Highway mileage, NYC to DC

Hey all, I've been away from PriusChat for a bit since my summer job took up my time the last few months, but I just finished and have been doing some longer trips. I just did NYC to DC this morning...

There were some huge traffic jams, of course, and some torrential rains near Baltimore, but for most of the time when things were moving, I used 50 mph as a floor and stayed between 50 and 60 mph. That yielded 66.8 mpg on the Prius MFD for the 240 miles.

On long, slight uphills and long, slight downhills, I used as little gas as possible to keep the car going (basically SHM).

On anything with a steeper slope and corresponding downside, I would hold speed up slope or accelerate slightly, usually hold over the crest to get a bit more acceleration, then warp stealth down the backside.

That was it! I was thrilled to finally get a good long pure highway drive. Hope everyone's having a good summer!

 

Yeah, I was in the right lane, but with dense traffic most of the time, so I was getting passed, but not necessarily by much, was with the flow.

 

Bonnes questions!

I actually keep forgetting to put in air, it's been a couple months since I've checked pressure, but was 42/40 psi back then. A/C was on low, 76 or 77°F the whole time, which was very comfortable for me. I'd only turn it off and open windows during traffic jams or anytime under 42 mph.

I've got the old 2007, so no ECO mode available.

I still have about 1600 miles more to drive this summer, I might try upping the range to 55-65 mph to see, I know it worked better for Hobbit going a bit faster. Plus I'll get there faster

I had gotten 59.8 mpg on the MFD (so close!) the previous day from Rhode Island to NYC for those 185 miles. It was nighttime, I had another passenger so wasn't very focused on the precision of the gas pedal. Not sure if just the terrain made that big a difference or what. In any case I'm looking forward to the rest of the legs, hypermiling really makes long trips bearable, it's something fun to pass the time!

 

OK, I'm in Nashville, so here's a mileage summary of the trip, MFD numbers only:

RI to NYC: 59.8 mpg, 185 miles
NYC to DC: 66.8 mpg, 240 miles
DC to Knoxville: 57.0 mpg, 488 miles (long day!)
Knoxville to Nashville, 61.8 mpg, 182 miles

DC to Knoxville was just atrocious from a hypermiling perspective, since it was pedal to the metal all the way throughout Virginia on route 81 for every single hill (read: mountain). I was going faster overall, but it was really the terrain that killed it.

Knoxville to Nashville was also quite mountainous in the middle, but besides the one giant mountain, Tennessee is apparently well made for the warp stealth highway methods. I was going relatively fast most of the time, too, with max speed over 80 mph, and most of the time between 60 and 70 mph. I was actually passing other vehicles, it's been months! The last hour I really wanted to try to up the mileage, so I changed to 55 mph as the floor speed.

So far that makes 1,095 miles travelled at 60.2 mpg MFD average, cost of about $63 in gas!

Thinking of cutting up north to drive back next week. If the Prius can get about 60 mpg in the mountains, I'm really curious to see what it does in the plains...

 

No, it's just a boring collection of numbers from Rhode Island. Any PriusChat member who snaps a picture of me driving the way back gets a drink on me

Mendel,

Yes, I know of the overstatement of the MFD (you'll notice how careful I was to say MFD for the astute PriusChatters like yourself ). My gas fill-ups on this trip seem to be averaging right around 58 mpg, so that all fits so far. I'm expecting the way back to be a little better without Virginia in there, but who knows!

 

OK guys, here's the end of the info for the thread. Finished off with 59.4 mpg officially by gas pump numbers, but I suspect as low as 58.4 mpg for 2,539.8 miles travelled. This was no hypermiling picnic, so much of the driving seemed annoyingly mountainous (I mean, pretty to see, but not good from the mpg standpoint!). The car itself still hugely impresses me for its capacity for these sorts of numbers...is there another car in production today capable of that efficiency over the same route?

Very much looking forward to getting back to real, non-highway hypermiling

Mike with a Prius: The results are in...