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Stupid Prius Tricks: Obtaining High Speed + High MPG in a hatchback

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Main Forum' started by Robert Holt, Aug 17, 2014.

  1. Robert Holt

    Robert Holt Senior Member

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    It's easy to obtain high mileage by driving slow, but can you obtain high mileage when driving 65 mph or faster for a distance of at least 100 miles?
    Here is Team Virginia's first attempt at obtaining high speed, high mileage result in a Gen 3 hatchback:
    We managed 65 mpg at a speed of 65 mph for a distance of just over 100 miles. 100_1624.JPG
    The goal is to set a better benchmark by exceeding either the 65 mpg or the 65 mph over a 100-mile stretch of driving a regular hatchback while still maintaining the other criterion: (e.g. 70 mpg at 65 mph, or 65 mpg at 70 mph...you get the idea.) But you have to drive safe and legally, and then post the HSI display and tell the rest of us how you managed to do that!

    (We had 40 psi tires, 7,000 ft. altitude, tailwinds, cooperative trucks, and non-reformulated and non-ethanol gas.)
     
  2. Okinawa

    Okinawa Senior Member

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    Remarkable!!!
     
  3. DoubleDAZ

    DoubleDAZ Senior Member

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    That is awesome!
     
  4. walter Lee

    walter Lee Hypermiling Padawan

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    Does *cooperative trucks* translates to 'drafting' behind an tractor-trailer trucks at high speeds or
    Does it mean that a Prius was driving 65 mph in the truck lane when some trucks wanted to go faster?

    Is the 7000 feet altitude uniform or is there a variation in altitude for this 100 miles?
    Why? Starting from an uphill position and driving downhill provides additional energy making fuel efficiency look better.

    Did Team Virginia record the date, time, and roads traveled for the 100 mile trip?

    The less stops a Prius needs to make over the trip - the higher its fuel efficiency.

    If the Prius Trip odo is reset after the engine warms up but before the 100 mile trip is started - the MPG estimate will get a 7 to 10 mpg bump.
     
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  5. Robert Holt

    Robert Holt Senior Member

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    (^^^ answers to questions in the parentheses above)

    I am sure that you all can do better than this benchmark because I was burdened by two handicaps:

    1. It was over 90 degrees Fahrenheit and we were running the AC to help keep us and the HV battery cool.

    2. I had a 100-pound DW in the passenger's seat and a half-ton of camping equipment in the rear, or was it a half-ton DW in the passenger's seat and 100 pounds of camping equipment in the rear?? In any case, unnecessary weight.

    Cheers, mate!
     
    #5 Robert Holt, Aug 17, 2014
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2014
  6. SageBrush

    SageBrush Senior Member

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    Round trips please
     
  7. SageBrush

    SageBrush Senior Member

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    Walter,
    Avoiding warm up is a lot less than 7-10 mpg advantage over 100 miles.

    Figure 35 mpg the first mile or two, and then the warmed up fuel economy the next 98 miles. Works out to 0.2 - 0.4 end difference.
     
  8. Robert Holt

    Robert Holt Senior Member

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    Round trip??? 9,000 more miles??? I'm not driving back around the "Top Of The World" Highway in the Yukon for anybody!! Nope , nosirree Bob, noway, nohow! Already lost one tire coming this way and don't want to lose any more!

    Which reminds me, final handicap I had was only 3LRR tires on the car right now, the right rear is a replacement Cooper tire of some sort .

    Cheers!
     
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  9. hybridbear

    hybridbear Member

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    You still haven't answered all the questions which means that your results are not valid yet.
     
  10. Barefoot

    Barefoot Junior Member

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    I got a 65/65 once by going downhill...

    I filled up in Somerset PA and was showing 65/65 as I approached the Baltimore beltway. Lots of truck drafting and net elevation change of around 1500 ft over about 160 miles.
     
    #10 Barefoot, Aug 18, 2014
    Last edited: Aug 18, 2014
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  11. Robert Holt

    Robert Holt Senior Member

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    Well I just found an interesting result and wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition!
    <<Three caped men in outlandish garb with swords now leap out of the closet>>
    NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION !!!
    (Apologies to Monty Python!)

    Now I know how John Colter felt when he reported what he saw in Yellowstone.

    Believe or discount the data point as you wish--the photo could, after all, be a clever Photoshop forgery or I could have hacked the car's computer to produce the display.

    But Wikipedia lists the altitude of the Rock Springs starting point as 6388 feet and the altitude of the Rawlins finishing point as 6834 feet, so there was a net gain of about 446 feet during the 100 mile drive. Thus, altitude loss would not seem to be a creditable explanation of the observed result.

    I am a pilot and profoundly aware of the effects of both tailwinds and altitude on the observed "gas mileage" of small aircraft during cross-country flights. I was simply experimenting with whether I could duplicate some of those effects in the Prius under the moderately high altitude terrain and moderate tailwinds I found myself in at the time.
     
    #11 Robert Holt, Aug 18, 2014
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2014
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  12. agreendc

    agreendc Junior Member

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    I'm still trying to figure it out.... but I have a 12.5 mile one way trip to work with 10 miles or so at slow highway speeds 60-65mph (55 zone) and the rest is mild city driving with 2 or 3 lights and 2 turns. Very little altitude change.

    One day, according to the car, I will be at 50mpg and the next it'll be around 60. Been noticing it a lot this summer, doesn't seem to correlate with direction of commute or use of AC. Only thing I can think of is wind??
     
