How do I highway merge when my 2015 Prius C takes 11-12 seconds to even get to 50 mph?

ALSO, time of day (day of week?), are critical!! Being in Socal over 55 years, I see that Monday morning, most evenings, and for sure Friday nights, the animals are out and on the rampage!! You must be hypertuned to your road environment, and prepared to launch either forward or rear pointing missiles; texters are rampant! Getting on the freeway requires serious analysis, preparation, and prayer (yeah, I've seen even you atheists start to pray driving around here!!) when making your freeway launch attempt! I must say, with my Prime in EV/POWER mode, I've NEVER had a problem with my freeway launches! Elon would be proud! Lent continues.

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AChoiredTaste.com

 

No man, we'd end up with a flat bisco, Nabisco!! Hee,hee!!

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Something I always do when merging onto a freeway: I always shoot for a slightly faster speed than the limit, or the prevailing observed speed of the traffic. When I'm ready to actually merge, I'm traveling faster than the cars in the right lane, and it's much easier to slow down and merge, than to accelerate at that point. We used that trick to merge driving a pig of an RV (0-60 in about 9 years!). The only time we had problems was trying to merge in Texas where a lot of the onramps were 3 feet long, har, har!!

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@Laurenparkranger Putting aside the irrelevant chatter...

I almost bought a new "C" for my Son's use in 2015 for "College Part II", but the lack of space, lack of power and it's look did not justify (for me) the price difference when compared to the regular Prius...so I bought the later for him to use.

Being your first and second vehicles respectively...I think we've already established that adjusting from the power of an SUV to a Prius C itself is the issue you are encountering. Learn to accept the difference/s or get something else that makes you happier. Wish you the best.

 

Let's get on the same page here.



Who yields when merging on the freeway?
“The responsibility to safely merge into traffic from an on-ramp lies with the driver of the merging vehicle,” said Trooper Guy Gill, a spokesman for the Washington State Patrol. “Traffic on the freeway has the right of way.Jun 29, 2014


Who has the right of way when merging into one lane?
There are 2 different give way rules for merging. 1. On roads where there are lanes marked on the road—if your lane comes to an end, you must give way to traffic already in the lane you are moving to. In this example, Vehicle A (white) must give way to Vehicle B (yellow).May 26, 2016
Changing lanes and merging | Transport and motoring | ...
Queensland Government › rules › road › l...

What do you do at a merge sign?
In traffic engineering, the late merge or zipper method is a convention for merging traffic into a reduced number of lanes. Drivers in merging lanes are expected to use both lanes to advance to the lane reduction point and merge at that location, alternating turns. ... In Austria only where a traffic sign so indicates.

 

I hate it when people don't bring their car up to the proper speed and then try to move into your lane. They just don't get the meaning of the word mergel

If they are at or near my speed I have no problem but the slow ones should not be on that type of highway.

 

Do remember that the state sets the minimum legal speed for the highways. You don't.

I do believe it is reasonable to demand merging traffic to not merge into your side, or not so close in front that you must do any emergency or hard braking. But it is not reasonable to demand they fully match your speed, as you are not the indicator of the legal minimum speed and who gets to use the road.

Many loaded trucks are simply unable to fully match your speed in the available space, and we have no basis to bully smaller vehicles simply because they are smaller than the big boys. Slower traffic keep right, faster traffic pass left.

 

or the ones who speed up to pull in front of you, and then slow back down. i've played tit for tat with those clowns more than once. usually, when you pass them, you see them looking down.

 

@Laurenparkranger:

There is definitely something wrong with your c if the numbers that you are posting are accurate.

My previous car before my current Prius was the Scion xB with the 1NZ-FE engine, which had similar horsepower with the c and was slow as molasses. But it was much quicker than the estimates you are posting for your Prius c.

This is what MotorTrend wrote about the 2014 Prius c's 0-60 time, linked here: "Accelerating from 0-60 mph took 10.9 seconds for the Prius C, compared to the 2013 Prius’ 10.1 seconds, the 2014 Corolla S’ 9.5 seconds, and the 2012 Honda Insight’s 10.6 seconds."

Regarding merging and passing, MotorTrend clocked the 45-60 mph time at 6.8 seconds. And the c brakes quicker than the other cars it was compared to.

Consumer Reports listed the cars with the best blend of acceleration and fuel economy. The Prius c ranked very high in their rankings, shown here.

Below is an example of a youtube video that shows a 2012 Prius c going from 0-60 in ~10-11 seconds. Again, if this is not indicative of your Prius c, then get it checked out. However, if you're simply not happy with the acceleration in a Prius c in peak condition, then return it or sell it. There's a good resale market for the Prius c, especially in California.

 

but her numbers are going uphill.

 

I was addressing her earlier post (below), which indicated flat surface. If she gets from 0-50 in 11.5 seconds, then she has a problem with her particular c.

 

Give me a bit of a break, please. I know what a couple IS.

When the prevailing gap is about a half a car length, two is huge.

I consider two car lengths the minimum space to try and squeeze into.

 

You're beyond the warranty miles for both the new car and powertrain warranty. The previous owner put the car up the sale (or traded it in) after putting a lot of miles on it over 3 years. There's a legit chance that there was something wrong with the vehicle that he didn't want to pay for.

However, if you find out there is a mechanical problem causing your c to be slower than other c's on the road, then customer service might be able to offer good will assistance based on the vehicle being relatively new. I was successful with this tactic when an old Subaru needed a new engine, and many here have been successful with their traction batteries dying early.

 

iono - I feel her pain myself. Uphill from a dead stop in a "C" is crazy slow.

If it matters, I've always driven small cars. Yaris, Sentra, and laugh at this, but my all time favorite was a Forest Green Chevy Metro! Man I loved that car. But none of them had accelleration as bad as the C. (They were all manual transmissions however)

 

Let me call BS on that.

Half a car length is about 8 feet. At 60 mph, that means almost 4 cars per second. That means means a flow rate of 14,000 per lane per hour. That is patently absurd. Even 2 cars lengths spacing works out as 7000 per hour.

The actual saturation numbers I have previously seen have been under 3000 per hour, with design standards generally under 2000 per hour.

 

All I am saying that to merge simply means to blend in with traffic. It doesn't have to be a perfect match I am a reasonable person when I drive and if I can I always try to get over in the other lane. I try not to be the problem.