How are these people on Fuelly getting such bad MPG's???

By the way, I saw a white Prius on the freeway today. It looks very good from the side, but from the back or from the front, it looks—meh. I am also not a big fan of the color white, even though it has the highest visibility (lowest visibility in snow though) and least heat absorption. I am on the waiting list for a black SE, but I am still having second thoughts.

 

Seemed to be fine up to at least 95+.

(It's sugar beet season up here, so tons of trucks on the 2-lane roads. I ended up at the back of a slow convoy of a fuel semi, two beet semis, and a car or two. Normally I wouldn't mind as I typically drive 5-10 mph under the speed limit, but that day was the exception as I was trying to get to a couple places that closed at 5pm. There weren't any good gaps in the convoy, so I put the pedal to the floor and passed them all at one go. I looked down as I was passing the last truck and could ease off the gas, and I was doing 94mph. Probably hit 97-98 before I took my foot off. Didn't notice any shimmy. )

 

While not entirely typical (though the 57 isn't real far from average so far), these were 2 recent trips - one about 40 miles (57.7), one about 10 miles (83.8, through a residential area, so lots of EV mode). This is an LE AWD. Blows my mind...

 

Nice data @Gokhan! Being in Colorado, altitude changes meant getting nice big blocks of consistent data is hard. One trip I did fine tune over the years in my Gen1 was that for a round trip between Denver and Colorado Springs I could net 50MPG if I kept it around 68MPH. Even going up to 70 meant never hitting that number. The speed limit on most of that interstate is 75, so 68 was as low as I felt OK pushing things and generally got to settle in behind a truck or something. If traffic was heavy enough that folk couldn't easily pass me (rare, but did happen) then then I sped up.

On my Gen1's "final mission" this spring we went to Alaska to the Arctic Circle and back. It was a blast of a trip and on roads not intended for city cars in general and certainly not a 20-year-old Prius! North of Calgary there aren't any roads with a speed limit above 55, so even on a lot of dirt roads I still reliably netted over 50MPG tank after tank.

will

 

@Hammersmith You have gone faster than me by just a bit. I have a "test hill" for my cars. For Colorado folk who know, it is I-25 over Monument Hill between Denver and Colorado Springs. It is still in the plains, but northbound a nice incline that I'm guessing is 3-4% for a bit over a mile. My test is to be at 65MPH at the bottom of the hill and floor it to see how fast I can be going at the top. Speeds ranged from 60MPH for my 1987 Dodge Colt, low 70s for my 82 Tercel and Gen1 Prius (with battery full), to high 80s for my wife's Sienna. I was looking forward to seeing what the PPPXP would do! Well, I don't know because I chickened out at 92 less than a quarter way up the hill!!

Of course stories like these get my son to roll his eyes as he cruises around in his Mustang GT.

will

 

the thing about eye rollers is they are almost never the "fastest gun in the west" - out of the 100s of potentials. Over 1½ dozen cars come to mind that are quicker than gt mustangs - stock or not. So your son will obviously realize eventually that others roll eyes at gt's

my Porsche was fast - but many
could eye roll the Porsche
.

 

deleted

 

I'm also getting 40mpg-42mpg on XLE/AWD Fuelly. This is the combined MPG with a mixed city and highway.

 

So many people disbelieve my own 17 Prime mpg numbers, that I hesitate to call BS on anyone else, but I'm almost there with your numbers, especially 80mpg at 50mph in the real world, sustained, average.

I'd love to see a video of you sustaining ANY ONE of those numbers over the course of 10 gallons burned, or even 5 gallons burned, with no plugging in, no change in state of charge, and filling exactly the same way at the same pump (guaranteeing starting and ending at the same elevation).

Also, if the temperature is significantly above the US Standard Atmosphere (59F = 15C) that is called cheating. Likewise if you draft any other vehicles.
I'd also like to see the result on the trip meter as well as actual gas purchase calculation.
And actual distance and speed per GPS track log, not just odometer and speedometer.
Tire size and tire pressures documented, and GPS results.
Exact gasoline used.
Etc.

Maybe your odometer/speedometer calibration is off due to tires being almost out of tread.
Maybe that Southern CA weather creates more bias than I suspect.
Maybe your gasoline contains less ethanol on average than mine does.
Maybe your tires have lower rolling resistance than mine.
I run 50psi in Michelin Xi3 snows, year round.
I was shocked the mpg is barely different from Ecopias.
Maybe all of the above.

But I'd like to see you show those results in a documented and repeatable way, because they are on the absolute fringe of what I can achieve, meaning only with a perpetual tailwind, or at altitude, or in hot weather. Especially the 80mpg at 50mph, where getting 70-72mpg is doing really great I usually need to be down around 40mph to get 80mpg in real-world conditions, and even that has to be in favorable weather, pretty warm but not hot enough to need to run AC.

I've never attempted to figure out mpg at 25mph, because with the fixed 350W draw of the computer, going super slow starts making that overhead matter, and the car can do 40mph barely above idle throttle anyway, taking 2 hours to burn a gallon.

 

@OptimalPrime: Grab some popcorn, I'm going deep and will undoubtedly get backlash but this thread has touched a nerve that I've resisted responding to until now. Your post gives me an opening to express my thoughts.

