Gen III Prius, 51 city mpg, Myth or Fact ?

I agree with you on getting better mpg on the Prius in city driving ,compared to the average car, but wasn't that the reason we bought it, it should give us 4 times as much. I also agree with you that what I ask in City MPG should reflect more of a city environment instead on how they test. Then again most tests are not done by the EPA, up to 85% of them, they are done by the Automobile companies ! Here is some links on EPA MPG, testing , performance and the general public perception of their tests.

The Truth About EPA City / Highway MPG Estimates - Feature - Auto Reviews - Car and Driver

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EPA Fuel Economy Ratings Have Shortfalls Of Up To 50 Percent

As far as city driving to highway driving, seems that you can't tell the difference(Traffic lights,double parked cars, parked cars ,yielding to pedestrians ,car lanes , period of full stop , speed limits ,buses that impede your movement, school zones , stop signs ,turning at lower speeds ,cars looking to park , traffic light congestion ,Taxis & car service abruptly stopping in traffic, kids playing in the street, cars pulling out of driveways).

In your own drive, you stopped 4 times to "0" mileage, for 10 -30 second durations in your first 10 minutes, count how many times you needed to do that on the Gowanus and the BQE, I didn't count any for that long of a wait, in your longer period of driving. Either you drove continuously or you can creep and crawl in EV for bumper to bumper traffic and not need to speed beyond 10-15 mph, which gives you 100 mpg.

Please don't compare highway to city driving. The title to the thread says "51 City MPG, myth or fact" ? To have drivers post real city MPG, higher or lower, w/o bias and w/o tainted results(If you need type B blood, A and B would not suffice).

 

I concur and you do get great MPG, but some cities have more of that then others.

 

So you're comparing anything in Utah to the NYC area, whats your point ? Been in your neck of the woods, Salt Lake is hardly considered a town in Buffalo and Buffalo is no metropolis in NY. Do you have a traffic light , every 300 feet ? Cousin Johnny's house is 2 traffic lights away in 15 miles of driving, you will hit an average of 40-50 mph in your neighborhood. Drive 15 miles strictly city here, you'll sit at 20 lights . No amount of gliding is gonna help you if you need to wait between 30- 60 sec for each light . Part of living in an urban area , is having everything nearby , 1 -5 miles away,which means short duration driving , w/o a block heater. Traveling 2 miles may take 10 minutes here and it means looking for a parking spot. I would assume under the same circumstances it would take 2 minutes for you and you would pull into a strip mall for easy parking or enter your buddy's driveway. But I know this is not the same circumstance and you have to travel longer distances from your house, with allot easier traffic flow, where you can time that traffic light 3/4 mile away.

If you read my previous posts, I have the technique...If I need to really go a distance, I don't kill time driving in the city , I hop on the highway and get excellent MPG and even allot better then the 48 MPG stated if I hit some highway traffic.

 

Very educational, does your village have only 1 light ?

Come visit NYC(Brooklyn,Queens,Mahnhattan and the Bronx) sometime and do a video . There is no such thing as open driving like that here. You would get a ticket at the speed limit you're driving at.
You panned several times from your window, only once can you see a traffic light .If you pan here , you will see a row of them .To the left and to the right too and the lights are not sequenced most of the time . We also have buildings here, not open grasslands, with allot more traffic.

Whats funny, is at 4.8 miles of driving, your trip meter said 34.7 MPG, you having some MPG problems(I know your car is still warming up) ? At 4.8 miles here, we stopped by grandma to say hello , picked up groceries and dropped off the kids at their friend's house , with equivalent horrible MPG.Also 4.8 miles here means your 5 neighborhoods over.

The open stretches you have is comparable to our highways, which are never as empty here as your example.

I do understand that is what you call "CITY"(Your city environment doesn't come to mind, if someone says "CITY" to me) and by definition on what most of the people here get their results on.

All in the same, at the end of the day we'll average all the city driving MPG .

Thanks for your post !

 

I was saying that to myself in hindsight , but I will be doing allot of highway driving soon too. This month was a local stretch and parking In NYC cost $$$, that's why most of us take trains too.

 

Hehe, you keep comparing highway to city. What I meant , since this was a City MPG thread , let him do a video strictly in our city environment, here, w/o getting on the highway(Not,like you did ). If you saw his video, his video is nothing like yours(The first 10 minutes of your drive),his had no traffic lights in sight and plenty of grassland with no buildings(Open space driving), quite impossible to get horrible MPG .

 

Hmmm, why are you people difficult ?...Does it say somewhere that you need to travel in the city at 50 miles at a time ? You ever here of taking your car out for 10 trips(different day, same day, day or night)in the city and you only do 50 miles for those 10 trips altogether ?

Here is a thread that disagrees with 50% of you :

Make a commitment to drive less, [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]by walking to some nearby destinations. It's good for your health and the environment. Approximately 50% of car use is for trips within 3 miles of the home. This distance is within the range for easy biking, so it makes sense to try to use your bike for some of these short hops. You'll be saving fuel and reducing pollution, and you can also save on trips to the gym with this added exercise.[/FONT]

Fuel-efficient driving

Only problem is most of my car use, can't be exchanged for a bike .

 

I have no problem , if people mix a suburban "City" run in their MPG, as long as they don't taint their MPG by getting on a highway,freeway or expressway.Its perfectly understandable that people don't live in as a dense an area as I and as a product of that their MPG is phenomenal compared to my city short spurt drives. As said, I don't waste my time driving in the City for long distances, if I need to get somewhere I hop on the highway.So city driving is strictly limited to short durations.Simply said, in this city, long duration city driving is limited to taxi drivers and delivery people.

There are more reputable professional drivers then myself, that reach similar statistics that I get in city MPG and highway MPG.They get 32 city 55 highway... a far cry then 51 city 48 highway ...A total flip flop like my driving.

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