3200mi Road Trip Report

For those of you who don’t feel like reading my adventure, here is a quick mpg summary:
Calculated MPG average over 3200 miles was 45mpg. Lowest: 37mpg, Highest: 51mpg.
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I like to read how vehicles do out in the real world and on long road trips and figured I’ll share my results. I Just completed a 3200mi round trip from Los Angeles to Dallas, TX in 4 days in my Prius Plugin Adv.

Before leaving, I reset my TPMS to 45lbs and dropped my tires back to 41lbs. I figured by doing that, the low pressure indicator should come on at around 37lbs.

Navigation:
I plotted my route on Google first then keyed in the destinations into the Nav. The nav route suggestions was not the route I wanted so I had to enter a waypoint in the map in order to make it take the route I wanted. I had to do the same thing coming back home. It was interesting that coming back from Dallas, the nav wanted to take I35 to I40 through Oklahoma City which was about 100 miles out of my way, instead of just taking route 287 to I40. I don’t understand why it did that unless it’s programmed to stay on Interstates over Routes no matter how far out of the way it takes you. I can’t say that speed was the cause because the speed limit on the routes was 75 mph. So I had to enter a waypoint at Wichita Falls, TX to force it to take the route I wanted. Other than that issue, the nav wasn’t to bad.

I changed all three speed settings in the nav so that it would be more accurate in calculating the remaining/arrival times. I believe I maxed out all three and that actually made the times alot more accurate. Before the adjustment, it calculated the arrival time to 6hrs when it really took 4hrs. After adjustment, it calculated the arrival time in 4:15hrs when it really took 4hrs. So not bad!

Radio:
Listened to XM most of the time since cell phone reception was poor to none along the route. So that ruled out using Pandora and IheartRadio on Entunes. Picked up a few local stations here and there.

Comfort:
No complaints in this area. Sitting in the seats for 6hrs-9hrs straight wasn’t to bad. The only time I stopped was to refuel and defuel (if you know what I mean). Nice to be able to adjust the seats to different positions at different times as I got tired of one position. Lumbar support was maxed out and seemed pretty good. Road noise was annoying at times especially over certain roads. DRCC performed excellent! Just wish I had the LKA. If I’m not mistaken, it would have assisted in keeping me centered in the lanes and would have helped for those strong crosswinds. Still don’t know why they removed that feature unless there was a problem with it.

Led Headlights:
Driving at night on very dark routes, I noticed the led lights only covered a very short distance in front of me. I felt uncomfortable traveling at speed and not being able to see much without flipping on the high beam and blinding oncoming traffic. So I adjusted my led lights up about an inch and that made a big difference.

MPG:
I’m sure this is what people really want to know. Calculated MPG average over 3200 miles was 45mpg. I filled up 10 times for this trip and was not able to charge since I left home. I had planned to save my EV miles for emergency use but that didn’t work since the car defaults to EV mode when you turn it on and the second driver didn’t know to turn it off & used it up quickly. Ofcouse over such huge distances, the EV miles wouldn't have done anything for me anyway, so I never even bothered to try to find any charging stations. Here is a quick break down of my calculated MPG’s:

To Dallas: 46.51(387mi), 47.92(369mi), 49.08(398mi), 48.07(399mi)
Local: 51.22(210mi)
From Dallas: 37.05(299), 39.53(234), 39.54(259), 45.12(282), 46.81(315)

Each one was about 2-3mpg less than the displayed mpg. On a good segment, I got close to 400 miles per tank with the last pip (if that’s what those fuel bars are called) flashing. When I checked my dashboard in Entunes, I got second place (2/100) with my high 30’s mpg.

The route to Dallas, I took I10 through Roswell. Temps were in the 50’s-60’s. I set my DRCC at about 5-7 over the limit which put me at about 80 most of the way. I didn’t think I did to bad on my way to Dallas with the MPG’s at that speed. But coming home was another story.

