to get together. It's always easier to talk over food. In attendance we had Chris ('01 Prius) from HP, sugar land dave ('08 Prius), from PriusChat, Natalie, Mark ('05 FEH) from GreenHybrids, chopperpilot ('05 Diesel) from GreenHybrids, and myself ('07 Prius) from (since it's not mentioned) CleanMPG. We did see Cheap! out on US 290 but he couldn't drop buy.
• 12:30 - 2:00pm - General Discussion - Topics covered included "How did you get your Hybrid", a quick rundown on the "Basics of Friction and Hypermiling", talks of the Prius HSD and "Why the Prius Spins it's Engine above 42 MPH", talks about diesels and "How the Civic Diesel might beat the Prius", and a brief rundown on the "History of the 3 Prius Models".
• 2:00pm - 5:00pm - Driving Clinics - Chris and Mark took a everyone out in their FEH Hybrid and Prius Classic. I went with Dave in his '08 Prius. First thing we did for Dave was to bring the tire pressure up. Initially we went right out to the highway to bring the charge up on the battery. Then we did a few runs at SHM and WS high speed pulse and glide. After this we worked on low speed P&G. After this I got a chance to drive Chris' Classic. Played around with SHM and P & G. Found a few neat thing out. After the meet, Oscar and I went back and stole my wife's MMH for a bit (much to her surprise). All in all a good meet.

OBSERVATIONS

• How did you get your Hybrid - A few funny stories on this subject. First, and to my surprise, apparently Ford has filled all remaining orders for 2008 on Hybrids. All new requests will not be filled till 2009. That got us on the subject of the FEH / MMH. Both Mark and I bought ours sight unseen from a dealers inventory. In Mark's case, the dealer received hundreds of calls and a few bribe attempts to try to get him to sell the already sold FEH that Mark was on his way to pick up. Dave and I both got the onslaught of "It's not worth it", or "you should do the research, your underwater" from all of our colleges at work. We both noted that this was when gas was a sight cheaper than it is now. Haven't heard much talk now. Chris though, was truly the pioneer. He got his Hybrid in 2001 and it was apparently a battle. For Texas, there were no display models. The only way to buy it was sight-unseen. His first dealer dropped the ball, and the second one he went to raised the price by 2k. No one apparently knew anything about them. One interesting story is that they were sold with the intent of having a NAV unit out in 2002. It's wired for NAV and everything, but they never followed through with the NAV add on. Real bummer there.
• Basics of Friction - I gave my Newtonian argument for hypermiling. Basically, reduce friction. There are three types I focus on, Wind, Road, and Mechanical. To reduce wind friction, your only hope is simply to drive slower. Over 40mph wind resistance is the primary friction. For road friction we talked about certain types of road or weather that is worse than others. Smoother, dryer roads are the best. The other side of this is tire inflation. Proper tire inflation offers less rolling resistance while increasing traction. We officially recommend that everyone ensure there tires are are not under-inflated. Alignment is also important to reduce road friction. Mechanical friction is best reduced by making sure that your car is properly cared for. Poor maintenance can have it's toll on MPG.
• Why the Prius Spins it's Engine above 42 MPH - I've heard a number of explanations for this but the one I tend to believe is that it's a product of the PSD combined with the operating tolerances of MG1 and MG2. To shut off the ICE at that speed while keeping momentum would require MG1 and / or MG2 to exceed their operation tolerances with respect to RPM. Although possible, there my be some lubrication issues that would surface above 15,000 RPMs. There are those that know a lot more about MG1 and MG2, so I'll defer to them for the definitive answer.
• How the Civic Diesel might beat the Prius -From all I've read, the 2008 European Civic Diesel does offer better MPG than the Prius. The catch is that they are illegal in California because of smog emitting particulates. Looks like we will just have to wait for the next gen exhaust treatment system from Honda till we can buy these in the US.
• History of the 3 Prius Models - Chris filled us in on some of the back history on the early Prius adopters. There are a few key differences between the classic and the current gen. Aside from the change in Elect horsepower, there is also no AC if you want the engine to cut out. This is similar to defrost on the current Prius. If you have the climate control set in a special way, the engine will not turn off.

IMPRESSIONS

• FEH - I've have a MMH so this is no surprise to me. For Prius drivers, there is a much larger battery so EV is very strong and surprisingly persistent. For the techs it seems to go through a similar state transition to the Prius and won't cut out till it reaches a certain temp. Pretty close to 150F but I think the FEH actually looks at the downstream temps to make a final determination. Below 30MPH it acts just like a Prius, off the gas means engine cuts out, on the gas means EV till you ask for more power, then you get the ICE to light. Above 30MPH you have to double tap the break to get the engine to cut out. Not hard, just a tap. I usually loose 2-3 MPH trying to get into EV from 30MPH to 40MPH.
• 2008 Prius - Looked real familiar. There are a few interior changes around the buttons on the dash, but very subtle. Drive seems the same, but there may be some slight software changes since the drive seem just perceptually different. Could have just been me tough. We talked during the clinic about the importance of keeping all your gas purchases to one station. This ensures that the sensors don't have to re-learn new blends as you change brands. I borrowed a SG-IIx and decided it was a mistake. The X-Gauges (set for FEH) triggered two codes. We unplugged it and cycled power 3 times and all was back to rights. I'd stay off of sharing SG-IIx without performing a factory reset on the gauge.
• Classic Prius - I'd been wanting to drive one of these for a while. I'm really glad that Chris was willing to give me the chance. First thing I notices was that the EV was much softer than the current ones. Kinda like trying to catch that edge on the Camry, but not quite that hard. Once I got used to it all was well. On the highway though I did notice that WS seemed fishy. Even though the MFD showed WS, the IGN gauge read 15 which usually implies that the injectors are still squirting fuel. It lead me to believe after talking with Chris that SHM is the only way to get good efficiency on the highway in the Classic. One thing that was neat though is driving a 7 year old Prius. Drove just like new. I think these cars are gonna last forever!

As far as next month goes, I'm triple booked on the April 12th, so I'm planning on moving the meet up to the 5th of April. I know I hinted at the 12th being the day, and I'm sorry for th confusion.

I'd also like to try to get anyone interested (or who knows those of interest) to join the Facebook group for this hybrid club. The link is below.

Facebook Page: Login | Facebook

Thanks to all those that showed up, and see you next month!

11011011