Does the pedal move when you are in cruise control?

Doesn't move a bit.

I keep wondering if I'll save an expense by using the cruise control more and the pedal less. Could be the pedal is cheaper than the cruise switch, but until one (or both) breaks, I won't know...

 

Actually if you are an efficient driver you can get much better gas mileage driving the car yourself than using cruise control, especially in hilly areas. This is because with cruise control the car trys to keep a constant speed and to do so has to accelerate during the uphills and decelerate during the downhills. This is inefficient as you are working against gravity both ways.

A more effecient way to drive is to allow the car to slightly decelerate during the uphill portions, thus using less gas and not trying to accelerate when gravity is against you, and regain the speed or accelerate during downhill portions when gravity is working for you.

 

Or, you can use cruise control to your advantage on those hills - going down the hill, hit up on the cruise so that it's regen will be less and you'll pick up speed, and then when nearing the mid point where you start to climb, just tap the cruise back, about once a second, depending on how steep the hill is of course.

-m.

 

But the Prius (*my* Prius) doesn't work that way.

Downhill, it recharges without maintaining speed. I roll as fast as the hill wants to roll me, and eventually the cruise wakes back up and maintains the set speed. Slower speeds show the problem more, where 40MPH becomes 46MPH rather easily.

Uphill? Well, the MPGs slack off, but even if I double them for the short duration of the hills I do every day, there's not a lot of gas to be saved by slowing down and risking getting hit by someone not paying attention. 10 extra MPG over 1/4 mile is *not* a lot of gas, and can easily be lost mis-managing the manual operation of the gas pedal.

Of course, YMMV...

 

Except that the Prius is a hybrid: It evens out the load by charging the battery as gravity pulls the car downhill and using that electricity to maintain speed going up the hill. It's similar to the reason the Prius suffers so little from stop-and-go city driving. Cool car!

Using the fast-down, slow-up method you are either exceeding the speed limit on the downhills or creating a slow-speed road hazzard on the uphills.