Effects of weather on mpg

The rain hits the car and accelerates to vehicle speed ... this takes energy. Then it falls off and takes that little bit of energy with it. The tires push stationary water away from the road, again expending energy. The windshield wipers and headlight take energy. Usually there is some wind an Murphy's law says it will always be a headwind.

Bob Wilson

 

Since fall arrived I have gone from 52.5 lifetime mpg to 52.3 mpg. I expect that number to decrease even further. This will be my first winter with the Prius.

 

Just wait.

It is going to get ugly as the temperatures drop. It has been cold mid to high thirties and rainy all week and I lost 2 mpg on the last tank over three days.

So far in the last two days I'm having the worst time keeping the MPG's above 40 on this tank.

My problem is I only live three miles from work and all my trips are under five miles at the most.

This morning I had to turn the car off at the light at the bottom of my street. It had turned red as I got there. Being I know it takes close to four minutes to cycle through to me again I shut the car off. The engine in the summer has already preheated the engine but in the weather we have been having it is now taking at least a mile and a half to get up to temperature. The engine would have ran that whole four minutes while I waited.

That three miles to work which is <35 mpg and most of the distance is 25 mph. Throw in six lights and seven stop signs and yes it can get ugly if the engine is running most of the time. HEAT, what heat? Heat would kill my gas mileage as bad as the AC does in the summer.

 

I also noticed a visible decrease in MPG due to rain and weather conditions. Also, I am sure some type of winterized formula is now in our gasoline here in Oregon, a madated 10% Ethonal state all year long.

In fact I can actually smell the sweet odor of the ethanol when it gets pumped into the car. Also I can smell ethanol the other day when I was at Costco in the parking lot and a car went slowly by me and the exhaust smelled sweet, indicating ethanol.

So, you got the weather, wet/snow road conditions, and winterized gasoline. You can expect a 3-8 MPG drop in MPG due to these factors.

It does appear that hybrids are really effected by these conditions more so than a 25 MPG corolla.


alfon

 

Because the engine is burning fuel warming up while I'm sitting at the light. Which means zero mpg's for those few minutes waiting for the light to change.
If I'm driving at 25 mph and the engine is running at least I'm getting high thirties instead of zero mpg's with the car sitting still.

 

I might suggest you turn the heat off instead. If the ICE is running to generate heat for the cabin, it should stop on it's own. I believe by manually shutting down the ICE your starting over in stage 1 on re-start and that may hurt your mileage more than if you left it alone and let it's programming control ICE operation. YMMV of course.

 

Nah, turn the car off if you like. It is silly having the engine running when you aren't moving. Who cares if you restart in stage 1 with that sort of a commute? The G2's waste a lot of energy warming things up at times that you really don't want them to be warming things up.

When do I want the car to warm up? When I'm asking it to pull me away from a stop, climb a hill, etc. When do I definitely not want the ICE running? When I'm sitting at a light, running downhill, or gliding.

 

Wow, hands down it sounds like you have the worst case scenario for a Prius. An EV conversion sounds like your best bet. Probably not what you want to hear after spending that much money...

 

I agree with a64pilot. Turn off the heat. The ICE will shot off after it reached its 'warm up' faster if it does not have to heat. On the other hand - who cares? I remember VW Beatles in the 70s had poor heat. One could freeze in them until VW added the 'auxiliary heater'. Guess what? This gizmo also burned gas. Consider that even in a comfy Prius cabin your mileage is still better then most cars get on the road around you. Enjoy the ride!

The Prius's mileage is relatively poor on short trips. That is why an all EV range of even 30-40 miles would be nice. The 50 or so MPG on the highway is pretty decent for this size of a car. The short city drives irk me.

While the world is salivating of the future of 100+ mile range EVs and battery drop-ins etc. Toyota is missing a fantastic opportunity. They could offer a PEV upgrade - for over 1 million Prius owners! - capable of a 30-40 mile EV range for every day city driving. This is definitely doable today using existing technology. And for say $8999 less government rebates it would sell. I would buy line up at the dealership myself.

Some say hybrids are a dead end technology. I think not - at least not for awhile. Just think of a pure EV in our Northern climate during the winter months! With the (electric) heat ON - haha. I really would like to know how far could I drive that TESLA of mine before getting stuck in the snow and possible freeze to death? (Maybe they will add an auxiliary heater, running on gas, from VW.) After all we not all live in California or Florida during the winter are we?

 

Who runs the heat on commutes that short? The other poster said he wasn't running the heat, so turning off what is already off won't help...

I don't turn on the heat until the car is warmed up or in bursts to provide some defogging.

Reread what ALS wrote:

 

Either way, don't turn the car off and then have to restart the warm up cycle, allow the car's programming to run, but a short commute will achieve poor mileage. Good news is that very little fuel is burned due to the short distance.

 

Unlikely. If it isn't completing the warm up cycle while moving it is burning more fuel than if it was shut off on such a short commute. From what I've gathered the warm up is primarily for emissions, not mileage. It's not like it will lose much heat sitting there off so one is not resetting to zero again anyway. Warm up under actual acceleration is pretty quick and the most efficient way to get the car up to temp. Idling? Not so much.

 

I had a about a 40 mpg tank driven on a trip in the rain. I'm averaging a bit over 47 (actual, not computer) over 10,000 miles, even with that bad tank in the mix.