Getting TOP MPG out of Prius

First and foremost -- short trips will kill your mileage. In the first 5 minute you may be lucky to get 30-35 mpg -- that is because the engine has to run to heat up the catalytic converter. Much of this information is posted in many other threads, so you can search there as well.

Next, contrary to what the hypermileage people may say or do, you really don't want to use EV mode much. Now that you think I am crazy let me explain. Where do you think electric power comes from? It comes from burning gas to generate power or from coasting and braking. But the power you regenerate from coasting and braking came from burning gas. The point is that there are losses in going from rotational power to electricity and then to storage in the battery and then more losses in taking power out of the battery and converting it to rotation. Thus, if you can accelerate slowly and then avoid using the brakes you will get much better mileage than if you try to use the brakes to regenerate power. In the real world you will use some battery power and regenerate some, but that should not be your goal. Let the car manage that, and then after a while you will learn how to do it better by anticipating.

If you can speed up some going down a hill and then let the momentum bring you up a hill you will save even more. Learn to deadband the energy flow, or shift into neutral to glide.

Key thing is try to use a light foot. I find that by watching the instant mpg screen I get the best mpg. Anytime my instant mpg drops below 50 I think to myself is there something that I can do differently. Give that a try, hope that helps you some.

Oh, BTW you have raised your tire pressure to 42/40 PSI (F/R) haven't you? If not do that first it will help.

 

Plus 42/40 will almost double the number of miles you will get out of the tires.

 

I can strongly recommend checking your tire pressure. I didn't till my 5K check up. Once I boosted it to between 40 and 45 (my pump isn't accurate enough to fill to 42) I got immediate favorable results.

Now I have to drive like I used to to get 45MPG over a tank. If I drive like a new age Prius drive I can easily get over 50. My best tank is 53.

This brings up one of my issues. If the best tank I have EVER gotten (11K total miles) has been 53 MPG. And I did quite a bit of highway driving on that tank. How come I get better mileage on the highway instead of in town like everyone else???


Any thoughts are appreciated?

 

"Everyone else" doesn't get better mileage in town. Some do, some don't. A lot of it has to do with, well, everything. For example, the kind of in town driving you do, vs the kind of highway driving you do. How many lights/stops you make in town, how well you coast up to them, the hilliness of your highway route(s), etc, etc.

We get relatively crummy in town mileage because we do a lot of little trips during the week. We get better highway mileage because my wife drives a 200 mile highway round-trip every week.

You're not doing anything wrong. It's just that no one else drives like you on the exact same roads you do.

Karl B.

 

I do mostly highway miles I coast and glide where possible and even use the cruise control in areas where I found it can do better than me. ie: going down a long ( 1+ mile) gradual hill the cruise will glide and just pulse the motor (not the ICE) to keep me up to speed, when I try this manually it takes a very fine motor skill to depress the pedal just right and its easy for me to engage the ICE when its unnecessary.

I was getting 55 mpg hi-way then it slipped to 52.5 .. DUH.. I let my 38/36 tire pressure go down. I went up to 40/38 and the milage is up again (got 57.5 coming in today, I get slightly less going home)

I'm doing 80 miles a day hi-way (but I carpool too! )

I put a reminder on my yahoo calendar every two weeks - check tire pressure!

 

Well, I upped my tire pressures and got a rougher ride and about 5% lower gas mileage. I'm now averaging 42-43 mpg. Best tank was just short of 50mpg on a 5 hour highway trip. Admittedly, I have a 15 minute commute to the train, which, according to you all is about the least desireable thing. Also, it's uphill one way, downhill the other. I still can't get much better than 46-7 mpg or so no matter what driving style or techniques I use. I'm not that annoyed about it, until I read about people getting 60! I'll take any suggestions, though!
-John