What's Your Touring Sports Hybrid Mpg?

[Nicolai]

I constantly try to maximize my MPG (avoid power zone, tires inflated to ECO level, anticipate, regenerate as much as possible and stay in EV as much as possible).

With the summer, MPG has increased but my best recorded average for a tank MPG (I started recording my fuelups last October) so far has been 61.69.

From reading about Prius owners' experiences with MPG, still a long way to go.

One of my problems is I tend to stay in Battery mode to the point of depletion, although with my more regenerative braking style, depletion has become less of an issue.

I know a lot of guys say to just let the car do the stuff for you but when I have tried to ignore the Battery charge level and just drive it like a normal car, the MPG is normally not better- actually, it's normally worse by 3-6 mpg.

I know traffic has a lot to do with it, and, tbh, I have found a fairly economical route when driving my wife to her job place. Going from home and there- if I do my utmost to maximize MPG, I have seen an (indicated) 67 MPG. Going there means a bit of uphill driving but not much in comparison to the landscapes in the UK, I would think.

Going home through the same route, there's a bit of descending which of course helps and when at home, I have seen an indicated 90 MPG).

Speed limit is 30 mph, 35 mph. and 50 mph for short periods of time. I normally drive 45 mph ion the 50 mph zones as they are quite short and followed by another 30 or 35 zone.

Sometimes I use aircon, sometimes I don't.

I try to be consistent in filling up: normally the OBC is positive by 2.5 mpg but it has varied to as much as 4.2 mpg some times.

Car has done 8,000 miles. Is it still breaking it?

Thanks.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

I constantly try to maximize my MPG (avoid power zone, tires inflated to ECO level, anticipate, regenerate as much as possible and stay in EV as much as possible).

One of my problems is I tend to stay in battery mode to the point of depletion, although with my more regenerative braking style, depletion has become less of an issue.

I know a lot of guys say to just let the car do the stuff for you but when I have tried to ignore the battery charge level and just drive it like a normal car, the MPG is normally not better- actually, it's normally worse by 3-6 mpg.

Thanks.

'Forcing' the car to keep in electric longer is detrimental to best fuel economy. The engine will have to work harder later on to put back the energy taken from the Battery (unless you happen across a long downward stretch of road). I'm no physicist but there are losses at each stage - putting power into the Battery, storing it there and then taking it out.

The same applies to those who deplete the HV Battery by forcing the car into electric before they park up for the evening as they believe the car will fully charge the HV battery up when on cold start the next morning. As shown on a recent thread showing breakdown of the warm up stages, the car will actually run entirely off the HV electric for a short while to gain best efficiency and emissions. If the battery is low, then this stage is bypassed and economy will drop.

There are some serious, competition winning hypermilers on the US forum who get economies out of the Prius or hybrid that you and I could only dream of. They say try not to EVER use the electric side, rather run the engine and allow the electric just to provide assistance and that way you will get the best mpg's. (It's actually very similar to how the Honda hybrid system works). After all, the Prius or Toyota HSD isn't an electric car, it's a petrol car with electric assistance.

I've had my Prius 5 years now and when I started I too tried to encourage the car to stay in electric; 1, because it's fun and 2, because I thought I was getting best economy. Once I learnt otherwise and just let the car do it's stuff, I went from mid 50's at best to over 70's mpg at best.

But no matter how often myself or other longer term owners say this, people still try to encourage staying in electric thinking it gets best economy. It doesn't, but it's your car so you do what you want ;)

[korat102]

Your fuel consumption will depend on the sort of roads you're on as well as your right foot. In 9 years of ownership, I was never able to get get my 2nd gen Prius above the mid 60's and most of the time it was in the upper 50's.

I blame Milton Keynes myself, they have a strange love of roundabouts around here and you can never get a good long run going before you have to slow right down or, more frequently, stop since they have recently started putting traffic lights on the damn things as well.

[Nicolai]

It's a bit difficult, however, I have found a "sweet spot" on the accelerator giving an instant mpg of around 80. This way, not much electricity will be drawn from the HV Battery.

I have just returned from driving my wife to work via the route that I have written above: Parking at an grocery store close to her job place, the car indicated 75 MPG. Driving home via the same route, parking in my driveway, the car indicated 89 mpg with the HV being approximately half full. So, some times I can get it right, seems. The commute is around 10 miles each way.

Not using the electric side at all: the accelerator is VERY sensitive to small adjustments- even in eco mode. And when getting an instant 80 mpg from the ICE, there's almost no torque. As soon as you have to accelerate a little, the instant MPG drops drastically (and I DO try to accelerate slowly and steady- which is quite alright and possible sometimes, but with cars behind you, you cannot be too slow getting up to speed either.

Do you have a link for the US forum?

