A friendly hypermiling hello!

Hello to all Prius-ers far and wide,

As you've likely noticed, the content of the blog has gone dormant for some time, BUT the existing content, frankly, is all you need with a Generation II Prius (2004-2009) to get the best mileage possible, and although the screens and visual set ups are different in later model years, the principles remain.

My apologies to the many commenters who never received replies - I did not realize that my settings were "off" and didn't receive any notification by e-mail. I've turned it back on, so will do my best to answer future questions. Feel free to repost your comments requesting info here, and this can be the official random question thread!

Thanks, all. Delighted to see that even after all these years there are hundreds, almost a thousand page views a month from those of you seeking out Prius mileage tips.

The most useful post remains Prius-ing for Dummies, so check it out if you're new, and also find the most useful links on the sidebar to the right.

Happy hypermiling, all!

Fill-up, Sunday, October 30, 2011

499.5 miles
7.924 gallons
$3.599/gallon

63.04 mpg
3.73 L/100km

Wentworth's complete fueling history

Nothing exciting to report. Getting very difficult to control mileage with weather getting cold and highway driving...

Fill-up, Sunday, October 16, 2011

499.8 miles
8.612 gallons
$3.619/gallon

58.04 mpg
4.05 L/100km

Wentworth's complete fueling history

It was a low tank, with the MFD reading around 63 of 64 mpg, but I was really surprised by the very low calculated result of 58 mpg for the tank, which I haven't seen in regular (i.e. not a roadtrip) driving since last February in the freezing weather. This was a tank of 60°F weather!

But...it wasn't altogether accurate, as the bladder somehow filled A LOT, and then some, with some fuel spilling out at the end. We'll stick with the official numbers anyway, good motivator to do better next tank!

Fill-up, Monday, October 3, 2011

494.2 miles
7.73 gallons
$3.599/gallon

63.93 mpg
3.68 L/100km

Wentworth's complete fueling history

Colder weather, shorter trips...

Had a killer 20-mile ride I was excited about somewhere in the tank, looked like this:



Yeah, yeah, it's net downhill :-) Still, on the way there I can get 60 mpg on the uphill, so not bad overall.

Fill-up, Wednesday, September 21, 2011

500.8 miles
7.502 gallons
$3.679/gallon

66.76 mpg
3.52 L/100km

Wentworth's complete fueling history

I have pictures of the tank sitting on my camera, but I've just moved and apparently haven't taken the USB cord with me (EDIT: they're here now!). They'll be edited in soon. Interestingly, the Prius MFD actually read 66.8 mpg, which is exactly what I got. First time for everything!

Mid tank, looking good.


End of the tank, little down.


My new life (read: new location and thus commutes) is full of short, mileage killing trips. The tank started out nicely up in the low 70s and slowly declined to 66.8 mpg as I did short trips between clients' houses and cold starts just to go the grocery store. I participate in a food co-op, so multiple people have jobs to do. I can't just go when the car is warmed up and most efficient, I have to wait for a time to open up with someone else's schedule.

I also have a new trip of about 30 miles or so which will happen roughly twice per tank, of 60+ mph speeds over very hilly terrain. After that part of the trip there is some pulse and glide, but the two times I've done it so far I've gotten 60 mpg and 57 mpg, so it's a huge drain on gas.

I'm certainly not complaining. A commercially available vehicle netting 67 mpg in less than ideal fuel economy conditions? Sounds pretty good to me :-) I just need to mentally deal with the fact that 70 mpg is very unlikely to happen these days with the new commutes. First day of autumn today, too, and those lower temps are eating away a little at every trip's mpg...

Seasons are a-changing

First autumnal evening in the high 50°Fs tonight, and an immediate and obvious shift in the opening mileage of my trip, with the magic 157°F mark reached slowly and deliberately over a lengthier distance than the summery usual. Achieved around 66 mpg on a trip where I would get around 70 mpg. Small, but a sign of the seasonal drop to come.

Things I don't like about my Prius

Well, I've owned a 2007 model year for 9 months, here we go:

Actual problems
-Poor visibility when looking over your shoulder on the driver's side.

Kinda sorta problems
-Gas bladder is a pain, but it was rectified in newer model years. It doesn't actually affect anything important, it's more a "first world problem".

Hypermiling problems that would not affect normal people
-Very touchy traction control. Again, mostly irrelevant to actual operation, but when hypermiling it's annoying to lose so much regen just from going over a teeny bump in the road and having the car switch almost entirely to hydraulic braking.
-10 seconds of idling under 6 mph needed to switch to full hybrid operation. Probably the worst from a hypermiling standpoint. This has been fixed on the newer models.


I'll update this, but that's all I can think of.

