Fuel Consumption

[CPN]

Had our Hybrid Excel MY2015 for just coming up to a month now. Very pleased with it overall. Back to relaxing motoring again. One thing about the EV button, it seems to be a waste of space because even when it is switched on, if you demand more power than the EM can supply, then EV mode just switches out anyway so I don't see the point of an EV switch when it doesn't force the vehicle to stay in EV mode only...

[gigondas]

The last few times I've tried pressing the ev button it has triple beeped at me and not done it. Pointless

I've now done 1600 miles and still can't get better than 50 mpg during the same trip my touran did. Still disappointed. I wouldn't and never did expect 85+ mpg, but did think it was reasonable to expect 65+ 70+ based on all the lingo and paraphernalia in the showroom. All the time I'm adding to the millage with the advise that 'you've got to do at least 4k miles before the engine loosens up' is a painful wait as I'm not seeing a gradual improvement and I'm quickly devaluing the car and throwing money away in fuel

[FROSTYBALLS]

The advice to wait until the car has got a few thousand miles under its belt before the fuel consumption improves applies to most new cars, and has been around for years. Whatever petrol or diesel car you have from new, you will still get a period whilst the car loosens up. The point re devaluation/fuel expense during this period is similarly common to most new cars.

[SK100]

The last few times I've tried pressing the ev button it has triple beeped at me and not done it. Pointless

I've now done 1600 miles and still can't get better than 50 mpg during the same trip my touran did. Still disappointed. I wouldn't and never did expect 85+ mpg, but did think it was reasonable to expect 65+ 70+ based on all the lingo and paraphernalia in the showroom. All the time I'm adding to the millage with the advise that 'you've got to do at least 4k miles before the engine loosens up' is a painful wait as I'm not seeing a gradual improvement and I'm quickly devaluing the car and throwing money away in fuel

Hi gigondas, here are a few tips that might help you. I've had my Yaris Hybrid for eight months now and have done 5,000 miles in total. Whilst it's not possible to get 80 mpg in regular driving, it's certainly possible to get 65 mpg on a regular basis, but you do need to drive with economy in mind. I use all of the various hybrid system indicators to help me improve my fuel economy and tend to drive in Eco mode (mainly because this modulates the sensitivity of the accelerator pedal and makes it easier for me to keep the car in its most economical mode). In particular, I use the instantaneous mpg readout to help me improve my second-by-second fuel consumption figures and overall this does have a significant impact on average mpg. I now never get less than 61 mpg when measured brim-to-brim (usually this is approximately 64 mpg on the car's average fuel consumption display), and my best brim-to-brim measured fuel consumption is exactly 70 mpg, but that took a lot of effort to achieve. Also, I would strongly advise you not to use the EV button - it's really a bit of a gimmick and can make your fuel economy worse. I note you have the Excel model which is fitted with 16 inch wheels - these also have an effect on the fuel consumption - the official figure for the Excel model is 78.5 mpg which is significantly lower than the official figure for models fitted with 15 inch wheels (85.6 mpg). Whilst both figures are pretty much impossible to achieve on the road, the larger wheel size on the Excel model will also have a negative impact on the real world fuel economy you can achieve. I should also mention that as we are now approaching winter, you won't be able to achieve the best fuel economy figures in the car. The colder months really do have an impact on fuel economy - and not just for hybrids. My previous Audi A2 diesel used to drop from 58 mpg to 50 mpg in the winter months. Hope all of this helps.

[gigondas]

Thanks for that in depth look. The wheel size is interesting too. I will try some second by second driving on the next few trips

[Catlover]

Re SK100 - I can relate to second by second fuel consumption, even he slightest lift of the foot off the accelerator betters the mpg. Cruising on the MWay at say 65mph I can, with the right conditions, at times be doing well over 85mpg. They just resurfaced a 5 mile section of MWay near me, it is so quiet driving on it, and I can get very good fuel consumption on that.

I also agree with SK100 that now colder weather is upon us, the fuel consumption has gone worse. How much worse I dont know exactly but a few mpg. Makes getting my average up to its "normal" 61.2mpg harder (I have a 1.4d with 6 gears).

[MikeSh]

Just don't try to use your mobile at the same time as keeping your eyes on the mpg display

[Cyker]

The general opinion seems to be the EV mode is only really useful to move short distances, e.g. looking for a parking space or moving your car from your garage or some such.

