1300 Miles (2119km) per Tank!!!

Wow, wonder how he did that..
if there is a cash prize for highest mpg, I'd rent a tow truck and drive my prius down a mountain, haul it uphill, etc; repeating this process could go on forever, dont you think..?

 

An average of 82 mpg? Sorry, I'm not buying this regardless of the photo.

 

There's a hardcore group of enthusiasts on "Prius Mania", the Japanese equivalent of Prius Chat. This guy is one of them. The "White EPV2" guy is on his second hybrid, the first being an Estima people carrier/MPV.

The guys on there have got various techniques for improving fuel consumption, one of which involves aiming for an "inbetween" undisplayed state for the power monitor. I haven't got our Prius yet, so its hard for me to understand exactly what it is. It sounds well deep, like walking on the rice paper and not leaving a mark like David Carradine in Kung Fu. Aside from accel work, this guy covers almost all of the front grill and half the engine room in winter, has extended the air intake pipe, and uses the equivalent of a block heater on the engine. It sounds like he is using a halogen room heater, a somewhat improvised solution.

The speed limit on most Japanese roads is low, so law-abiding Japanese drivers will get good mileage in many cars outside the city. The Japanese S (no VTC) model EPA is 35.5km/l, though I think this is the first time anyone has claimed to achieve it.

Some of the PriusMania people will no doubt read this, so keep it up fellas! They have some of their offline meetings in Aichi where my missus is from, so I might try and go to one of them for some "tane akashi" (revealing of secrets).

 

still impressive no matter how it was achieved. but considering polution levels in Japan, i think its a mistake to not have bladders there. i for one am satisfied with the range i get in my car

 

hmm i dont suppose an english version is available?

 

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You could try Google translator. You "might" get the gist of what's going on.

Is "in-between" where the bars are above 40 (off the display), but it's not running on pure battery?

 

If I get a moment, I'll try and write up what I can find. A lot of the Japanese discussions about fuel economy are scattered across a number of threads on different message boards belonging to members of that hardcore group of mileage freaks, but I'll see what I can find.

We got our Prius yesterday. I drove it for the first time today, and averaged 24.3km/l (57mpg US) for nearly 300km, mostly on the Japanese highway with a vertical gain of over 600m from sea level. Average speed was a shade over 90km/h on the highway and 70km/h on ordinary roads. I'm a very happy camper!

Ken can probably describe it better than me but the impression I got of the description of the "inbetween" state "White EPV2" Sensei talks about is a borderline state where the power display hasn't changed but what the car is doing has.

 

interesting about taping the grill up. most cars need an open grill to keep from overheating. but my Prius has never felt very warm. last year i drove to Montana during 100+º F heat at 70-75 mph and air set at 68º low fan and the car never got to the point where the engine compartment was giving off a lot of excess heat.

i wonder how much it would help in the winter time when my car would be cold in a very short period of time even in mild weather.

 

So 80 mpg equates to, say, 45% over the combined 55 mpg that the Prius is advertised to get. If you apply that to a 'regular' car, it is quite impressive, but at the same time if really baby any car you can comfortably exceed its EPA estimates. My minivan is rated for 25 mpg highway, but I bet if I drove at 45 mph on backroads without the A/C on, very little stopping/starting etc. I could comfortably return 35 mpg. I've seen a 30% improvement over EPA highway mileage before in the minivan...

 

ive had vehicles that i could not "comfortably" exceed the EPA no matter how i drove it

 

The "inbetween" state sounds like when the internal combusion engine( ICE) at minumum-initial power levels. On a 3rd gen Prius, this is when the ICE is running somwhere between 992 to 1088 Revolutions Per Minute (RPM) and the ICE is burning about .50 to .75 gallons of gasoline per hour (GPH) - it is a transitionary power state when switching from electrical to gas power and very difficult to maintain/hold on a 3rd generation Prius. It is called Superhighway Mode (SHM) among most hypermilier on cleanmpg.com (especially Prius owners). From what I understand, on a 2010 Prius via a ScangaugeII Xgauge, the SHM ( aka Super Atkinson Highway Mode , SAHM, among some circles ) manifests itself as TPS=18-19, IGN=20-22 (this number differs with the make and model of an Atkinson cycle gas engine based vehicle).

 

It depends on my car. I ran a full grill block on my Camry and the only time it overheated was going 75mph up the Baker grade with ~1000lbs of people/stuff in it on a 100+ degree day. YMMV, but most cooling systems seem to be somewhat over-engineered.