Fill-up, Thursday, September 8, 2011

520.0 miles
7.748 gallons
3.899/gallon

67.11 mpg
3.50 L/100km

Wentworth's complete fueling history

Surprisingly I got over 67 mpg. I say surprisingly, since I thought the last fill-up was partial, but even if it was, it looks like the summer blend or something is boosting my mileage nicely, since for a couple fill-ups now the actual numbers have been high relative to the Prius display.

This tank also includes some new trips which will become habitual for me, including a weekly several mile jaunt which will probably get me 30 mpg each way (ouch). I have a new 20 mile trip over which I only managed 57 mpg, and that was in warm weather! No way to hypermile around hills other than to find an alternate route, so I'll work on that for this week.

Pictures may or may not be coming, computer was on the fritz, may have lost the data for some time...

The results are in...

Summer Road Trippin' in August

2,539.8 miles
42.785 gallons of 87 octane gas
59.4 mpg

$152.41 was spent on all this travel, which included leaving Vermont, passing through Boston and Rhode Island, then NYC for an evening, DC for a weekend, continuing through Virginia down through Knoxville to Nashville, where I hung out for a week, and then the 1100 mile trek back by way of Ohio and Pennsylvania.

I will say that the number of gallons seems off to me by about 0.7 gallons, since I had what was likely a partial fill-up today due to the Prius bladder. Even with that extra 0.7 gallons added in, I'd be at 58.4 actual mpg for the entire, mountainous, hilly, highway trip. Maybe next time I'll get 60...

Some of the more memorable pics, using mostly the Prius display, so numbers below are inflated by an mpg or so:

To DC from New York, 66.8 mpg over 240 miles


Frustrating start to the day in Pennsylvania driving home. Mountains, hills, decrepit panel pavement, winds - my least favorite place to drive. During the entire trip there were plenty of mountains (or at least huge hills) to navigate, taking down entire tanks of gas by several mpgs over just a fraction of the total driving time. The worst was when I arrived at the pump with 57.0 mpg on the display!


After the last fill-up during the trip, I headed to a rest stop in New Jersey right across from NYC (I felt the earthquake!). I was so tired of driving, but even more tired of getting poor mileage through Pennsylvania, so after a little fast food fill-up for myself, I headed home for the final 190 miles or so, completely focused on hypermiling the rest of the way. I was mostly between 55 and 60 mph, sometimes speeding up, sometimes slowing down, depending on traffic. The tank started progressing upwards.



A little more...


And home.




You read that correctly...67.0 mpg for the last 190 miles or so from NYC. A couple things about that. While I did "cheat" and do the last 35 miles on roads that I knew (read: slower, hypermiling), some of those were still 50 mph roads. Secondly, when getting off the highway onto said slower roads, I was already over 65 mpg on the Scangauge. And finally, the Scangauge underestimates quite a bit. We could conservatively say it's really 68-69 mpg for the last 190 miles, most of that highway travel. Thrilled :-)

While it was awesome to see friends and family (especially old friends!), I'll be happy to avoid those long, all-day drives. Also can't wait to get back to getting some good mileage, and the challenge of finding fuel efficient routes from my new place of residence this coming year!

NYC to DC on the highway, 66.8 mpg

Well, I'm sort of on vacation and had been busy with work...but sometime later I'll have to do an updated highway driving post. Tons of other people have gotten it before me (namely Hobbit), but finally finding it on your own and being able to implement is pretty cool.

66.8 mpg (so about 66 in real life) over 240 miles from NYC to DC

Fill-up, Wednesday, July 13, 2011

about 484.0 miles
about 7.562 gallons
unknown $/gallon

about 64.00 mpg
about 3.68 L/100km

Wentworth's complete fueling history

A friend borrowed my car for a romantic dinner with his lady friend, and when he returned, he had oh-so kindly filled up the tank for me (I'll have to buy him a drink or something...), so without the receipt I'm estimating mpg based on Scangauge (62.8 mpg) and Wentworth (65.0 mpg). Close enough, probably off by a couple hundredths of a gallon at most.

Nice figures considering all the mountainous driving I did since getting here. Roundtrip to Burlington one day got me only 56-57 mpg or so. Other days had some low 50s when I was trying to test some things related to regenerative braking up and down hills, and I know when my friend drove it they got 45 mpg for the 32 mile roundtrip. It continues to impress me, here because the car can get 45 mpg in Vermont when driven normally.

I believe one pip was down already, possible it was a bladder-instigated partial fill, we'll find out if the next tank (in August!) is lower than expected.

(Note to self, subtract 17.1 miles from next tank)

The most Prii per capita - Vermont :-)

It just so happens I'm in Vermont for the summer for work, and it just so happens I see a Prius anytime I'm within a stone's throw of any street at all. What typically happens at this point is that I attempt to conceal a hybrid squeal/cry of delight.

For every 159 Vermonters, there exists one Prius in this state, the highest per capita concentration of Prii in the country. Heavenly.