I think it's better all round to let the car do its thing; The software seems to be pretty well written.

The severity of the winter drop really depends on your journey tho'; My dad's old Focus would do a ridiculous 150 miles per tank due to multiple short journeys (Under better (long distance, summery) situations I'd had it up to 550 miles!!)

I tend to drop 6-7mpg over winter due to my commute being long enough to warm the engine up, plus the fact that my driving style has gone down the tubes and I accelerate harder than I should, but that does warm the engine up a LOT faster

[Not Happy]

Hi, it's been a while since I started this thread but I have now done 5000 miles in my yaris hybrid. The mpg has improved but only by a fraction. I tried every trick in the book & once achieved 65.7 mpg but the average is 53.8mpg. It was more of a chore than a pleasure to drive the car to achieve this mpg. A car should not be chore to drive to get the fictitious mpg bandied about by the show rooms. If it was built to get high end mpg, then it should do it with no effort at all. The car should get 80+mpg easily if that is their claim. Or do you take it to the ridiculous extremes & ask your passengers to get out & push it for a few hundred miles just to try & prove toyota's claim???? In my opinion, the car is a sales gimmick as any fuel you save is used to recharge the batteries. As I've said before, I bet if you removed the batteries & electric motor, you would reduce the weight of the car significantly & the petrol engine would probably achieve at least the same average mpg for these cars if not more.

[FROSTYBALLS]

This has already been covered, if you're expecting to get close to the EU fuel consumption figures, the majority of cars won't - be they petrol, diesel or hybrid. Legislation requires that manufacturers use the EU consumption figures in advertising, but these aren't representative of the real world.

[SK100]

I agree with Frostyballs - the current EU test is not representative of real world driving. It's now recognised as being a problem and the test will be replaced by a new one that better represents real - world conditions (known as the World Harmonised Light duty Test Procedure, or WLTP). However, that won't arrive until at least 2017. It also won't be perfect, but should be a lot better than the current official fuel economy test.

[eyemdee]

Hi, it's been a while since I started this thread but I have now done 5000 miles in my yaris hybrid. The mpg has improved but only by a fraction. I tried every trick in the book & once achieved 65.7 mpg but the average is 53.8mpg. It was more of a chore than a pleasure to drive the car to achieve this mpg. A car should not be chore to drive to get the fictitious mpg bandied about by the show rooms. If it was built to get high end mpg, then it should do it with no effort at all. The car should get 80+mpg easily if that is their claim. Or do you take it to the ridiculous extremes & ask your passengers to get out & push it for a few hundred miles just to try & prove toyota's claim???? In my opinion, the car is a sales gimmick as any fuel you save is used to recharge the batteries. As I've said before, I bet if you removed the batteries & electric motor, you would reduce the weight of the car significantly & the petrol engine would probably achieve at least the same average mpg for these cars if not more.

It all depends on how you use the car. I am now retired, do less than 5,000 miles per year with a lot of short journeys from cold and have just bought a Yaris Excel Hybrid to replace my 4 year old Fiesta 1.4 Titanium Automatic.

The Fiesta is a great car as everyone knows but my average fuel consumption for this sort of use was in the region of 26mpg. OK on a decent run it could get close to the combined 42.8mpg manufacturer's figure but in my real world it was 26mpg.

Since picking up the Yaris at the end of October my average fuel consumption is showing 52mpg - double the Fiesta's mileage per gallon. With less than 100 miles on the clock it was up to 58mpg on a 30 mile run out to Derbyshire. This is way better than anything I have ever owned previously. The closest contender was a Honda Jazz 1.4 CVT auto which could do around 33mpg in constant short journey town use and 42-47 on longer runs.

I am not really bothered about the manufacturer's figures, or comparing what a diesel could do as both are irrelevant to me in doing such a low mileage. I don't think there is much else out there that is as quiet and as good to drive with such genuinely low running costs.

[Cyker]

Is there any info on these new mpg tests?

If it's purely on a treadmill and there is no provision for simulating air resistance, load and gradients, then it'll be just as inaccurate as it is at the moment.

The HSDs with the smaller engines suffer because, although the engines are highly efficient on paper, they just don't have the torque, so as soon as some resistive load is put on them they have to spin up to higher RPMs than a D4D or even regular VVTi would to deliver the same torque. The current tests don't really account for that which is why the real world figures differ from the rated figures so much.

