Fill-up, Friday, March 25, 2011

EDIT: This was a partial fill-up due to a pesky, contracted Prius bladder. See this post for the real details.

391.6 miles
6.115 gallons
$3.439/gallon

64.04 mpg
3.67 L/100km

Wentworth's complete fueling history

A good week and a half of driving. Nothing too special, no crazy drives that knocked this out of the park or brought down the average, just consistent drives right in the 60s.

Prius display read 63.8 mpg. Most people report an overestimate, but so far, compared to the actual fill-up and now my Scangauge readings, it looks like mine seems to be fairly accurate.

I wanted to fill-up since a. there's another gas sale Friday in my town, so on either Tuesday or Friday now I can get discounted gas prices, and b. with the new Scangauge, I wanted to compare the Scangauge's mpg reading to the Prius' mpg reading to my calculated mpg readings to see how close they are. Also, to calibrate the Scangauge to give the most accurate readings, you need a couple tanks in there. Rather than go 500 or 600 miles just to prove I can, I figure I should be nice to the fuel pump and just give Wentworth a little gas (I maybe could have worded that better) whenever convenient.

I did start using some more electric-only driving, but not much. As I discovered in my last post, especially at slower speeds, you can maintain or just about maintain speed with a marginal increase in voltage from the traction battery. For the same or less energy as warp stealth* I can prolong engine-off glides longer without being a huge draw on the battery.

*a low energy highway mode for you non-Prius owners. It can be used over 42 mph in model years 2004-2009 and over 46 mph in 2010-present Prii, maintaining speed on slight downhills at about 900 rpm with complete fuel cut for important fuel economy increases.