Bought Prius Last Week and Getting 60 mpg Already!

I just bought a 2009 Prius last week and today I drove it for about 25+25 = 50 min (went to pickup son from school - 25 min one way) in the city. This was the first time longest drive on Prius. I have been doing quite a bit of reading on driving tips to raise mpg, and have been watching the "Current Mpg" on MFD constantly, and I am proud to say that when I got back home the MFD was displaying an average of exactly 60.0 mpg.

This is exactly what I bought it for. I have been using Lincoln Aviator (V8 engine) for this purpose (leaving and picking up from school) and it has been giving me max 13 mpg. This is a saving of about $125 in gas every month or $1500 per year. Its like having a car that makes you money

And oh yes, saving the environment too

Loving it!

 

Yes, I have the advantage of having totally flat land here.

 

Yes, the temperatures have been pretty cold here as well (almost freezing) last week, but yesterday it was in 70s. Don't have any reliable data as to the mpg's during cold weather for comparison.

 

Congrats on your new car! Mine is a little used. It already has 5000 miles on it. So it probably has gone through the break in period. May be yours need to break in. Others who have owned new cars can comment better, but 38 seems a little low.

I am assuming that your trips are longer than 15 min or else you won't get very high mpg's. In that case I get about 43 mpg. Of course the cold weather also affects and if the car is starting from overnight parking, and if the weather is cold, it takes even longer to warm up and charge the battery enough to use more of the electric motor and less of the ICE.

The best thing that works for me is accelerating quick to almost 5 mph more than where I need to be and then release the gas padel (very important to disengage ICE - does not quite work very well in the first 5 min though, but works great after that) and wait a couple of seconds until the display shows no arrows or the arrows going from the wheels to motor, then press the gas pedal a little bit until it shows the electric motor being used only (yellow arrows going from electric motor to the wheels). Unfortunately I have noticed that if the speed is greater than 38 mph, with this method you cannot maintain the speed, and the speed will continue to fall down, which is ok since you are already 5 mph above where you were supposed to be. Once you fall 5 mph below where you need to be, press the gas again and quickly get back to 5mph above and repeat. If your speed limits are below 38 mph then the electric motor alone can maintain the speed and you can continue to run on electric motor until you have to stop. On top of it anticipating stops like red lights way earlier and then gliding (no arrows or arrows going from wheels to electric motor) also helps.

Other thing I can think of is the tire pressure. And wheel alignment is another factor which probably is not your concern since it is a new car.

Hope this helps. Keeps us posted.

 

There you go!

A/C on but set to 75 F (probably not kicking in).

 

I know. It is not easy to maintain it because a lots of my trips are smaller trips (under 7 to 8 min) and on top of it, my wife also drives it . But I think for the whole tank it will be somewhere around low 50's hopefully. Right now I have been resetting quite a bit since I am excited and experimenting with it. Hopefully in a week or so, I will be more settled down and will leave the reset button alone. I will see then how it goes.