This is why it's important to drive them within the torque limit of the electric motor as much as possible, and to keep a decent amount of charge in the Battery as much as possible, to get the best mpg figures.

The Yaris D4Ds have been closer to their rated figures precisely because they have the torque to overcome air distance, gradients etc. without having to run at higher revs.

(I do love how mine can go up hills at 1000-1500rpm, esp. after the Aygo rental I had once needed 2500-3000 to do the same hill! )

The HSDs aren't actually that efficient in terms of power delivery, but they are excellent at energy recovery and conservation. If you can keep the HSD rolling as much as possible, with as little acceleration and braking as you can get away with, that's when they do really well.

I suspect that when the HSD's ICE is doing the accelerating, you're better off getting most of your acceleration phase over quite briskly, then coasting as much as possible (HSDs beat near-everything for zero-fuel extended low-friction coasting!). I know I find that accelerating my D4D to my desired speed earlier, then sticking it in 4th/5th and coasting as long as possible, nets me noticeably better mpg than gentle acceleration.

However, in Battery mode you have to accelerate quite gently to avoid triggering the ICE, so it might be a bit of a balancing act!

[Not Happy]

Frostyballs, from all the negative reviews on other websites about the yaris hybrid & looking at some of the other posts on this thread, I am aware & have been for some time now that you won't get the top mpg figures that are advertised however, this is misleading to the people like myself who bought this type of car hoping that it would get at least somewhere near their claims. The huge disappointment is, that it doesn't even come close. Had I known the truth at the time, I wouldn't have bought it. It should be made clear at the time before you buy a yaris hybrid or any other vehicle, that the claimed mpg isn't a reality. I had a cavalier 2 litre SRI 8 valve back in the 1980's that achieved nearly 40 mpg on a long run so compared to that in my opinion, the yaris hybrid is very sadly lacking considering that technology in car manufacturing has moved on. As I have already said, you shouldn't need to drive a car with kid gloves to get it to do or get near the claimed mpg. You're right, this has been already covered & has been done to death but I don't think that the growing disappointment in this car will stop.

[SK100]

Is there any info on these new mpg tests?

If it's purely on a treadmill and there is no provision for simulating air resistance, load and gradients, then it'll be just as inaccurate as it is at the moment.

The HSDs with the smaller engines suffer because, although the engines are highly efficient on paper, they just don't have the torque, so as soon as some resistive load is put on them they have to spin up to higher RPMs than a D4D or even regular VVTi would to deliver the same torque. The current tests don't really account for that which is why the real world figures differ from the rated figures so much.

This is why it's important to drive them within the torque limit of the electric motor as much as possible, and to keep a decent amount of charge in the battery as much as possible, to get the best mpg figures.

The Yaris D4Ds have been closer to their rated figures precisely because they have the torque to overcome air distance, gradients etc. without having to run at higher revs.

(I do love how mine can go up hills at 1000-1500rpm, esp. after the Aygo rental I had once needed 2500-3000 to do the same hill! )

The HSDs aren't actually that efficient in terms of power delivery, but they are excellent at energy recovery and conservation. If you can keep the HSD rolling as much as possible, with as little acceleration and braking as you can get away with, that's when they do really well.

I suspect that when the HSD's ICE is doing the accelerating, you're better off getting most of your acceleration phase over quite briskly, then coasting as much as possible (HSDs beat near-everything for zero-fuel extended low-friction coasting!). I know I find that accelerating my D4D to my desired speed earlier, then sticking it in 4th/5th and coasting as long as possible, nets me noticeably better mpg than gentle acceleration.

However, in battery mode you have to accelerate quite gently to avoid triggering the ICE, so it might be a bit of a balancing act!

