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How do you see average MPG for one trip?

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Fuel Economy' started by Oxo, Oct 29, 2005.

  1. Oxo

    Oxo New Member

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    As I understand it, the energy screen tells you the average MPG and the mileage since you last filled the tank. You can over-ride this by hitting "Reset" on the screen when you start a trip and this way you could get the MPG for one short trip. But suppose you don't want to reset now because you want to see how much MPG your tank has given you when you eventually have a refill?

    I know that whilst you're driving you can see your MPG at 5-minute intervals on a graph but is there any way of seeing (without resetting) what the average MPG has been for say the whole of an hour's trip?
     
  2. tumbleweed

    tumbleweed Senior Member

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    Not unless you are willing to write down the numbers and do the arithmetic. I have sometimes wished for two mileage computers myself.
     
  3. MarinJohn

    MarinJohn Senior Member

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    Unlike Honda, Toyota has elimintated this possibility. Nor can we get a lifetime average. These are the kind of programming options which could easily be provided by Toyota, but so far haven't been offered.
     
  4. tomdeimos

    tomdeimos New Member

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    The scan gauge give you 4 more mpg readouts: tank, current, today and yesterday.
    Today and yesterday are defined by 8 hours between starts. Mine reads a bit low but you can calibrate it.

    But after recording over 15 tanks to see how accurate my mfd mpg readout is, I now just reset it whenever I feel like measuring a trip. My fill up spreadsheet handles the tank averages, and I care far more how I just did on my last trip, and for regular trips whether I did better or worse than average.
     
  5. Venturer

    Venturer New Member

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    I just bought a program from silverleaf that I use in my motorhome. It taps into the engine computer to give me all of the engine and transmission info on my laptop while rolling down the road. I can set up several odometers to record a trip, a day, a week, a month,a tank or any other distance or period of time. I can view them all at the same time along with other engine info. ( boost, % of load, temps. etc ) It has made me a more effecient driver. When I can go from 8 mpg to 9 1/4 mpg, that's a 15% improvement. ( @ $3.39/ gal, it still costs $300 to fill it up)

    I wonder if someone could come up with a similar program for the Prius that would feed into a PDA. It's interesting to compare the results of different driving conditions. Of course, if I wasn't so lazy, I could do it all with pencil and paper.


    Doug
     
  6. Oxo

    Oxo New Member

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    What do you mean by "scan gauge"? I can't see anything that indicates all the mpg readouts you mention.

    But thanks for all answers to this. As there are two trip mileages available (A & B) I intend to set Trip A to zero when I fill up, leave it undisturbed, and then make a manual calculation of mpg on refilling later. I'll then feel free to reset the screen mpg/mileage when I want to get a trip mpg.
     
  7. Oxo

    Oxo New Member

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    Error in my last post I typed A & B in brackts but the letter B appeared as a smilie. Should have previewed my post!
     
  8. tomdeimos

    tomdeimos New Member

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    Scan gauge is the obdII display meter I use primarily to show tach and temperature readouts. It is inexpensive and there are lots of posts here about it.
    The Can View also looks good and I may switch to that when it is available.
    You need something with temperature at a minimum if you live in an area with winter temperatures.
     
  9. ken1784

    ken1784 SuperMID designer

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    [/quote]
    As other people are writing, it is an easy calc as follows.
    Please take note(ODO and displayed mileage value) at each point you would like to know.
    Then, do the math to find how much gas used since reset.
    Now, you know the section gas used and the distance, then do the math for the section mileage.

    Following my data driving on a highway at 91km/h using CC.

    point_____ODO__disp_km/L__calc_L__sect_L__sect_km__sect_km/L
    ============================================================
    Point-A___88km__28.6km/L__3.08L___0.00L______0km
    Point-B__116km__27.5km/L__4.22L___1.14L_____28km___24.53km/L
    Point-C__131km__26.1km/L__5.02L___0.80L_____15km___18.73km/L
    Point-D__193km__29.5km/L__6.54L___1.52L_____62km___40.70km/L
    ============================================================
    Note: calc_L=ODO/disp_km/L

    Additional information...
    You can see very various section mileage number even driving at 91km/h constant speed.
    The reason is there were altitude(potential energy) changes.

    Assuming we need 106mL gas to get the potential energy for 100m high, I did math as follows...

    point_____Alt__AltChg_m__AltChg_L_adjust__sect_km__adjust_km/L
    ============================================================
    Point-A___634m_____0m_____0.000L__0.000L______0km
    Point-B___761m___127m____-0.135L__1.007L_____28km___27.82km/L
    Point-C__1009m___248m____-0.263L__0.538L_____15km___27.88km/L
    Point-D__ 346m__-663m_____0.703L__2.226L_____62km___27.85km/L
    ============================================================

    Then, the adjusted section mileage number is constant like I drove very flat road.

    Enjoy,
    Ken@Japan
     
  10. Stevep

    Stevep Junior Member

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    Did you also enter a program that adds and then averages the milage of both the motorhome and the prius. I knoe ehy you have a prius, so you can save enough gas to also drive the motorhome. :rolleyes:
     
  11. hdrygas

    hdrygas New Member

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    I too use the ScanGage to plot the trip milage, milage for the day and yesterday and now life time i.e. I am not resetting the tank milage so it will calculate the life time from now on. I also keep manual calculations.