Prius Joy

First time for me: got all 100-mpg bars for a 1/2 hour drive! The beginning of the 30 minute run was downhill, you can see all the regen going on. After 15 minutes I was on rolling hills, driving between 20-32 mph, maximizing the stealth mode, and doing P&G as much as possible. The last five minutes were the hardest as the terrain got very flat and the ICE was kicking in a lot. As soon as I saw all bars up I stopped and snapped this picture. I continued to attempt high gas mileage after that but the next few bars were in the 65-80 mpg range. Who says the Touring model can't be economic? TP was 45 psi f/r.




I had to make it my new avatar!

 

Thanks for all the replies!

As you can see from my picture I had gone 235 miles with an average of 47.2 mpg after the "Full bars" picture. Before I did this run I was doing a lot of highway driving, and my fuel economy was down at 45 mpg at about 360 to 370 miles. I then climbed up to Mount Hamilton near San Jose, CA, following Mount Hamilton Road, or CA-130. It is a steep, windy road with some nice elevation gains and beautiful scenery. Once I got to the top the Consumption screen was showing 42 mpg and all bars were below 50 mpg, with three of them below 25 mpg. The engine really worked hard to get up there (and my lead foot helped too).

Once I got to the top I switched to the Energy screen and drove down the mountain concentrating on fuel economy. I thought about zeroing the MFD fuel economy but decided not to as I am zeroing exclusively when I refuel.

I used the Energy screen to concentrate of maintaining the stealth mode as much as possible, feathering the accel pedal to get to that sweet spot where you are neither producing nor using energy, therefore giving the Prius the longest possible glide.

On the windy mountain road I tried to follow the most efficient line around corners (the "race" line) and used the brakes as little as possible. I had the traction control and stability control light come in a couple of times but I kept brake use to a minimum.

I only used the B mode when approaching corners, when I was going straight I switched to D as I find it easier to keep the stealth mode on D than on B.

On the last, flatter, part of the drive I maximized use of Pulse and Glide, and tried at all times to keep the ICE off. The only times I kept the ICE on on purpose was when I had to accelerate from a stop due to a stop sign or red light. I never pressed the accel pedal more than 1/2 way down and tried to keep mpg at least 1/2 of mph at all times. I accelerated using the ICE to 35 mph and then feathered the accel pedal to enter stealth mode and then tried to keep it.

In the end the 30-minute run took maybe 20-some miles and increased my average mpg from 42 to 47.2. Oh, I did the run at night, from 10 to 11 pm, as traffic is light (non existent on Mount Hamilton) and there was no wind at that time.