I guess my 10 mile commute shows that the car can do great (I can use the electric side quite a bit and then recharge going downhill before a roundabout etc.) The problem seems to be getting an average awesome mpg on a full tank. As I said 61.7 MPG on a full tank is my best so far. Was hoping to do 65 on average in the summer.

I still blame that !Removed! 38 mpg average I got on one tank in the winter (winter tires, loads of warm ups, mirror and wind screen heating -is this what you guys call parking heating? I have no device to "pre heat the car" in the morning -, removal of snow, cold starts etc).

[cuius]

From the manual (albeit the US one):

"Fuel economy

Your Toyota is designed to achieve the best possible fuel economy during

normal driving (using the gasoline engine and electric motor [traction

motor]). Driving in EV-Drive Mode more than necessary may lower fuel

economy."

[Nicolai]

Well, if I ignore everything the car does, my mpg is lower....

During normal driving: You still have to consider the hybrid stuff here: very slow acceleration, regenerating, no PWR etc.

When I drive normally without giving thought to the HDSD, I don't see the arrow floating from HV to the wheels.

Edited July 7, 2014 by Nicolai

[Grumpy Cabbie]

I drove 84 miles yesterday, some on A roads and some on the motorway where at one point I hit erm, hmmm a certain speed :) whilst putting some distance between me and some k**b in a Mercedes Sprinter van, who I think may have been drifting off to sleep; drifting lanes, 50, then 80, then 60, then 80, then 50. You know the sort. I just wanted him well behind me.

After that journey, including some town driving, parking, 2 x cold start etc, I still returned 74 mpg on my trip which is probably about 71 mpg in reality. This is out of my Prius which has had a hard life, poor old girl.

It's called relaxing, putting some tunes on, relaxing some more and just driving. Not looking at the gauges, trying to outsmart the car etc.

[Joseph D]

Well, if I ignore everything the car does, my mpg is lower....

I hope I don't come across as rude or anything, but if this is the case, you're definitely doing something wrong.

During normal driving: You still have to consider the hybrid stuff here: very slow acceleration, regenerating, no PWR etc.

While there may be some truth to that, what you say leads me to suspect where you're going wrong. You should not be accelerating "very slowly". You should initially accelerate at 20-23 l/100 km easing back to 12-ish until up to speed and ensure you engage the ICE as soon as possible when accelerating. You should find this does not hold anyone up (and could be quicker than some).

Regeneration: You should not be actively trying to regenerate electricity outside of normal decelerating/braking, rather look at it as capturing energy that would otherwise be lost, so try to decelerate from a long distance out, braking lightly if necessary, all the while trying to slow down as little as possible (for traffic lights etc). Traffic density will be the key to how successfully you can do this as people seem to really be put out by you holding them up from screeching to a halt. Also on the subject of regeneration, you should actively be trying to not use electric or regenerate electricity as much as possible, as counter-intruitive as this seems. The short explanation for why this works is that ultimately all energy is produced by the ICE, so the less you have to convert from one form to another the better your fuel efficiency will be.

Along with this and in a similar category, try to glide as much as possible. Gliding is where you are not using any energy at all from any motor (ICE or electric) but just being carried by the car's momentum.

No PWR: Can't comment as I don't have this option.

--

When I drive normally without giving thought to the HSD, I don't see the arrow floating from HV to the wheels.

Not sure exactly what you mean by this as I have different graphics, but I would say do not worry at all about this, just drive the car.

To sum up, the three best things you can do is to anticipate--long far ahead and drive accordingly; accelerate moderately; and glide as much as you can.

Hope that helps.

[Nicolai]

Well getting 90 mpg on the small commute back to home seems ok.

This is the graphic, I'm talking about:

at 34 secs.

I have a similar, smaller graphic like this:

and when I drive normally, just using the ICE the smaller screen very seldom shows arrows floating from Battery to wheels. So I guess, the Hv is not assisting? This would mean lower mpgs.

[korat102]

It's a tricky balancing act. While you'd imagine that using electricity to move the car would save fuel, that 'electricity' has to come from somewhere and that's usually from the ICE - which of course uses fuel.

Unless you're really into hypermiling, I wouldn't be too concerned about what the car's doing. Toyota have done all the work for you; all you have to do is drive the thing. You can help it out by doing pretty much what you'd do in any other car to save fuel, get up to speed briskly (but not thrashing the thing!) then easing off the throttle as much as possible. Brake gently with a view to not having to stop unnecessarily and, otherwise, just enjoy the ride.

