What is your Real World Fuel Economy

I was going to respond to some of the above, but it looks like everyone else has ragged on you, so I'll back off, LOL. Suffice to say, you can always drive in a mannner that uses the gas more efficiently, regardless of the situation. And if you're perenially running late... Oh, starting to rag

 

The other ones may be true, slow acceleration and whatnot will indeed slow your commute. I would love though for you to show me how accelerating to a stop sign/light will get you to your destination any faster than coasting. As the other people posted, careful driving doesn't necessitate a slower commute (or at least by any reasonable amount). My main beef with your comment though would have to be the coasting to stop lights/signs. Ive passed many "speed up to stop sign, slam on the brake" folks by simply realizing that it is fruitless to do so (and its a hypermiling technique by the way).

 

I can say I'm happy with what I did for the first two tanks. Car is new with about 500 miles and it has been freakin cold up here for a few days, from -15F to 23F. To compare, my Jeep uses 25% more gas in these temps, and I'm not one to let it warm up for 20 minutes before operation, I just go within 3 mins., but go super slow...
-still wish the C got 50mpg instead of the 43mpg I got.

 

Here in Ottawa (Canada), we've been hitting temperatures below -15 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) pretty much all of January. Our Prius C (currently at 1,000 KM [620 miles], and with Michelin X-Ice Xi3 winter tires) is performing at 38.7 MPG. I'm hoping it gets better in the summer with all-season tires.

 

Ahhh, the fallacy that you would save 5 min on 10 min trip - maybe 1 min, or less. If you think taking twice as long on trip to save gas is what it takes, all you're doing is driving too slow and holding up traffic. You don't have to drive like you think you should (like a little old lady?) to get higher mpg's. Rushing to stop signs or lights won't get you there any faster, especially if there are other cars in front of you. You don't have coast up to it at 2 mph either. Just drive more smoothly and you'll see a difference. On my 22 mile commute to work, I always find it funny to see someone ziggin back and forth between lanes trying to get in front of another car, only to see them again when I pull up to a light a few seconds behind. I don't hold up traffic, sometimes driving a bit faster, and I still get over 50 mpg consistently.

 

Just this aft. someone caught my attention. First, he tailed me through a four way stop in a mall parking lot (as opposed to waiting his turn). Then, once I'd merged onto the right lane of a multi-lane highway, he passed me on the left, then back in front of me, and then went off on an exit lane back into the mall.

Total distance on the highway maybe 200 yards, if that. And all the time he was in front of me he used no signals.

 

48 MPG seems to be my winter number give or take as calculated by fuelly. My tires are 33 psi front 35 PSI rears and can be raised to improve mileage but I hear that puts more stress on the front end etc.

Hopefully better in the summer.

 

Just did a quick comparison of some fuel efficient vehicles on fuelly.
I drive a v and have experienced summer driving and miserably cold winter driving and my overall average is pretty well spot on the fuelly average of 5.5l/100km(43mpg). The c scores an average of 4.5(52mpg)and the liftback 4.8(49mpg).
Compare that to the average 2012 jetta diesel on fuelly at 6.2(38mpg) and a 2012 smart car at 6(39mpg)
Winter gas mileage can be discouraging i have to say but i've stopped caring now and just drive it like a car still gets equal to or better economy than the best of the best conventional gas/diesel cars on the road. I even dropped the tire pressures back to the oem specs and am enjoying the silky smooth ride at the cost of maybe 0.2l/100km on my highway commute.

 

My winter mileage took a big hit. Then yesterday I averaged 56 around town all day long then got 73 mpg on the five mile last leg home!

 

I hear you Bruce. Thursday I got 38 mpg on a 25 mile trip at 65 mph. It was about 20 - 25 degrees. Friday, I got 67 mpg on a 36 mile trip at 50 mph. Was on back roads so I just took it easy. Temperature was up to about 55 degrees. Lots of difference in my speeds but lots of difference in temps also.
Dan

 

49.9 mpg on last fill up. ECO-mode off. Normal, everyday driving. No coasting to stop lights, no driving 30 in a 45... Just driving it.

 

47.4 this last fill up,warmer here too...I put two rows of engine block on bottom, up 4.4 mpg from last fill up

 

^ This

You know something else in the "real world"? Elevation change [bless your heart if you live where the land doesn't perceptibly elevate]. To figure out why I do so much better on my drive home [55 mpg] than on my drive to work [45 mpg], I looked at the Elevation Profile in Google Earth along my route [very cool feature, BTW, if you're a geo-geek]. Turns out that I'm going over some 6000feet of elevation changes cumulatively over the whole 70 mile route, with the net change in elevation being some 450 feet.

 

Terms such as 'real world' are open to so many different interpretations that....

Here is a 'real world' tank of gas in which my Prius c was used almost exclusively as a delivery vehicle in a small city of just over 100,000 inhabitants. The speed limits are typically 30 mph, with some 45 and 70 stretches thrown in. It includes (I'm estimating) close to a thousand stops and accelerations including waiting time at lights, etc. A typical day at work includes from 15 to 25 deliveries generally from 5 to 10 miles. I don't usually shut the car off at the delivery site (this lowers the average speed recorded), but do so at the store.



I drive at or near the speed limits and don't hold anybody up so as they notice. If you want to see an example of other-worldly driving, click the link in my signature.

 

oooooh, I can't wait for summer. mmmmm mpg

 

Here's the tank after the one above:

and it's still got three pips left

 

...which is the beauty of it. Estimates are generalization based on standardized measurements, certainly nothing representative of what to expect as an owner.

Photos, like what you share, give others a taste of what's possible. And as more miles are documented, it paints a better picture of what particular driving circumstances will provide for results. After all, many of us have friends & family curious about what the other models of Prius have to offer.

 

I must drive the way the car likes. Arizona, flat AC on all the timme in summer, maybe 10% now (Jan. @ Feb),. My usaul trip is 23 miles, half at 45-55mph, and the rest at 65 mph. Not many lights, last mile at 30 mph in ev mode, rest in eco. When new, car would get low 50s mpg. At 6500 miles gets 52-58 mpg for the trip, all readings on computer readout. Not too religious on matching to fillups, but seems to match computer within 1 MPG (computer optimistic).
What I don't know is how accurat e the miles traveled reading on the computer is. If this is optimistic, so are readings.
But my fuel bills are a third of what my Explorer cost, so the "exact" mpg is not really critical to me. I am amazed at how slowly the level drops in the tank, and it is a rediculously small tank.
Finally, air on or off doesn't seem to have much effect and there is no really cold weatherwhich seems to have an impact where there is a real winter.
City driving (35-45 mph gets indicated high 50's, 57-59 mpg. First car I've ever bought that got way more than EPA predictions.
Love the car, althouigh factory tires are kind of noisy unless pavement is real smooth.

 

Interesting finding I made on my last road trip, when I drove all day and used an entire tank of gas in one trip with a warm engine, the indicated l/per 100km matched exactly my hand calculated fuel economy. It's usually off .4 liters per 100km in normal everyday commuting with cold starts thrown in the mix. No idea why this is, just an observation.

Edit: just realized I'm in the prius c forum and I have a v, oops. Not sure if any of my comments apply to the c ..

 

Check out my fuelly log for my real world MPGs. In the notes for the last few fill ups, I wrote down what the trip computer said I did and the difference in MPG between the computer and real-world numbers.

I will say this, several sections of highway here have overpasses for each exit, and in those areas, my mpg doing 50-55 mph run around 75 mpg. Pretty crazy considering this is what you can get in the city if you drive very slow or use the battery a lot, but that's the power of hills on hybrids.