Three Prii - none of which are even mine!

Drive through the mountains to Vermont

Got the car all packed, left just a little past 5 in the morning. Had a huge bag, my bike, a fan, a lamp, loose clothes on hangers, a bag of shoes, another bag of stuff, my computer, my work bag, and other shtuff. I wish car reviewers would stop calling the Prius a compact :-)



Now the trip. Oh là là.

Everything was going smoothly. MPG starting out was a little lower than usual with all the extra weight in the car, but I was hanging right around 70 mpg for the first couple hours. Roads were also wet in some places creating some unwanted friction, and I did get some rain, but not nearly as much as I thought, which was great. Pulse and glide, pulse and glide.

A big percentage of the trip was at 50-55 mph. Surprisingly, even with mountains, this returned very nice results. Holding steady on somewhat flat or rolling parts of the mountains (ignition timing 13/14, throttle position 17/18) at 55 mph would show an incredible 80-90 mpg instant when battery was around 61% state of charge. The technology is really just staggering when you sit back for a second and think about it.

There were some very steep and high RPM mountain climbs, but everything seemed to sort of even out. My Scangauge mpg had fluctuated some, but was back between 68 and 69 about 150 miles into the trip. I really thought Andy was gonna win the Facebook contest for guessing my mileage (he guessed 67 mpg).

And then disaster (was that dramatic enough?). On Route 103, the Vermont DOT had closed various bridges, completely blocking the entire route - WITHOUT PUTTING UP ANY WARNINGS OR DETOUR SIGNS. You can guess I was swearing profusely as I had to throw away all my momentum, turn around through a little neighborhood, and drive back the other way. Keep in mind this was on a 50 mph road, so it's not like I could just pulse and glide for 100 mpg the whole time.

I then had to stop and ask directions, and luckily the locals knew of the crazy backroads to get around it. Problem solved...

...or not really. I had to spend three miles on a dirt road for the detour. Since it was wet outside, it was really a mud road. In just three out of the 150 miles I had travelled so far, my mileage dropped 6%. There was no traction and the engine really had to work to push the car along. Gliding was almost useless since the mud would slow the car 5-10 mph in mere seconds.

Muddy Wentworth


Grr.

Anyway, I was able to get a little bit back over the rest of the trip, but I was quite (and later downgraded from quite to a little) ticked that Vermont DOT's lack of consideration (or competence?) caused me to drive about 22 miles extra, wasting a third of a gallon of fuel.

End result:

65.7 mpg over 245.5 miles. In reality this would be around 67 mpg or so. Tank down to about 68 or 69 mpg from 74 the other day.



In other news, to clean up, Wentworth just had his first carwash, and looks sparklin' clean right now. Here's the before:



I was told the construction blocking route 103 would be complete by the time I come home. I wonder if 70 mpg is possible back through the mountains...

Mid-tank checkup, 75 mpg

No more driving (I think!) until the big 223 mile trip on Thursday. There will be lots of 50 and 55 zones, even though I'm avoiding highways, so methinks these numbers will not stay, but let's post them here for comparison after the trip:

75 mpg displayed over 108 miles

Fill-up, Sunday, June 19, 2011

511.4 miles
7.392 gallons
$3.839/gallon

69.18 mpg
3.40 L/100km

Wentworth's complete fueling history

June 2011 average officially at 70.00 mpg! OK, 69.995... :-)

I filled up at the same BP station. MFD read 70.5, actual was only 1.8% off at 69.2 mpg, so I'll continue to fill up with this magic gas that nearly eliminates the overestimation of the computer. Scangauge said 67.2 for the tank. I'll keep it down there, actually, I prefer to have conservative readings to keep me motivated.

Of course, in my writing down of figures from different devices, resetting trip meters and consumption displays, texting Fuelly to get instant mpg, I forgot (again!) to take a goshdarn picture.

So as soon as I remembered, I caught one of the gas station to work. This was my tank mpg this morning over...a whopping 2 miles :-)



I did actually take a picture a couple days back (just remembered it) cause I finally got the MFD back up to 70 and wanted to record that magic moment.



I sadly had to put 70 miles on the new tank today, and some more coming this week, but then just 230-240 miles to my summer job where I stay fairly automotively stationary, so I likely won't fill up until July or August. New one sitting at 75 mpg on the display, but we'll see how the mountains of Vermont affect that number.

With Wentworth and the Wind Turbine

Wentworth seeks out like-minded machines.

64.5 mpg + 105 mpg = 80 mpg roundtrip

I had to do a devilishly short trip of about 6.5 miles for Chinese food (don't ask) that typically involves driving uphill on the highway. Ordinarily you'd get in the mid 40 mpgs even with careful driving. Luckily my engine was warm, I got into S4 within maybe 20-30 seconds of the engine turning on. I was in no rush, so I took the little backroads to cut down on highway driving, and only had to take it a little ways. Primarily uphill, but managed 64.5 mpg on the way there over about 6.5 miles.

