Or would you want to if you could? I understand the system to be tuned to preserve battery function over time. That battery is expensive. Gasoline isn't. I am fascinated by marginal efficiencies and have experienced the triumph of calculating great mileage at the pump, but it's more a compulsion than a substantial economy. The older cars at the beginning of this thread a decade ago may have benefitted from a technique adapted for a wheezy engine and modest motors. On the other hand, the IC engine in your car makes more HP than a basic Integra 30 years ago and the electric motor would itself have you beating an aircooled VW. The pulse on that is fast enough that you'd be burning fuel at about the same rate as any other normal car, and your glide would be screwed up by the automatic regeneration. If you bought your car this last September maybe you were still getting used to the car while the weather was still warm. Your efficiency when it is 10F may not seem great, but I bet you'll be able to manage 70+mpg this summer without too much focus. If you work on technique that gets you to 80mpg, and you drive a thousand miles a month, you'd save fewer than two gallons for the entire month than if you'd gotten 70mpg and driven normally.
I get it. I'm afflicted too. I indulge in more secondary road travel at lower speeds than I did before this car partly because of the difference in efficiency shown. (Though I will note that it isn't an objectively bad 80-90mph highway appliance, it isn't remarkably efficient while doing it.) I wouldn't consider it a victory of that game if posting a great mpg figure came at a much higher cost than the gasoline.
You could say the same thing about a hybrid car. Does it really save any money over the life of that vehicle in the holistic sense.
The older cars at the beginning of this thread were second-generation Prii (already nearly a decade old by then). Finding 'glide' is finding a point where you're minimizing any automatic regeneration. Wayne Gerdes was in a modern, fifth-generation Prius when his techniques clocked 93.158 MPG from LA to New York City a couple years ago. As I don't normally clock numbers anything like that myself, I'd probably defer to his experience if I wanted to up my hypermile game.
Yes. On the highway "win" is: 1. plan far enough ahead so that the brakes are never used 2. maintain a constant speed (on flat terrain) - easiest with cruise control 3. go as slow as possible (and safe) 4. don't drive in another car's air wake (more drag) 5. don't draft (more mpg, wildly unsafe) 6. drive in the smoothest lane (bouncing the car burns energy, right lane is often chewed up by trucks) 7. when descending long slopes set the accelerator so that the ICE is not running and regen is minimized. 8. on rolling hills the goal is to maintain constant energy (kinetic + potential): I'm not sure what the ideal strategy is beyond that (as there are a lot of variables) other than do not aim for constant velocity (especially with cruise control) - gain speed going down and lose speed going up, but not too much in either direction. In slower driving on uneven terrain always try to coast down. In my area (which is flat for no more than 100 yards in any direction) many trips are "uphill outbound, downhill inbound". I can frequently drive several miles coasting, with the MPG bar indicator showing 100 mpg for 15 to 20 minutes (excluding stops at lights and such). When my wife drives the Prius she does so like a normal car, and she gets around 10 mpg less on most of these local trips than I do.
The only way our 2007 could achieve that would be if it drafted another vehicle (except on downhill runs). It might come close if it never went above 45 mph, but that would be one long, long drive.
He probably would charge a lot, lol. Also he might not be saying everything in his tips I read once. Hypermiling can be dangerous.
