Prius tends to beat EPA highway mileage

I've been driving my Prius for less than 3000 miles and while I've been hard pressed to get close to the EPA rated 60 mpg for city driving, I've never ever had problems getting the 51 mpg for highway. My highway drives are about 20 to 40 minutes and for all the drives I've consistently beat the 51 mpg. This has occured during 30 to 40 degree weather.

For local suburban driving I'm thrilled if I can get my mileage up in the 50's and I need to pay careful attention to my driving. But when I enter a highway it's real easy. Accelerate to 55 mph and go on cruise control. Sometimes I go as fast as 59 mph to better keep pass with the fast traffic. But even then I still beat the EPA mileage for highway.

Just last night I had an interesting 7 mile highway drive. I had to stop at a gas station 7 miles short of home because my refuel message was displaying and I lost my courage to push the last 7 miles without refueling. So after I refueled, I turned on the EV switch of my Prius and accelerated on electric to about 25 mph and then turned on the gas engine. Then I merged back into 65 mph traffic and completed the final 7 miles home. This time the weather did warm up to 57 deg F.

When I parked my car my display showed 7 miles traveled with an average gas mileage of 55 mpg! These are highway miles done with no pulse and glide techniques, just cruise control.

So I'm curious if many other people notice that the Prius tends to do a bit better than EPA when it comes to highway driving while staying at the speed limit.