Getting 30ish MPG. Help?

With no shred of data, nobody on here can help you achieve great mileage. But fear not, this is a very common question and as such has a common reply. Answer these questions and post the results back here: Fuel economy complaints/queries? Please copy, paste & answer these questions, esp. if you're new | PriusChat

And you need to clarify what car you actually have. If you are in LA, CA, USA, are you sure you have a 2010 plug-in prius? They only made 125 of them available to the United States. These were pre-production prototypes made available as beta tests. The actual production version did not start until MY 2012, in calendar year 2011. Do you have a plug around here:



And if it is a plugin, you must actually plug it in to gain the added MPGs or full EV mode benefits. Otherwise it is just a normal GenIII Prius and will net ~50 mpgs in average driving.

Can a 2010 pre-production achieve 65mpg? Of course. If you drive less than 17miles and it is fully charged you will net infinite mileage since the engine will never turn on. If you drive 70-80 miles the average comes out to about 65mpg.

 

It seems unlikely you could be driving that badly, rural postmen get about your mileage, they accelerate from mailbox to mailbox and never cruise.

Fuel economy complaints/queries? Please copy, paste & answer these questions, esp. if you're new | PriusChat

Make sure your tires are inflated, (I use 38 PSI front/36 rear) make sure you oil is not over filled, and answer as many of these questions as you know.

 

Todd, I am having a similar problem as you. I just purchased my 2011 Prius and am only seeing around 35mpg, I think I have topped out somewhere around 38.

I do drive my Prius hard sometimes, it is surprisingly quicker than people give it credit for. Might look at some power mods in the future.

Tire pressure seems to be good all around, everything runs great, not sure where to go from here.

 

I think you might have answered your own question about mpg's. Driving hard sometimes - what does that mean? And what is your regular driving style like?

 

Answer the questionnaire.

I drive my Prius like I stole it and run big sticky winter tires in the winter and sticky race tires in the summer. Lifetime average is close to 48mpg, and this past year it has been around 51mpg. There are lots of factors, and little bits of info from lots of posters may be immediate gratification with anecdotes and suggestions, but until you take the time to fill out everything, nobody can make a fully educated guess and/or offer a solution if one exists to raise your MPGs.

 

While 30 mpg seems a bit low, you have to remember that the Prius' fuel economy is the best with gentle acceleration as with any car. Personally I like to crawl from stoplights, coast into them and generally travel at 5 to 10 below the limit. Using this method I've gotten as high as 66 mpg! Yes other drivers may get ticked but what's more important, Joe Schmo getting his coffee first at work or our ozone layer? Sometimes when I'm hypermiling I like to think of the line of cars behind me as mother earths health bar, the longer it is the happier she is. Happy travels!

-Stan

 

So far as I know, you can supercharge it, turbocharge it, or swap the engine for an Otto cycle version. I would not bother with other 'power' mods.

AutoSpeed - Technokill: Building a Blown Hybrid, Part 1
AutoSpeed - The Story of Turbo'ing a Hybrid Prius, Part 1
Got Hybrid? - Sport - Car and Driver

(mind you, since neither of you can figure out how to answer our questionnaire, you may prefer a chrome intake and a fart pipe)

 

False.

"Gentle" acceleration in the Prius means mostly EV power which is expensive in the end. The initial improvement is large, but then when you need to recharge the pack you pay for the conversion losses.

Around here you would be shot by the redneck in the pickup truck. Even if they are going to be sitting at the red light ahead, they want to get there NOW!

Hypermilling in the Prius should only be done when no long lines will be formed. When I do it I make sure I am the first off the line and up to speed + 5 quickly. Then coast and maintain speed with little energy, coasting to stop lights. In stop and go rush hour traffic, I average 50-55mpg this way on my sticky tires. When I am driving at 2-3 in the morning with no one on the road, I can keep a more stable speed with little or no braking and average in the 60's again with my sticky winter tires.

 

Welcome aboard Todd! What a blessing. I am sure once our experts get the information from the questionnaire that was linked above, they will be able to figure out what is going on and how you can get that number up closer to the EPA rating.

 

Bigot. Instead of modifying the original text, just exclude it.

 

Perhaps instead of trolling you could provide actual useful advice. As far as I know, the Prius has no port for god power, just petrol.

 

Partially wrong there, God doesn't need a port.

Areas to look at:
Tire pressure - 38 to 40 psi is a good range.
Spreed - if you are going over 62mph, don't expect 50 + mpg
Environment - Temperature and topology can adversely effect fuel economy.
Age/quality of the 12v battery - Have the health check by shop of voltmeter.

 

Unless you are suggesting that a fairy in the sky is angry at this particular motor vehicle and punishing its fuel economy resulting in the problem, this whole thing is ridiculous. Although the CHAdeMO port in my Leaf does look like it might channel a deity if given the opportunity. It is a beast and just the right size for one of the Flying Spaghetti Monster's noodley tentacles.

OP: answer the questionnaire. Anything else is nonsense until we have hard details. For instance everything could be great but you only take 1/4 mile trips everywhere. There are way too many variables and anyone giving out random general advice are taking wild guesses.

 

Aha! Ok, more questions. Is your TPMS sensor light on? At 20PSI, it should be illuminated. If it is not, that means some bumbling idiot before reset the TPMS sensor at too low of a pressure.

The proper way to set the TPMS sensor is to overinflate your tires, reset the TPMS with the button, then deflate to where you want. Toyota does not publish (as far as I know) the percent delta between the pressure during a reset and the pressure to cause the warning light when low. It is guesstimated to be about 20% to 25%. The problem is that the tires are set at the factory to about 32PSI which means it will not alert you to a low pressure until about 24PSI which is completely useless and unsafe. Worse yet, that button is so easy to hit and there is no protection on it. If your tires were already slightly deflated to 28PSI and you swiped the button cleaning the area, now they are set to 21PSI!
Since most of us run the tires in the mid to high 40's PSI, the warning light if not calibrated becomes useless. Most people don't even know it is there, let alone how to program it or what the programming does. It gets 1 page out of all the manual and it is very vague. The details have to be gathered by reading technical information sprinkled about the interwebs...
If you are going to run your tires at 45PSI, and want the warning light at say 38PSI, then you actually have to fill your tires up to 51PSI, reset the TPMS system, then deflate the tires back down to 45PSI.

Note that the TPMS sensor will also go off if you set any tire pressure above 500 kPa (73PSI) irregardless of what the low-level is set to.

I would suggest filling into the mid-40's but doing as I suggest and overfilling, resetting your TPMS light, and then uninflating a bit.

You can do whatever you wish and post whatever you wish in your posts. Just as all the rest of the free members of the site can post what they wish. Treb and I have some beef from heated FHOP debates and will never see eye to eye on the subject. This last bit does sound like Treb's expertise though.

20 and 22 PSI is flat out dangerous. Especially at those high speeds. If you are doing high speed driving, you should check tires, fluids, and body panels regularly. A blowout at 80mph is not going to be fun.

And 80mph is above the speed limit in almost all parts of the US, so you should slow down. However having said that, I drive the Prius routinely in the 90mph to 105mph range with no issues back and forth between the capitol city and the middle of nowhere where I live.

 

After fixing your tire pressures, you can estimate your fuel economy thanks to our local graph guru, Bob Wilson:



At 80mph in a ZVW30, 40mpg is what you can expect for sustained drives in 82-86F weather and new standard inflation tires. At 40+ PSI, I would expect closer to 42-45 mpg. With the PiP (if you actually have that) these numbers are for after the EV portion runs out. You never answered if you truly have a 2010 PiP or not...