The new WLTP test hasn't yet been finalised but if you're really interested, you can find out more about it in the document at this link:

http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/doc/2014/wp29grpe/GRPE-68-03e.pdf

I carry out work on this and other related topics and my company has been involved in some of the technical discussions with car manufacturers and policymakers on the development of the replacement test. The new test will still be carried out on a rolling road (chassis dynamometer), but that isn't the source of the problems with the current test. The chassis dyno helps to ensure that each test is repeatable and reproducible for comparison purposes. The main problems with the current test are that the driving conditions used are completely unrepresentative of real-world conditions. For example, part of the current test includes an acceleration phase where the car has to be accelerated from 0 to 32 km/h in 12 seconds. Now, if you've ever tried to do this, it's actually very hard to accelerate that slowly in the real world (and this is part of the reason why hybrids do so well under the NEDC - all of that acceleration can be achieved using only the battery). The high speed section of the test consists of driving at 120 km/h (75 mph) for just 10 seconds! The test also includes a lot of idling time (much more than happens in the real world), which is another reason why hybrids do so well in the test (as do cars with stop/start technology). There are also many "flexibilities" (i.e. loopholes) that have been legally exploited by the manufacturers. for example, the weights used on the chassis dyno to represent the vehicle's mass and its impacts on driving resistance do not have to be exactly the same as the actual mass of the vehicle - they can be significantly lower! There are many other flexibilities of this nature.

The new test will remove the flexibilities/loopholes currently available to manufacturers and will also be based on a much more realistic drive cycle, so it should give more representative fuel consumption figures. However, it can never be perfect as we all drive in slightly different ways.

[FROSTYBALLS]

Frostyballs, from all the negative reviews on other websites about the yaris hybrid & looking at some of the other posts on this thread, I am aware & have been for some time now that you won't get the top mpg figures that are advertised however, this is misleading to the people like myself who bought this type of car hoping that it would get at least somewhere near their claims. The huge disappointment is, that it doesn't even come close. Had I known the truth at the time, I wouldn't have bought it. It should be made clear at the time before you buy a yaris hybrid or any other vehicle, that the claimed mpg isn't a reality. I had a cavalier 2 litre SRI 8 valve back in the 1980's that achieved nearly 40 mpg on a long run so compared to that in my opinion, the yaris hybrid is very sadly lacking considering that technology in car manufacturing has moved on. As I have already said, you shouldn't need to drive a car with kid gloves to get it to do or get near the claimed mpg. You're right, this has been already covered & has been done to death but I don't think that the growing disappointment in this car will stop.

What people have been trying to tell you is that, no matter what new car you purchase nowadays, the only figures that legislation allows manufacturers and dealers to quote, on a comparative basis, are the EU fuel consumption test figures. One may be told that 'a vehicle will do 80mpg', but that doesn't apply in the real world. Commonly, depending on the car, the EU test figures are between 15-25% more generous than the consumption that owners can expect.

As regards comparing your Yaris to your Cavalier SRi, it is like comparing apples and pears. Firstly the Cavalier had a kerb weight of around 1050kg, which was lighter than the Yaris - between 1085 and 1160kg depending on spec. The Cavalier was only slightly more powerful at 115bhp, compared to the Yaris at 98bhp. I would also presume the Cavalier was manual rather than automatic. So given that information, I would be disappointed if the Cavalier wasn't capable of 40mpg on a run.

If you want someone to blame, blame the EU!

[Parts-King]

. Had I known the truth at the time, I wouldn't have bought it. It should be made clear at the time before you buy a yaris hybrid or any other vehicle, that the claimed mpg isn't a reality.

The information is available on every single website and brochure, there is a standard piece of information literally everywhere that says the following

The combined figures quoted are sourced from official EU-regulated test results obtained through laboratory testing. These are provided for comparability purposes and may not reflect your actual driving experience.

[Cyker]

@SK100

Phew, heavy reading but some good info!

I knew some of the details of the current test but didn't realise how daft it actually is! No wonder there is such variation between rated and real world mpg!

One potential issue if those new mpg ratings become standard is you'll end up with older vehicles having higher mpg ratings than newer ones which may make comparison tricky!

Hey, do you think you can sneak in a 'boy racer' mpg rating that simulates a boy racer going for a hoon on a country road?

[SK100]

@SK100

Phew, heavy reading but some good info!

I knew some of the details of the current test but didn't realise how daft it actually is! No wonder there is such variation between rated and real world mpg!

One potential issue if those new mpg ratings become standard is you'll end up with older vehicles having higher mpg ratings than newer ones which may make comparison tricky!

Hey, do you think you can sneak in a 'boy racer' mpg rating that simulates a boy racer going for a hoon on a country road?

Thanks - re the issue of comparing old and new vehicles once the new test comes in, that's a problem our company has been asked to look into by the European Commission. Essentially, we've been tasked with developing a way of translating the old test results into estimates for the new test so that in the future, consumers will be able to compare older and newer vehicles. This is far from straightforward as different vehicle technologies and vehicle designs act very differently under the two test procedures. I think it will take quite a while before it all gets sorted out with a way of converting from one test to the other that the car industry is happy with.