I'm also in the mid 40's and I can understand your frustration - I think gokhan and preebee are both extreme hypermilers who know how to feather the vehicle for maximum mpg, but they aren't "real world" drivers. Even though I see and believe the numbers, part of my brain also thinks they must be making things up. But I know they aren't and doubt they are intentionally 'cheating' - they just drive different than we do. I don't fault them for it or dislike them for that quality and talent they have. But there are so many factors that go into driving it's nearly impossible for two people to drive the same way unless they live in the same city and drive the same roads at the same times. Even then, it would be hard to duplicate mpg since driving styles are different.

I'm going to call out Preebee since they started this thread by showcasing low-milers off Fuelly. They've had the car since May and barely have 3k miles on it over that 5 months. I've got almost 5k in 3 months. So they don't drive near as much as I do - probably work from home or are retired, probably park in a garage, and admit to only driving residential and avoiding highways completely. Based on screenshots of the dash mpg in this thread, the average time driving is around 15 mins and never exceed a speed of 30 mph - average is roughly 27 mph. All those things are very different from my life - I must drive on a highway to get to work with an average speed of 45 mph for 20 mins of driving. There are 2 drivers on my car with different driving styles. All shopping is done less than a mile from home. The other driver is runs the AC at 65 for health reasons. I have no choice but to park in a lot without any shade, so the car bakes while I'm at work. I don't have a garage or shade at home either, so it's always in the sun. Running the AC so much during Florida summers kills the mpg average. Even though I can tolerate 72ish, it still takes half the drive home to cool the car. I doubt there are many who live in hot zones that can tolerate the 75 temp you run. You claim that it's 'hot' in Kansas and you get up into the 90's - but that's not the same as FL heat where 90 plus humidity = 100 "feels like". Whatever your temp is, add 10 to that for the humidity here.

Sure, I'd love to have high mpg numbers like the two of you. But I can't resist the power and put it into Sport mode way too often - I intentionally ignore the mpg and just ENJOY the driving. I haven't had power like this since my stick shift in the 90's - it's refreshing.

There's nothing wrong with that.

There's only 29 Gen 5 prius being logged on Fuelly - that's a very low sample size and not representative of the thousands of vehicles sold. There has to be low milers and high milers like "Blizzz" for the bell curve to average out in the middle. You don't know they're situation at all - how far are they driving and what kind of roads? What's the weather like? Do they have children or elderly that require more AC? What kind of driver are they and do they care about hypermiling? You already have a forum where you can brag - why did you feel it was necessary to start a new thread to specifically call out drivers who probably aren't even on this forum? At least have the decency to scrub their names in case they are members.

You two can crow and preen about your mpg all you want - that's part of why these forums exist at all. We are all proud of our cars and enjoy the echo chamber here. But to drag outsiders into it just to make yourself look/feel better is rude. There's nothing wrong with mpg in the 40's - that's still better than 90% of the other hybrids out there. I honestly think me and preebee agree on most points brought up in this forum and they normally present things in a balanced way similar to how I would. I hope no ones opinion of me is so tarnished that you outright disagree with everything I say in the future out of spite. I just couldn't let this go and had to say something.
#low_milers_unite

 

Scrolling through the full thread, so far only one (other) contributor (@HacksawMark, with a Plug-In Prime) has a Fuelly badge. Maybe some are tracking but no badge?

Anyway, a few more Fuelly badges, by non-prime owners, would maybe clear the fog.

BTW, if you’re viewing on a phone turn it landscape to show badges.

 

this is mine

 

Mine translates to 48 mpg US, btw. To do the conversion, in either direction, divide 235.2 by either value.

 

https://www.cleanmpg.com//community/index.php?threads/49683/page-13#post-423255

The speed is by Garmin, and the mpg from a calibrated Scangauge. Temps in the 60F to 63F range.

 

I have @ 500 miles on a LE AWD. It's a mix of 2 lane highway / small amount of city and about 250 miles interstate driving so far. Overall computer mpg 57.x mpg. I'm guessing the miles per gallon will go down with the interstate trips, but the trip I took was slower than normal due to heavy rain. For the record the dealer has the tire set at 36/7 inconsistent with front rear on placard.

 

For the Prime, it seems awful iffy on being able to report MPGs given that the battery can supplement gas at any time. I just started my first serious road trip a few days ago and for the four tanks of gas got 47.x MPGs for three and 50.1 for the last. Between the car using the battery without asking even in HV mode and a few times forgetting to reset back to HV after stopping I did end up draining the battery along the way. For the first half of the first tank it was only about 42MPG, but given we started the trip at 10F and those first 4-ish hours if driving varied between 7F and 14F, kinda makes sense. The last tank was between Nashville and Atlanta where things were quite a bit warmer the entire tank. LOTS OF VARIABLES!

 

LE AWD 168.8 miles 3:40 drive time 59.6 mpg per onboard computer. NYC to Northern MA on the highway. I'm still at half a tank 240 miles to go per estimate. I'll have to get the full up mpg to test the accuracy. 590 total miles on car...

 

How?
Easy. Live in an icy cold sub 0°f winter state? Couple that with mostly all short trips. Some Prius owners can only get 23MPG, no problem.
.