One Year In A Yaris Hybrid

[Alan_B]

This is what you get in a Yaris; very different format:

HSI.jpg

As PeteB has said its actually exactly the same, same number of segments, and will I suspect behave exactly the same.

I did say the format was different, the information reported must be broadly the same. The Yaris gauge has three segments of 'Charge', six segments of 'Eco' and four segments of'Power'; that's a lot more gradations than I can see on the Prius gauge picture.

I've been watching the monitors to see when I achieve good and bad mileage. At the moment (warm October weather) I easily achieve well-above 50 mpg on short journeys. My problem is that I don't achieve much better mileage on the long journeys so the average stays quite low. Roads are busy round here so I can tuck-in behind a lorry and drive at 60 on the motorway but there is scant opportunity to drive slower without being antisocial. I get the impression those who achieve the really high mpg figures are driving at 50 mph over long distances and I don't get the opportunity to do that.

[PeteB]

...At the moment (warm October weather) I easily achieve well-above 50 mpg on short journeys. My problem is that I don't achieve much better mileage on the long journeys so the average stays quite low. Roads are busy round here so I can tuck-in behind a lorry and drive at 60 on the motorway but there is scant opportunity to drive slower without being antisocial. I get the impression those who achieve the really high mpg figures are driving at 50 mph over long distances and I don't get the opportunity to do that.

I get a displayed figure of over 70 mpg on my T3 Prius on a 120 mile each way trip to Bedfordshire once or twice a month, cruising at 60-65 on the clock and occasionally 70 where permitted. (The gauge generally is 4 mpg optimistic when I do a full tank to full tank calculation though, and of course the speedo overreads by about 8% too).

At higher speeds the Yaris will be helped by being lighter with a smaller petrol engine (1.5 Vs 1.8), but will be seriously impeded by inferior (relatively) aerodynamics.

The only car that beats the Gen 3 Prius T3 (15" wheel) CD of 0.25 (0.27 on the 17" models) is the all-electric Tesla model S 0.24 (helped by needing no air intake for the engine compartment).

The Yaris Hybrid has a CD of 0.286, which may not sound a lot different but it's massive, only slightly better than the original 1997 Gen 1 Prius (0.29). That won't matter much at 30 mph (but still makes some - imagine trying to ride a bicycle at 30 mph, then trying it holding an umbrella!). Head past 50 mph towards 70 mph (or higher!), and it becomes a major factor.

[PeteB]

PS - the latest Nissan Leaf 'only' manages a CD of 0.28 (0.29 original version).

[W1P30UT]

Be interested to hear how the Yaris Hybrid owners have found living with the car in terms of comfort, accommodation, storage space, equipment levels etc...

I've got a new Yaris (MY2015) Hybrid. I drive it into London everyday from Berkshire. My average MPG is about 65, which I am happy with. I drive the car normally trying to show so some sympathy to fuel saving but not "hyper-miling". I've had the car just under two months, and have driven about 4k miles.

Personally I am happy with the comfort of the car. I am particularly appreciative of the good lumber support on the seats, quiet and relaxed cruise through traffic. I find the equipment levels fine, mine as has climate, and particularly like the excellent standard fit Touch2 system and find the sound quality rather good for a car. While the Yaris may not be a sporty car, I find the performance fine in town and adequate on the motorway (does drone if you accelerate hard). It's an excellent commute car if you to travel in to a city. I particularly like it's small size which helps getting through the tight lanes of London. It is also Congestion Charge free for the time which is a real bonus for people who have to commute in to the City of London. The quiet, refined, easy going automatic hybrid drive system is great for the city.

I've owned many news cars from BMW, VW, Skoda and have had problems from new, but cross fingers the Toyota has been snag free.

Very happy with the car.

[Alan_B]

I am absolutely certain my Yaris hybrid cannot achieve reported mpgs of 70 or more at speeds of 60 mph or higher (on a flat road). Obviously you can accelerate for a bit then take your foot off the throttle and you'll see high readings whilst you are gliding and slowly decelerating but you cannot maintain any consistent speed of 60 or greater and get anything close to a reported 70 mpg. Nor can you do much better by any sort of pulse-and-glide driving; the minute-by-minute average figures do not reach 70 mpg.

On the other hand, when there are speed restrictions or very dense traffic so I'm driving at around 50 mph then the reported mpg might be 75 on average. But I have never been very long in these conditions, not more than about 15 minutes at most, so I don't know if the car will keep it up.