  13. Robert Holt

    Robert Holt Senior Member

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    Certainly wind is a BIG factor for mpg in my experience. A strong, direct tailwind bumps my mpg up noticeably. Headwinds knock it down of course, in exactly the same fashion as driving that much faster--worst mpg in my case recorded crossing the western plains of Canada against strong headwinds. But surprisingly the crosswind effect is also quite bad--I speculate that occurs because the crosswinds interfere with the flow of air around the vehicle and thus produce much more parasitic drag than you would expect.
     
  14. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    First of all Robert, as Dorothy once said to ToTo : "We're not in Kansas anymore!"
    The highest point in Va. is 5729-feet so apparently you're in the land of Oz, where the MFD reportedly is over-optimistic.

    But actually you are doing a demonstration I've been thinking about:...in 8-yrs of driving a Prius we've never gotten more than 485 miles on a tank. Just once I want to go someplace where they have real gasoline E0, and not the lower energy Reformulated Gasoline E10 we get here in NoVA, and demosntrate how easy it is to get a 600 miles tank on the good stuff. I'll have DW drive and she does not know hypermiling is a word (unless it's in the new Scrabble dictionary).

    Just did this drive Barefoot, with an interesting twist: to avoid Pa. Tnpke construction, at Somerset I decided to try Rt. 219 South to Rte. 160 South to I68. Well holy wind farms - this route takes you right down the wind turbine corridor that goes from Pa down through WVa. At one point you go around a bend and you gotta watch out your car doesn't get sliced in half. Amazing. Use "B" mode a lot too.
     
    #14 wjtracy, Aug 21, 2014
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2014
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  15. Robert Holt

    Robert Holt Senior Member

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    I found E0 (not sure if RFG) at a gas station in Lake Geneva, WI, and filled up for a dash back to NoVa along the turnpikes. Got to just over 600 miles on that tank just East of Pittsburg after driving with blinking pip for 75 miles--DW was none too happy about that but we joined the 600-mile club. She is not keen to attempt the 700 or 800 mile clubs!
    This thread's 65-65 trick was in southern Wyoming where the average altitude is near 7000 feet and the grades are surprisingly gentle.
    We have explored using the Colonial Parkway at 26-35 mph in a nonstop loop where you turn around at Jamestown on one end and Yorktown on the other--it is easy to exceed 60 mpg at those speeds on that fairly level parkway, but I do not have the patience to do it for 20 or more hours!
    The non RFG (thanks for that RFG map link!) E0 gas in Yukon, Alaska, Idaho, and Wyoming did seem to result in better mpg, but those data from our journey are confounded with the prevailing winds as we do each day's drive. Still, that fuel would absolutely be my choice for attempting high mpg results.
     
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  16. nodrogkam

    nodrogkam Junior Member

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    Good job. I wish I had such luck regularly.
    Gravity was my friend yesterday night...though I wished the Prius had a way of keeping regen working when the battery gets full. Mushy brake pedals are no fun.
     

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  17. Robert Holt

    Robert Holt Senior Member

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    Other than the mushy brakes, did you have fun doing that?
    I have fun exploring the car's capabilities under different situations.
     
  18. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    Robert- Did you make an epic trip in your Prius from Va. to Alaska (and back?)?
     
  19. walter Lee

    walter Lee Hypermiling Padawan

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    yes. my bad... I was thinking about my own personal commute which is a much shorter 16 mile -one hour - a 100 mile commute would amortize the cold start cost considerably.

    To get a calculated at the pump +60 mpg per tank on the super highway during the early summer with my 2010 Prius going on route 70/80 (PA/OH turnpike) on my back and forth trip from Maryland to Michigan using 10% ethanol gasoline (this is +660 miles one way and takes +10 hours to complete) - I find that my 2010 Prius cruise control needs to be set at about 53 to 55 mph - using Yokohama Avid s33d set at 44 psi front and 42 psi rear. To drive at speeds under 60 mph on 70/8o(PA/OH turnpike), the traffic needs to be relatively light - for I70/I80 (PA/OH turnpike) that translates to be between 10 pm to 4 am .... It sounds like Holt's doing DWL which is more fuel efficient than using cruise control ... but I find DWL harder to do after the second hour...
     
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  20. Robert Holt

    Robert Holt Senior Member

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    Epic? Not sure but we did drive to Alaska and back: We departed July 1st and returned August 21st, so it was about a 7-week trek--we are still emptying car of all camping gear, vacuuming, washing bugs off, etc.
    Our route was Fairfax --> Chicago --> Duluth --> Winnipeg --> Dawson Creek --> Whitehorse --> Fairbanks --> Anchorage --> Seward --> Tok --> Top Of The World Highway --> Dawson City --> Whitehorse --> Cassiar Highway --> Prince George --> Hope --> Seattle --> Olympic Peninsula --> Portland --> Boise --> Rawlins --> Kearney --> Iowa City --> Toledo --> Fairfax. Total distance was about 11,000 miles with average mpg of 54 or so (will calculate that after final fill up.). We used the "Prius Super RV" set up to camp, but stayed in motels and with relatives about 50% of time: image.jpg
    Fantastic natural scenery, lots of wildlife, interesting native and settler cultures, friendly people everywhere, so HIGHLY recommend trip.
    To be fair, we also experienced rather rough roads (blew a tire, cracked the windshield, and vibrated bolts out of the Prius), moderate mosquitoes (bad year for them, good year for us!), temps from the 40s to the 90s (layering suggested), and very expensive motels (camping suggested as it was very cheap!).
    We will post pics and narrative from this journey on our wanderungs.com website in a month or two, but let me know if you want/need any particular information and I will try to help.
    Cheers!
     
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