Miliage issue

Don't use EV mode and turn down the AC so it is set no lower than 78°. Having the AC on makes it difficult to glide with the engine off. The AC keeps the engine on much more than if it was off.

Try airing up your tires to 44 front 42 rear and see if that helps.

 

They way you are driving is counter productive for good mileage. Certainly you want to anticipate stops and avoid braking, but otherwise stop driving like an old man and stop trying to use EV. Both hurt your mileage.

Accelerate briskly to speed, keep your speed modest, and let the engine do its job. Save EV for moving around a parking lot or backing out to wash your car.

Tom

 

This is not an Electric Vehicle. It is a hybrid. When you use EV mode, you are actually lose because of the inefficiencies in converting gas power to electric.

Just drive the damn car and stop trying so bloody hard to squeeze out a couple of extra MPGs.

 

Driving on the battery *is* EV. You don't want to do that. The EV mode button tells the Prius to try and use EV, but you don't have to press the button to be running in EV mode.

Tom

 

The point is, driving on the battery every chance you get is bad for mpg. Try to minimize use of the battery.

Glides are easy. Try ECO mode at least until you get the hang of it. Use the engine, then glide. Minimal regen, minimal braking of any kind. Minimal use of the battery for propulsion. That battery juice comes solely from the gas tank.

 

Now that we've blasted you, go out and try the different technique and see how it goes.

R,emember pulse up to or just above your desired speed the lift off the pedal then gently reapply pressure to enact a glide using no power from the battery or the engine. I realize this harder to do in a Geniii.

 

When possible, you want to drive without the engine AND without the battery - a true glide. But when you accelerate, use the engine. Tom (qbee) has it right. Sorry if we were a bit snippy, but we get this same issue raised quite a bit.

Other mileage killers: low-pressure tires, short trips (less than 10 minutes), hard braking, hard acceleration (just do normal accelerating), cold temperatures (below freezing), using the heat or A/C.

People do get 60 mpg, but only for longer commutes and on tires that are inflated at least to 40 psi and usually some other techniques. Anybody can get 60 mpg occasionally though, just a nice trip with a tail wind will do that. But the serious hypermiling student can eventually get 60 mpg in the real world without annoying too many other drivers on the road. I try to annoy almost no one, and I get 54 in the summer, 44 in the winter. Would do much better if I had longer trips, but I look at it as gallons per month, not miles per gallon.

 

It is not intuitive and many new hybrid owners try to use the battery as much as possible without remembering that little law of thermodynamics. When you transform energy from gasoline to electricity your will suffer losses. The battery is mainly there to support the weak but efficient Atkinson style engine.

 

The thumbs down on using EV at all around here can be a bit over the top, IMHO

The battery is great for things like eking out an extended glide over a long downhill interrupted by a low hill......any situation where using the gas engine is actually less efficient than the high torque of the electric motor, such as accelerating uphill from a low speed.

It's also OK to use EV more near the end of your commute, or just before a high speed stretch which will tend to charge your battery anyway.

But usually, you should avoid it for the reasons given.

As for acceleration, I've been using the Hobbit formula for the unwashed unScangauged: - target MPG at 75% of MPH during pulses, and glide as much as possible.

This is actually pretty "brisk", and I've been getting 70 summer and 55 winter with it, driving (nearly) normally.

Just got new Michelin Primacy tires though, and the MPG took an instant 6% hit based on the dash display numbers since Saturday, so we'll see how long I can still say that.

 

You did, with different words, right here:

I would discourage this for the same energy conversion inefficiency reasons mentioned earlier. While the battery will get charged at high speeds, that still requires additional fuel compared to not recharging, and the same inefficiencies apply.

The place to really use EV is just before a descent where regen braking will completely refill the battery. Here, EV really is 'free'.