I'll have to look into a new "boy racer" MPG rating - it's got to be one to add to the extra-urban test cycle :D

[Madasafish]

Those unhappy with Yaris mpg may wish to consider:

Fiesta 1.0 65.7mpg , vs 46.2 real

http://www.whatcar.com/truempg/my-true-mpg

It's all on this wonderful new invention called the internet which enables you to research before you buy :-)

[Not Happy]

Frostyballs, from all the negative reviews on other websites about the yaris hybrid & looking at some of the other posts on this thread, I am aware & have been for some time now that you won't get the top mpg figures that are advertised however, this is misleading to the people like myself who bought this type of car hoping that it would get at least somewhere near their claims. The huge disappointment is, that it doesn't even come close. Had I known the truth at the time, I wouldn't have bought it. It should be made clear at the time before you buy a yaris hybrid or any other vehicle, that the claimed mpg isn't a reality. I had a cavalier 2 litre SRI 8 valve back in the 1980's that achieved nearly 40 mpg on a long run so compared to that in my opinion, the yaris hybrid is very sadly lacking considering that technology in car manufacturing has moved on. As I have already said, you shouldn't need to drive a car with kid gloves to get it to do or get near the claimed mpg. You're right, this has been already covered & has been done to death but I don't think that the growing disappointment in this car will stop.

What people have been trying to tell you is that, no matter what new car you purchase nowadays, the only figures that legislation allows manufacturers and dealers to quote, on a comparative basis, are the EU fuel consumption test figures. One may be told that 'a vehicle will do 80mpg', but that doesn't apply in the real world. Commonly, depending on the car, the EU test figures are between 15-25% more generous than the consumption that owners can expect.

As regards comparing your Yaris to your Cavalier SRi, it is like comparing apples and pears. Firstly the Cavalier had a kerb weight of around 1050kg, which was lighter than the Yaris - between 1085 and 1160kg depending on spec. The Cavalier was only slightly more powerful at 115bhp, compared to the Yaris at 98bhp. I would also presume the Cavalier was manual rather than automatic. So given that information, I would be disappointed if the Cavalier wasn't capable of 40mpg on a run.

If you want someone to blame, blame the EU!

[Not Happy]

As I said, I do understand that the mpg figutes are inaccurate after reading all the reviews & other info but my point is, it's all too late once you've bought the car no matter who's to blame. When I bought the car there was very little info to be found as it was an upgraded model for 2014. And regarding the SRI, it looks like Vauxhall new what they were doing if they could produce a lighter 2 litre car that doesn't roar it's head off going up a steep hill in the 1980's with nearly the same mpg return as a 1.5 hybrid does today???

[FROSTYBALLS]

The information would still have been available before the car was bought - legislation dictates that.

Of course the Trend Hybrid is less economical and produces higher CO2 emissions than the Active Hybrid and the Icon Plus Hybrid - due mainly to the larger wheels. The combined cycle for the Active/Icon Plus Hybrid is 81mpg, whereas for the Trend it is 76.3mpg.

As good as Opel's design is, the Cavalier didn't have most of the safety systems that current cars do - both active and passive - which is the main reason for the increased weight of today's cars. Using your own figures, you're still achieving around 30% better fuel consumption in the Yaris compared to the Cavalier.

[Not Happy]

The information would still have been available before the car was bought - legislation dictates that.

Of course the Trend Hybrid is less economical and produces higher CO2 emissions than the Active Hybrid and the Icon Plus Hybrid - due mainly to the larger wheels. The combined cycle for the Active/Icon Plus Hybrid is 81mpg, whereas for the Trend it is 76.3mpg.

As good as Opel's design is, the Cavalier didn't have most of the safety systems that current cars do - both active and passive - which is the main reason for the increased weight of today's cars. Using your own figures, you're still achieving around 30% better fuel consumption in the Yaris compared to the Cavalier.

[Not Happy]

But we are talking about a car built in the 1980's v a car developed & built in 2000 onwards. No matter how you slice it & dice it, the actual concept of a hybrid car is that it's supposed to be more economical than a standard car of equivalent engine size etc which the yaris is most definitely not or at least mine isn't.