I Beat the EPA--Post 'em here

That is not likely correct. Because you have a flexible fuel cell (bladder), the amount of gas that can be put into the tank varies such that you cannot make manual calculations like you did. To get an accurate measurement you must perform a dozen or more manual calculations and average them out. Sorry if I rained on your parade but it is a sad fact of GenII ownership.

 

well that sux balls :frusty:

 

I had to wait a week to make sure it wasn't the bladder, but...

Officially got 65.02 mpg hand-calculated on 410.2 mile tank. I had been mid to high 50 mpgs for the last month before that or so, but since city is listed at 60 mpg by the EPA on the 2007, however ridiculous that is, I didn't want to post until I beat that

What did it were a couple days of 45-50°F weather. The engine really responds very nicely, drives smoothly in that range, and almost always cuts out when I want to glide, whereas mostly prior it's been colder.

Mike with a Prius: Fill-up, Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Looking forward to the spring and summer to make the assault on 70...

 

heck 45mpg is way better than 18mpg

nice

 

Lets see if I can get this to work........

I uploaded my MPG record for the first 47k mi on my 09 black Prius

I figure the uptick in calculated Feb MPG (54.9) over Jan (52.4) is the first real reflection of spring and warmer weather - despite the fact that the MFD average for both months was identical (54.5).

Last 2 tanks were a hair over 60 (calculated).

If you look at the running smoothed average of the calculated MPG per tank (color coded - yes I know it is OCD), you can see that it is quite consistent at 2MPG less than the MFD.

I once had an 89 MPG fillup and had 3 in the 70s last summer, but sadly, none of it was real...........

 

Was noticing the effect of 50 F temps on the battery today in particular. In particular, the warm weather seems to improve "warp stealth" performance - more so than it affects P&G below 41 MPH, hence the assumption that it is a battery effect.

Warm-up time at 50 doesn't seem much different than at 30, altough it is clearly better than it was at 15 (the grille block may affect this, though)

 

And Mike - forgot to ask: Have you been over to this site?

Techniques de conduite pour consommer moins - Page 33 - Forum Prius Touring Club

I looked at your site and was reminded that you have been living in a Francophone environment.

Turns out that I will go to a meeting in Paris this summer (Alzheimer's convention - what I do in real life) and their fuel economy advice thread (linked) has been a great chance to brush up.

Funny to read about the exploits of our local hypermiling heroes (e.g. Hobbit) en francais..........

Their emoticons are way better too...........

 

My best winter tank to date:



No grill blocking, full tank with help from scangauge following Hobbit's suggestions. This is with my normal routes around Baltimore.

I refilled at 487 miles with 8.8 gallons 12 miles after the last solid pip showed up. I guess that would be 55.3 real mpg? Anyway thanks SG II and thanks priuschat.

Update: The tank that followed the one shown above was also at 57.0 for 435 miles which I refueled with 7.8 ga on 040711. That would be 55.8 calculated mpg.

Update #2: Refilled at 535 miles with 8.5 gallons for 62.7 mpg.

Update #3: Refilled with 8.75 gallons (.75 of them after the first click) with the MFD stating 63.0 mpg and 518 miles ~20 miles after the last solid pip appeared on the guessgauge.

Update #4: Smaller tank because I had to refuel for a long trip. Filled with 6.75 gallons

 

Hi all, I am a new owner of an 07 with 90,000 mi on the car. I had the car delivered with a half tank of gas. I finished off that tank then filled up. Here are my numbers for my first full tank:
49.2 mpg (by the display)
382 miles
8.4 gallons to fill

I have the tires at 40/42 psi and no other mods at this point.
My driving is mostly highway with trips of 55 miles in each direction. The temps were mostly in the low 50's but we had snow on one evening and the next morning commute, a snow rain mix mostly, so I needed defrost alot.

 

Hey all here are my last 5 tanks of gas mileage to fuel to refill
631 miles 10.634 to refill 59.33 mpg
658 10.802 60.91 mpg
633 10.223 61.91 mpg
628 10.517 59.71 mpg
648 10.698 60.57 mpg
_______________________________
3198 miles 52.874 gallons 60.48 mpg avg

I know with flexible fuel tank this is not 100% accurate but it makes me feel good!

 

52.6 using the prius computer... 38 miles to work each way... 30+ miles on the hiway... 65 or better. conditions were optimal... 50 degrees or better and little to no wind. Kansas roads are relatively flat. Air pressure is 36.5 f and 35 r.

i smile everytime i fill up.

 

Try 42 f and 40 r and see your numbers improve. Take a chance.

