Depressed about gas mileage today

averaging 50+ is nothing to be depressed about

 

It means warm weather's on the way though, right?

 

No but having to read a post in all caps and bolded is though...

 

43! that is just terrible.

 

Many people could only dream about those kind of mpg's, and that's a bad day for you lol!! I've gotten worse with my C on the way to work around 41 or 42 but it always balances out later. I think you'll survive

 

Yep, lots of wind this spring, and damn if it isn't usually blowing in my car's face
If we had wind collectors I'd feel a lot happier about it.

 

Don't worry James, we can talk about it over brunch tomorrow. Maybe we should start an mpg support group haha!!

 

We had a cold snap in the North East. It was about 25F this morning. I fired up the heated seat and the gas engine ran a lot more than usual. I averaged about 44 mpg instead of the usual 52.

Still, 44 is a lot better than the 23 I used to get!

 

What's with caps/bold being depressing?
Sure makes it easier to read.

 

My heart bleeds for you. I cry when I get only 50mpg. At least the a$$ warmer is easier on the FE than the heater but 50mpg isn't much good if you can't see. The grill block is back in & the defroster's on this week. Still better than last year when we had THE snow of the season.

What I lose in the AM I usually regain in the PM commute. It's really nice when you can gain in both directions.

 

Not really.....

 

Besides the different weather conditions, it's possible that there's a net elevation change between points A and B. OP can use http://priuschat.com/forums/freds-h...elevation-profile-route-between-2-points.html to find out.

 

One way numbers don't count if there is any wind or elevation change. These one-way numbers give a round trip of 51.5 mpg, which is nothing to be depressed about.

I figure that the headwind cost you an extra 0.37 gallon per 100 miles, saving the same when it was a tailwind. Not bad compared to my Subaru, in which a very strong headwind last month, westbound on I-90, cost more than twice that much extra fuel.

 

I hope you're being sarcastic here. Many cars couldn't do half that MPG with tail wind.

 

Really! It does for me.

 

The Prius is a very tempermental car, mpg you obtain, when it comes to weather more than any other car I have owned
and I bought my first car in 1966.

A couple of years ago in the spring my wife and I took
a drive to Longview Washington which is actually an
increase in elevation in comparison to our Seaside
sea level location.

Weather was clear dry and 62 degrees. When we arrived
in Longview our computer generated mpg displayed was 62
calculated would be about 58.5 mpg.

When we were there the weather changed the temps dropped to
mid 40's with rain and wind. On the way back the mpg computer
display was 50 mpg about 46.5 calculated.

That is a 12 mpg difference just due to the weather conditions
and nothing to do with traffic etc.

 

Problem is, at the mpg values get larger, the differences get magnified due to http://priuschat.com/forums/other-c...eage-no-its-your-gallonage-really-counts.html.

If you drove 300 miles, 62 mpg vs. 50 mpg would yield a delta of 1.16 gallons (4.84 gallons used vs. 6 gallons) over 300 miles.

If the scenario was the same but the car was way less efficient (20 mpg vs. 18 mpg), the delta (15 gallons used vs. 16.67 gallons) would be 1.67 gallons over 300 miles. Would you make a big deal out of "only 2 mpg" less?

 

Philosophically, expressing it in miles per gallon implies that we buy a certain amount of fuel and get benefit from going farther with it. In SI units, their version of "gallonage" is liters per 100 km which is closer to reality (you want to know how much fuel will be necessary for a given trip).