When I got my Prius, I had the usual obsession with mpg but I soon realised that there was little I could do to improve things apart from what I mentioned above. Pulse and glide never really worked for me, it's not really a viable option with a roundabout every few hundred yards (roundabouts are a Milton Keynes obsession). Some people have had some success by not using the cruise control on longer journeys, I never found much difference though. In the end, I just stopped obsessing over mpg and enjoyed driving the car. Now I have a Verso and the mpg obsession is back :p

[Fecn]

My Auris does one and only one journey - It does a 46 mile commute around the M25 and then back again. For weekends, or trips to the shops I use a different car. My journey is a mixture of stop/start congested London and congested M25. The best I've got displayed on the ECO-Drive level for this 46-mile journey is 79.9mpg (which validates Toyota's claimed 72.4mpg). Best tank average I've achieved so far (having had the car since November 8th) is 60.671mpg. Auris seems to really hate congestion when it's run out of traction Battery... It is not uncommon for the ECO-drive to display ~20mpg for the first 4 miles of my commute home until I hit some open roads.

Being the saddo that I am, naturally I have spreadsheets and graphs for all of this... if anyone wanted to see a graph :)

[Joseph D]

Well getting 90 mpg on the small commute back to home seems ok.

Indeed it is. However, maintaining this over a tank or even the life average is the key.

and when I drive normally, just using the ICE the smaller screen very seldom shows arrows floating from battery to wheels. So I guess, the Hv is not assisting? This would mean lower mpgs.

No, I would not expect that to mean lower fuel economy (or higher fuel consumption).

Regardless of what your graphic shows you, the car is not normally just driving with the ICE only. There will be a constant interplay of both ICE and electric, especially if the HSD is allowed to maintain the HV charge at around 6 bars.

What I would expect you to see is a constant to-ing and fro-ing to/from the HV Battery. Is this what you see?

[Nicolai]

Your best tank is ever so slightly worse than my personal best so far. My H2+ is claimed to d0 76.3 MPG. I find the mpg for your daily commute very good. I don't remember my car having ever returned such mpg over such a single distance. I write that the 79.9 MPG is the best you have seen. What is the typical mpg for your daily commute? There's quite a difference between 79.9 mpg and your best tank of 60.671 mpg. Thanks for chipping in. It seems it's easier to get great MPGs from a Prius compared to an Auris. The Prius, being optimized with regards to aero dynamics, was of course designed for max MPG. The Auris was not - not to the same extent anyway.

[Nicolai]

Well getting 90 mpg on the small commute back to home seems ok.

Indeed it is. However, maintaining this over a tank or even the life average is the key.

and when I drive normally, just using the ICE the smaller screen very seldom shows arrows floating from battery to wheels. So I guess, the Hv is not assisting? This would mean lower mpgs.

No, I would not expect that to mean lower fuel economy (or higher fuel consumption).

Regardless of what your graphic shows you, the car is not normally just driving with the ICE only. There will be a constant interplay of both ICE and electric, especially if the HSD is allowed to maintain the HV charge at around 6 bars.

What I would expect you to see is a constant to-ing and fro-ing to/from the HV Battery. Is this what you see?

I think it is, because if I look at the center console Toyota Touch screen with the energy graphic, th constant arrows between the HV and theICE are bright green (as shown on photo above). Is the car is charging the HV, the colour is more turquoise /bluish. Sa,e colour as the HV Battery.

This picture explains it well:

Edited July 8, 2014 by Nicolai

[Fecn]

Your best tank is ever so slightly worse than my personal best so far. My H2+ is claimed to d0 76.3 MPG. I find the mpg for your daily commute very good. I don't remember my car having ever returned such mpg over such a single distance. I write that the 79.9 MPG is the best you have seen. What is the typical mpg for your daily commute? There's quite a difference between 79.9 mpg and your best tank of 60.671 mpg. Thanks for chipping in. It seems it's easier to get great MPGs from a Prius compared to an Auris. The Prius, being optimized with regards to aero dynamics, was of course designed for max MPG. The Auris was not - not to the same extent anyway.

The conditions have to be just right for me get figures into 70s.. 14C air temperature (so no aircon on), reasonably steady traffic and me in the mood where I'm happy to just sit and follow a lorry @53mph(GPS speed) all the way. Far more normal for me to get a number from the high 50s to the mid 60s on the dashboard (which given that everything on the Auris overreads by about 10% means low 60s in real life).

Lowest tank average I've had was 45.79mph for my eigth tank for fuel which covered me for the last two weeks of February when the weather was utterly miserable.

[Nicolai]

Just tried ignoring everything on a 4 mile journey. 46.6 MPG indicated!

Edited July 8, 2014 by Nicolai

[korat102]

Ignoring the display doesn't necessarily mean driving the car like Jeremy Clarkson...

[Nicolai]

In no way did I do that. Normal acceleration- never power zone. No heavy foot at all. I'm as different in driving style from Clarkson as is possible!

[Joseph D]

Just tried ignoring everything on a 4 mile journey. 46.6 MPG indicated!

So that is 6.0 l/100 km? I presume your consumption screen is metric.

4 mi (6.4 km) is too short a distance to be meaningful, as you will not have even gone through the warm up cycle. Therefore the consumption is going to be high in any case. You need to do a trip of at least 15 mins before the consumption settles to a reasonable figure.