 

Did pretty good for a newbie Prius driver. My daily commute is 70 miles roundtrip with 75% highway and the rest on city streets. Got 440 miles out of 8 gallons on my 2008 Prius.

 

56.05 MPG - (today road trip).
394 Miles - (Filled up in Wisconsin - 33 cents cheaper than by me...)
Mileage Includes some hauling a dresser from son's house, in rain storm and rediculous traffic on a Saturday....

Very pleasantly supprised that my highway driving is included in my Best MPG,

 

This warm weather, a slightly modified pulse and glide, and potentially BP gas are doing wonders.

70.8 mpg over 523.9 miles. Last three fill-ups average 68 mpg.

The nasty details

 

Mike,
how do you manage almost 20 MPG better than most of us? I mean in Minnesota I'm driving over relatively flat roads, using BP gas and trying the pulse and glide to an extent during my 70 miles roundtrip commute but can't break over 55 MPG. I haven't checked the tire pressures yet but they alone can't be causing a difference of over 20 MPG!

 

Mike is good.

There are many people who achieve 70-90mpg in the Prius but they live in ideal conditions and/or are skilled at hypermiling.

I've never attained better than 62mpg on an entire tank but I cannot hypermile worth a damn. LOL

Here is a picture of Jason Holder's Honda Civic Hybrid getting over 80mpg on a tank.

 

haha, thanks F8L.

Samaruf, if you're going 70 miles roundtrip I'd guess much of it is highway? Or at least what we'd consider over here a highway ha...when I visited Minnesota a few months back there were just wide open, straight, pretty flat roads (except going down to the water in Duluth...regen dream, but hill climbing nightmare), but all speeds like 40-50 mph at least. That certainly makes it harder to hypermile, but if it's flat ground and you're going 50 mph SHM will give you 75 mpg on segments, which would probably be better and easier than a high speed pulse and glide. Where I am now I can do a lot of under 40 mph, that's the biggest help, honestly. Only a couple short trips each tank, too, and usually the engine is somewhat warm for them.

Also on this tank were 116 miles averaging almost 80 mpg. The longer the trip, the easier it is to bring up the average, so ordinarily I won't have that bump, since I went to Boston and back. I took a slow route with little highway just cause it was a record tank attempt. These things are possible when you're single - I'd guess anyone with a significant other who wants to keep that person for some time wouldn't want to travel that way ;-)

Not sure if you have a Scangauge, but I make sure I get into stage 4 ASAP and stay in it, I couldn't do that without the SG.

For P and G, I have been doing very light accelerations once at speed to go with the terrain (as opposed to 1600-1800 RPM that's often cited here, though I do that, up to 2000 RPM, for intial accelerations to get up to speed). If you are going 30 mph sometime up the slightest hill, turn on the gas lightly, if your SOC is pretty good you'll get 36-40 mpg instant, but then if you hold the pedal very lightly at that same spot, the instant mpg will "pop" to close to and then over 50 mpg after a couple seconds. This is what I do up hills that are not too steep, just minimum amount of gas to maintain speed, or maybe decrease speed by 1 or 2 mph.

Pros: The average mpg for the trip will barely come down if you do this, as opposed to accelerating up a hill, which is pretty common, but will literally halve the mileage for that distance. Longer, gentle pulses also keep SOC charged so that when you do accelerate you're not wasting as much energy charging the battery. I honestly don't know how people do it with short, hard pulses, except occasionally, since the battery will wear down during the long glides. The engine stays warmer, too, with longer pulses, so cooling out of stage 4 is much less of a concern. You stay with the flow of traffic. Haven't found any cons to it yet.

Telephone poles can be useful. If I can pulse the distance between two telephone poles (x) instead of a longer pulse encompassing three telephone poles (2x), then I would definitely pick the first. I like to aim for 80-100 mpg once I'm warmed up, so if you pulse for the 2x option above, you would need to glide twice the distance as if you picked the x option just to get the same mileage(!), and at that point you'd probably be obstructing traffic haha.

This is too long, I should stop, hope that gave some insight (or Prius *ba-dum ching*).

 

About the same here.

19.07 gal for 1352 miles since May 26th, or 70.9 mpg.

But your last tank is better than mine, I got only 65 mpg, because 1) my wife borrowed the car for a bit and 2) I had to carry bags of concrete mix in it last weekend.

 

Guess what buddy, just filled up my tank at a BP station and scored 400 miles on 6 gallons of gas! My best mpg in 5 fuel ups. Thanks for all the advice and I'm sure the warm weather (103F last Tuesday) is helping too.