My Yosemite trip in my Prius.

So my girlfriend and I decided to take a trip from our home in San Francisco to the lovely Yosemite Valley, camp a night and come back. And by decided I mean she wanted to show her visiting cousin Yosemite and I had to drive.

Ok, so my car was overloaded according to the manual, 4 people in the car + all the camping gear and such, it was a little cramped for those in the backseat, her brother and cousin, she was a little cramped with a backpack in front of her legs, I was quite comfortable, but driver's privilege states if the car is crowded you get top priority of leg room! I'm in the 170-175 pound range, my girlfriend is a few sacks of potatoes lighter than me and I'll leave it at that so she doesn't kill me, cousin is 180 range, brother is 330 pound range, needless to say the three additional passenger put the passenger load to a bit over 800 pounds. Camping gear aside, my back suspension was a bit squished for the trip.

The trip to Yosemite was quite uneventful, going up all those hilly areas at the speed limit, occasionally exceeding mind you! I got a paltry 42mpg (and I use this as a exhibit A against all those reviewers who say the prius actually got 38mpg in... blah blah Learn to drive!), the way back however I knew it was payback time! In fact, I had the A/C going too since it was mid 90s out and I felt it was a nice treat... that and I was uncomfortable (again driver's privilege, if I'm ok, you're not ruining my gas mileage with the AC!) it did get bad though as I maxed my battery really quickly (another reason for OK'ing the AC) so I lost a lot of recharging because there was no more room to recharge. But having gotten home, my total round trip mileage was 47.8mpg . So I'm quite pleased, I expect my next trip there, just me and the g/f to be a bit better since over 500 pounds of people won't be in the back seat.

 

I live in the Portola area of SF, couldn't tell you my actual gas mileage with much accuracy, but a commute too and from work at CCSF probably nets in the neighborhood of 40-42mpg.