But, oh, the way back...



105 mpg over about 6.7 miles of net downhill. I was at 120-130 mpg most of the time near the end, but had to get back up some hills to get home.

80 mpg or so roundtrip.

Fill-up, Sunday, June 5, 2011

Holy crap.

523.9 miles
7.399 gallons
$3.899/gallon

70.81 mpg
3.32 L/100km

Wentworth's complete fueling history

I think this pretty much puts to rest claims of any other sort of car matching hybrid mileage, but I digress... :-)

I paid $28.85 to drive 524 miles. Insane!

The weather was getting warmer, and I specifically went for a record tank. I almost would have thought it's a bladder fluke, but for several reasons:

1. The last couple tanks I modified pulse and glide style, and all of them have shown much better results.

2. The average of my last three tanks is now standing right at 68 mpg hand-calculated, and 70 mpg fits right in there.

3. I've now calibrated Scangauge hopefully once and for all around the numbers for the last several tanks (I didn't reset it the entire time), so I was expecting numbers slightly higher than what I'd been seeing. I estimated around 68 for tank on the "low" numbers, so 70 again is quite realistic.

4. I did have some awesome longer drives (to and from Boston, seen here and here), so that brought up the mpgs some, but also some short trips that averaged those nice figures down a little. May not be reproduceable in my normal commute, we'll see.

What this means for me is that I'll continue to pulse somewhat gradually, dealing almost exclusively with terrain instead of RPMs, kW, whatever. I aim for the speed I want at the top of the hill, that's it. I use RPM sometime for accelerations from low to higher speeds, that's it. Longer pulse means better battery charging, and I watch SOC to make sure it's not too low, and it makes a good difference. Besides that, the cool thing is that I barely need the Scangauge for my driving. 71 mpg just driving. I actually use the engine much more these days than a few months back, and also feel myself more with the flow of traffic.

Of course, when no one else is on the road, I pull out the crazy hypermiling.

Second big conclusion is that I now am a fan of BP Invigorate gas. Whether it's really something special or just the summer gas mix is in effect I don't know, but it's irrelevant. I've been filling up at a BP station and getting this mileage, so that's going to continue. I filled up at a different BP station than normal today to compare to my usual one.

EDIT: I hadn't reset my mileage consumption screen in three tanks. It showed 68.8 mpg I believe (had a camera in the glovebox for the occasion, forgot to take picture amid all the math I was doing at the pump) over the 1500 or so miles, and actual calculated was 67.98 mpg. This is scarily accurate, I believe the quality of the gas has something to do with it, since Tom explained very nicely on PriusChat how computer mileage calculations would be exactly the same even if you threw water in your tank.

Killer mileage

41.1 miles, mostly pulse and glide, Scangauge very conservative. MFD would read around 86 for this result. I got redirected twice cause of Memorial Day celebrations, hard to believe it would have been higher without the slowing and accelerating for low-speed detours.

In case you're wondering, the Prius display is showing the average over the last three tanks, doesn't reflect the craziness that is the current tank.

One of the main things I did, just like the previous day to Boston, was to have relatively long, gentle accelerations that would go with the terrain. This would allow me to keep the state of charge as high as possible (I basically had 6 blue bars all the time, would try not to dip below 58% SOC). This might mean the engine is on longer, but if you can go up a gentle uphill at 30 mph getting 40-50 mpg and simultaneously charging the battery, I don't see how it can be beat from a daily driving, practical standpoint.

Interesting thing about that - now that I'm "trained" with a Scangauge, I frankly don't need it once I'm in stage 4. Everything I did today could be done without it. I will keep it, however, to know when the coolant reaches that magic 157°F :-)

Beantown

Boston and back. It was a long but rewarding trip. I was coming from work, even farther from the city than home, so I drove about 77 miles, almost all on back roads. I took the highway for a small portion where I knew the speeds were quite slow around Providence, so I could go 50 mph safely in the right lane.

The start, averaged about 75 before getting on the highway:



I knew I'd lose a little, but 9 miles at 50 mph versus 25 mph would be a nice little chunk of saved time. I only got down to 71.8 mpg or so after that stretch, and quickly bounced back up near 75. But then the streetlights came - lots of red ones. See the couple bars on the left? There were more like them:



Somehow bounced back to 74 for the trip - helps that the last bit of Washington Street/South Street is downhill, I could make sure the SOC was decent enough (actually was in 60s at end, even with all the pulsing and gliding!) for the final crawl up Huntington.



Wentworth had a good view of the city all day.



Hanging out.



Awesome day of hanging out and eating Ethiopian food with my sister and some friends. Wish I had more than a cell phone cam for stuff like this, but check out the sailboat in the Christian Science Center reflecting pool.