[Parts-King]

Making assumptions over such a short distance is silly. You need to do it over a far longer period. In shorts bursts we can all get very high (or very low) figures, but you must take a longer view on these things

[Joseph D]

I think it is, because if I look at the center console Toyota Touch screen with the energy graphic, th constant arrows between the HV and theICE are bright green (as shown on photo above). Is the car is charging the HV, the colour is more turquoise /bluish. Same colour as the HV battery.

This picture explains it well:

Yes, this picture says to me the ICE is charging the HV Battery.

[Nicolai]

I think it is, because if I look at the center console Toyota Touch screen with the energy graphic, th constant arrows between the HV and theICE are bright green (as shown on photo above). Is the car is charging the HV, the colour is more turquoise /bluish. Same colour as the HV battery.

This picture explains it well:

Yes, this picture says to me the ICE is charging the HV Battery.

Yeah, but does it also tell you that the HV assists the ICE?

I actually thought the warmup stages would not be needed (or significantly shorter) in the summer time due to the higher temperature. That why I expect to get good MPG. If I am not mistaken I was able to drive in EV without the ICE. So I assumed i had warmed up fully.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

Anyone? :)

[Joseph D]

I think it is, because if I look at the center console Toyota Touch screen with the energy graphic, th constant arrows between the HV and theICE are bright green (as shown on photo above). Is the car is charging the HV, the colour is more turquoise /bluish. Same colour as the HV battery.

This picture explains it well:

Yes, this picture says to me the ICE is charging the HV Battery.

Yeah, but does it also tell you that the HV assists the ICE?

I actually thought the warmup stages would not be needed (or significantly shorter) in the summer time due to the higher temperature. That why I expect to get good MPG. If I am not mistaken I was able to drive in EV without the ICE. So I assumed i had warmed up fully.

My interpretation is no, as it does not show either the ICE or electric driving the wheels. Is the car stationary or moving when this picture was taken?

Energy going from the ICE to drive the wheels would be shown on the leftmost vertical line between the wheels and the energy going from the electric motor to drive the wheels would be shown on the second-from-left 'T'-shaped line between the wheels and electric motor. As both are grey, it tells me no energy is going to the wheels from either source.

If the electric motor was contributing to driving the wheels, I'd expect the line on the right that is green to change direction (and possibly colour) to indicate that the Battery is supplying energy to the electric motor and then also the 'T'-shaped line would also be illuminated.

Further, to get into the situation where the ICE and electric motor work in tandem to drive the wheels, my opinion is that you need to have 3 more bars showing on the Battery graphic. In the state shown above the HSD's priority will be to use some of the energy from the ICE to charge the battery rather than deplete the battery further using electric energy to drive the wheels. You will need to cruise for quite a bit to raise the battery to this level.

Once it reaches that level (of 6+ bars), I'd then expect to see that right-hand line to start alternating between flowing left (driving) then right--possibly changing colour--(charging) constantly once you were in a cruising situation.

It strikes me from the way you are wording your descriptions of how you are driving your car is that you are driving in a manner that actively tries to keep the HSD using electric as much as possible. Once again I will reiterate that, as counter-intutitive as it seems, you have to stop doing this, as it not efficient and will be costing you fuel economy. Instead you should be doing all you can to ensure that battery is at 6 bars and stays there as much as possible. If you need to use the ICE to do this, then do it. You will find, then, that you are driving in a much more normal manner and you do not need to pay particular attention to which motor is driving the wheels, except out of interest.

I hope this helps.

[Joseph D]

I think it is, because if I look at the center console Toyota Touch screen with the energy graphic, th constant arrows between the HV and theICE are bright green (as shown on photo above). Is the car is charging the HV, the colour is more turquoise /bluish. Same colour as the HV battery.

...

Yes, this picture says to me the ICE is charging the HV Battery.

...

I actually thought the warmup stages would not be needed (or significantly shorter) in the summer time due to the higher temperature. That why I expect to get good MPG. If I am not mistaken I was able to drive in EV without the ICE. So I assumed i had warmed up fully.

My understanding of the warm up is that if the ICE temp is still warm enough it will more or less skip to S2 and pass quickly through to S3.

It is possible to use EV and glide in S3a/b, so this does not indicate you are fully warmed up if you can do either of these. The give away clue for me is if I'm gliding and see a low (1.2 - 2.3 l/100 km --- 99.9 mpg) consumption. If I stop then, the motor will continue to run on for 6-12 secs. Once the ICE stops, I'm in S4.

The warm up stages are definitely a lot quicker if you are starting up, short run, shutting down then starting up again close together. Warm up is also affected by the OAT (outside air temperature). If it is particularly cold it can revert back to S3b, if the ICE cools too much while doing a lot of gliding.

HTH.