The route from Dallas, I took I40 with a strong headwind which is probably why I had such poor mpg numbers. I set my DRCC to the speed limit which put me at about 75 mph. As I got about 100 miles East of Albuquerque, I ran into a winter storm. I watched as my temp fell from the 60’s in Dallas down to a low of -5 degrees. The nav warned me “Stop & Go Traffic in 20 miles”. I figured it was just slow due to the weather and so I continued on. As I got to the traffic area, that’s when the temps were at -5 degrees and the roads were completely iced over. I didn’t realized how bad the roads were, till I got out of the car to see why the traffic stopped, and couldn’t even stand up without holding on to the car. As the traffic slowly creeped forward, I passed a couple big rigs in the ditch along with several cars that slid off the roadway. One truck on the roadway was was just spinning his wheels and not going anywhere. I was very impressed with the traction control system in the Prius as it performed very well in those conditions and even better than my 4wd Jeep Grand Cherokee. The car kept its heading and tracked forward on the iced covered roadways with little problems.

We got a few miles up the road till no one was moving. Traffic came to a halt. Being blocked in by trucks and unable to go around them, we were stuck. I kinda wish I had my Grand Cherokee at that point because I would have crossed the 3ft deep, snow covered grass median and went back the other way! We didn’t move and was stuck there for atleast 6hrs in -5 temps. Having a passenger that was worried sick about the situation & no cell phone reception, I used the SOS button to see if they would give me information. The nice lady located me and told me that the road was closed due to weather and multiple accidents. I had a half a tank of gas and lost only 1 fuel bar and about 3mpg from the avg displayed in the 6 hours of just sitting there. The car cycled itself on for about 45secs for every 2 minutes of being off. This is where my emergency EV miles would have came in handy if I had any left. Both seat heaters were set to high and was pretty comfortable. I’m sure if I was in a regular car, I would have used more fuel than that in those temps with the heater on 80. This was on the 39.54mpg avg tank.

As the traffic finally started moving 6hrs later, my low tire pressure light came on. I’m thinking to myself that I ran over a sharp piece of ice and punctured a tire. I pulled over to check the tires and slipped on the ice covered roadway (!@#$@#$). All looked well, I checked it with my gauge and they were all at 39.5. So I was relieved. I guess resetting my TPMS at 45 allowed me 5lbs of pressure loss before triggering the low pressure light. (Good to know!)

Made it through the storm and got to Albuquerque where the temps were in the teens. I had initially planned to stay at a hotel in Flagstaff, but that 6hr delay killed that plan and I needed to get back by a certain time. So I pulled over at a rest stop and slept in the car for about 3 hours and didn’t loose any fuel bars this time. This is still part of the 39.54mpg avg tank. When I did finally turn off the car, if I remember correctly, I believe the summary screen showed almost 10hrs with an avg of 42mpg.

Made it the rest of the way back home without anymore incidents. So to sum it up:
Traction Control performed amazingly well for those icy conditions
Car was able to tackle 7000ft inclines at 80 mph without any problems although mpg took a hit
TPMS allows 5lbs of pressure loss before triggering.
Adjusted led headlights for better coverage at night.

I also learned that I can build and save my EV miles by toggling the EV/HV button. Everytime I brake and gained EV miles, I toggled the button to save it. If I didn’t toggle the button, then whatever I gained, would have been used again down to the last saved setting. So by doing that, I was able to build up almost 10 EV miles by just driving normally and toggling the button. Wish I would have known that before getting stuck in the storm.

 

Regen stacking sounds like a good name for it. Although I never regenerated enough EV miles for the EV light to automatically come on, I was able to stack miles as little as .02 to .05 miles here and there. So little by little added up by doing the toggle.

 

One of the longest post I've ever written. I hope that I didn't waste my time writting it and hope that some people may find it useful.

 

I'm on a GSM network and Verizon is CDMA. So I have both networks covered.

 

For me, its benefit would have helped during my long idle time.

 

Yes, but it would have stayed off alot longer instead of cycling every 2min.

 

That seems pretty good and better than what I achieved.