new car with very bad mpg

Here is another graph.

Obviously all of us drive differently, and live in different climates. One thing is for sure — no way I will ever get the same kind of mileage driving fast on highways in the Northeast USA in the winters, as my fellow Prius Chat members get driving in heavy traffic in Southern California.

Or even someone the roads of Slovakia in late December!

 

I have a 2017 4 touring and MPG was great 55 to 58 MPG with the air on , now i'm down in the 30s MPG . What the heck is going on , i run in normal mode

 

It's called "winter". If you have the heater on, which most people do, the car won't run in EV mode until fully warmed up. So if you're doing a short trip it's never in EV mode. Plus oil, grease, and tires are stiffer, cold air is denser and harder to push through, and mostly it takes a ton of the energy in the gas just to heat up the engine block and coolant. All energy that's not going to drive the car. In the summer, my 16 mile drive to church will yield a reading of 70 mpg, in single digits the same trip and same speeds shows mid-40's.

 

If it was the USA, we'd expect better MPG in the Gen4 in the cold.
That's because we all have California low emissions cars, so Gen3 or Gen2 are lower MPG when cold.

Strikes me we do not really know how EU Prii are tuned up by Toyota, but maybe they get better MPG during the warm-up.

 

All Gen 4 meet California emissions I believe. Does that mean we can blame California for the mpg hit?
@Tideland Prius can verify about the emissions on the US cars.

 

Some say it's because we're all better driver's over here....

 

Yes the cold MPG in the USA is thanks to Ca.
That's why Ford hybrids may do better than Prii in non-CARB states when cold, as Ford/GM do not use the 50-state design.
But I am saying not sure what EU has.

 

Well, my part of EU has rather higher gas prices than USA!

 

I don't believe winter and summer blends of gas and then there is ethanol were mentioned.

We have no gas here without ethanol.

 

So maybe Toyota gives you better MPG when cold to compensate (there is an MPG/emssions trade off when cold).. Here me yesterday it was about 22F my Prius reading is off +5:

 

do not know, here it's been between 31&36°F and wet, occasionally storm force winds and I'm still averaging 65 UK mpg. That's 54 US mpg.

 

So, I purchased a brand new 2017 Prius with 9 miles on it, but, it's been bitterly cold here... between 0 and 20 F since I purchased it on Monday and I'm getting abysmal mileage. I managed to eek out 41 mpg a few days ago, but that's the best I've seen. At first I was chalking it up to warming/defrosting the car while cleaning it, but after my last trip across town I'm beginning to worry a wee bit. The temperature was 19 f and I was *NOT* running my heater or stereo and I only got 32 mpg (I was not driving aggressively)... (also, the car was already warmed up, so I didn't warm it up prior to driving it).

It's actually going to be above freezing tomorrow, so maybe that will make a difference? Anyone else seen similar numbers when the temp is particularly low? Should I be concerned?

 

Probably you will get 55+ in summer. Winter we have lower energy gaso, higher rolling resistance, thicker lubes, etc.
In my graphic, when I see 50+ MPG by 20 minutes after start up, say on a 55 MPH road, then I know it's working well.
Laws of thermodynamics are against us in winter.

 

Plus the car's programming I think: it's aware of lower winter ambient temps, likely making adjustments.

 

Did you let the car run to warm up first? That hurts mpg a lot. The Prius seems to take a while to adjust when the ECUs are new. Today here it was so cold I barely made 39 mpg. I regularly get over 60 in the summer.

 

Welcome to Prius Chat. You're not the first to experience low mileage when the thermometer's in the blue. Your journey distance is important for economy, fewer than 10 miles and it is worse than you might expect. I'm confident you'll get a marked improvement as the weather warms up. To top it all, you need to get an average mpg over a full tank of gas and don't worry about the individual short journeys.

 

The first tank or 2 are generally lower too. Please add the state to your profile location so we can better help. There are many cities with that name in the US.

 

Thanks everyone.
WJTracy, I think part of my issue is short running times, as you alluded to. It's not really had a chance to stretch its legs yet, given the current prevailing atmospheric conditions (we've had snow all week).

Mendel, can you explain what you mean?

Prodigy, wasn't aware that the first few tanks were like that... I plan on taking a 600 mile trip next week (1200 mile round trip), so I look forward to I increased numbers on my trip back. Oh, I live in Lexington, KY, will update my profile with more info in a bit.

RCO, somewhere between 19 and 29 f, my mpg went up significantly (~42mpg), as you suggested, so I'm fine, just a little bit hypochondriacal, it would seem.

And a question for everyone... anyone have any pointers about how to keep your windows clean when it's 5 f and snowing? My wipers kept freezing up and leaving big streaks.

 

Sorry I don’t know about the wiper issue. I have not had that experience in the past year.