My first attempt at hypermiling = FAIL

Now we are seeing the true motivation behind Joe-G's refusal to take PriusChat's basic advice to simply slow down to improve gas mileage. "This guy" is truly afraid of "criminals, foreigners and rednecks." Nice.

 

Here's some further proof about slowing down and improving gas mileage. Graphics of average fuel economy vs speed | PriusChat Most newbies at PriusChat are grateful and choose to learn from recommendations and thoughtful input from long time members. Rather than being summarily dismissive (a.k.a. insulting) why not try it for a month or two? And while you certainly have the legal right to express your "care [not] to interface" with "foreigners" and other groups of selected people, these biases aren't going to get you better gas mileage.

 

Here's another good, long thread on tailgaters and hypermiling that calls it Eco vs Ego:
Tailgaters - How to hypermile? | PriusChat

 

Kenoarto--let it go, seriously

 

It's all good, Joe. You're doing great.

Sometimes our efforts to increase fuel economy are not inline with maximum safety (for everyone on the road). The trick is to figure out when and where you can use max FE techniques and the rest of the time you just do your best and enjoy the ride. The difference in fuel saved is generally not huge unless you go from one extreme to another.

 

So, how much gas did you put in? I would say that you put in right around 10 gallons of gas if you filled it to the first click. If so, it means that you still had 2 gallons of gas in your tank or about another 100 miles.

 

It's 11.9 gallons. If you did 54.1 mpg on the display, divide it by 1.05 (display is 5% overstated on average) and you get 51.5 actual mpg. Divide your 510 miles by 51.5 and you get 9.9 gallons .. I just rounded to 10 gallons. Either way, you had enough gas left to get another 100 miles before running out.

 

From a tip I saw on one of these boards, I reset trip a with each fillup. When getting down to the end you can multiply the trip a mpg by 10 and that will show you about how far you can go leaving 1-1.5 gal in the tank.

 

The most I ever used was 11.3. Clarification on the notes:

FCD (Fuel Consumption Display)
% Diff (% Difference between FCD and actual mpg)

# Date Miles Gal. MPG Price City % Notes
5/1/12 608.0 11.30 53.8 3.980 20% FCD 57.5 % Diff 6.9 MPH 39

 

I don't ever plan on finding out from personal experience but there are some threads at cleanmpg.com from when the gen3 prius first came out where they filled them til they could see the fuel then drove til nearly empty (going hundreds of miles further than I will on one tank) then filled back up. I seem to remember he said they put in a little over 12 gal, but I don't know for sure if those were the same 11.9 gal tank that was overfilled or if earlier model years had a slightly larger tank. At the time I was searching things like "prius gen 3 hypermiling" looking for tips.

 

BobWilson4Web did this experiment when he first got his Prius. It is a hobby/habit of his to get a new car and then run it out of gas to see what symptoms he might experience before running out of gas and how many gallons his tank holds (among other things). It is posted either in the Gen III main forum or in the Gen III fuel economy forum.

Hopefully someone will post a link for you (otherwise trying searching).

Multiply your displayed value (54.1) by 10 and that is the amount you will be able to drive and you will need to add 10.5 gallons to your tank (+/- 0.2 gallons depending on your previous fuel up). It will give you some comfort in how much range you have.

Most gas I've put into my car was 11.1 - 11.3 gallons (I think)

 

you may have to hold it in N for a couple of seconds for it go to in. It shouldn't fight you. Other than turning off fans, lights, radio etc, there isn't much else you can do other than remind yourself that you are idling 100% of the time. Still, that type of traffic is frustrating for everyone except all electric cars and even their batteries will be drained by the running of the car and accessories.

 

The bigger the uphill the more it pays to go faster.

The biggest hurdle for learning DWL for me was not going fast enough on the downhill..
The hypermiling term is DWL - in physics/astronomy/space science it is called *gravity assist* and there's a mathematical equation for how it works too... yeah It's Rocket Science!