[CPN]

I would absolutely concur with that Alan. We have had our new Yaris Hybrid now (2015 refresh) for just 11 days and even though there is only 390 miles on the clock, it has quickly become obvious that the official test figures are just a "pipe dream" in the real world! In no way am I disappointed though with the actual consumption figures we are getting at the moment. Our first fill-up (neck to neck calculated) gave us 52.96 mpg for a mix of short journeys and 1 long trip. The dash computer is currently showing an Average of 51.8 mpg (just 1 long trip since fill-up and a couple of shopping shorts) so it's looking consistent at least.

One thing which has been a revelation is that this Hybrid seems to return better figures for short journeys than long and actually, that suits us down to the ground because that fits with our driving habits just now. I am SO pleased with this car! It is so restful and comfortable to drive and thank goodness I didn't have to go down the diesel route to get the same kind of consumption figures (I have yet to hear a diesel car that does not sound like a tractor at some point!) and suffer the "great diesel price UK rip-off" into the bargain!!

Colin

[Grumpy Cabbie]

Welcome to the forum Colin. If you're getting better mpg's on shorter runs than long then you are doing something wrong - meant in a nice way. The opposite is true. On a short run I will get about 50 mpg as an average minimum. On a longer run anything from mid 50's to mid 70's depending on road, the run, the traffic and importantly the weather.

To get the best out of a hybrid takes time to understand the car. You don't have to try and drive ANY differently. See the various posts either in this thread or others about not trying to 'fool' the car.

Once you get to know the car better your mpg's will rise, as they will as the car gets run in. I started at about 50 mpg average at first and now if I get less than 55 mpg driving hard I am upset. You will be able to get good mpg figures with time.

[CPN]

I'm sure I will. ... and I did find it a bit of a strange concept that shorter runs would give better mpg... Even in the short time I've had it, I'm learning rapidly that it's best to drive it normally rather than keep trying to drive it "differently" based on the fact that it's a hybrid. I'm sure my figures will improve given time...

[Alan_B]

On short journeys I will spend a large proportion of the time in EV mode. Suppose I average 36 mpg whilst driving on petrol but travel 1/3 of the distance in EV mode; my overall average would be 54 mpg.

On the other hand if I drive a long distance at 70 mph I would not achieve better than 54 mpg. Not in the Yaris! I could achieve a lot better than this but only by driving more slowly!

So, Colin, I don't think you are doing anything wrong except probably driving 'too fast' on the long journeys.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

If you actually mean EV mode where you physically select EV by pressing a button, then you are doing the absolutely worst thing for economy.

There are many posts on this so I won't explain here. The hybrid is a petrol car with electric assistance. It is not an electric car. The EV mode is for short distances like reversing out of your garage onto your drive without the engine coming on. Anything more will significantly affect mpg's, and I mean significantly.

If you mean you try to keep the car in electric by not accelerating as quickly as you normally would or not keeping up with traffic, then this again will sap charge from the HV Battery which normally is put back in my the car running the engine longer than it would, causing a drop in fuel economy.

There are also unintended counter intuitive consequences too as explained previously where the warm up sequences are explained.

Then by pushing swings of charge/discharge from your HV Battery will reduce the life of the HV Battery. Not by a lot, but it depends how often you do it.

[Alan_B]

The Yaris Hybrid has three mutually exclusive modes of operation, normal, Eco and EV. I believe there is also a Power mode in the Prius but the Yaris does not have that. The buttons for Eco and EV are under the hand brake so hard to find, reducing temptation to fiddle. Personally, apart from once or twice to see what it did, I have never used the EV button.

However if you have more than two bars worth of charge in the Battery, drive at under about 40 mph and keep the 'revs' in the first three segments of the Eco section (Eco has six segments on the Yaris gauge) then the electric motor will take over (once the petrol engine is warmed-up). At that point the EV light on the dashboard comes on (whether you want it to or not). That's what I meant. On my short journeys the car automatically engages the electric motor for roughly one third of the total distance.

Eco changes the characteristics of the accelerator pedal so you have to press down harder to achieve the same amount of revs and it also runs the Air Conditioning more economically when that is on. If you want to achieve rapid acceleration you will compensate and put your foot down harder so outside of hot summer days I doubt that it makes much difference to fuel economy.

[Alan_B]

I drove home tonight and after I stopped the car I took a photograph of the mpg figures for the last 15 minutes of the journey (total journey time about 25 minutes). Reading from left to right, the first minute is gliding down a steep hill so no petrol used. I then pull away from the lights, turn on to the motorway and accelerate up to speed so the mpg is well below 50. I reach my intended speed of 60 mph (indicated on the speedo.) and drive on the motorway at roughly that speed for 11 minutes. It's fairly flat but not completely, so I get between around 55 and 76 mpg minute-by-minute. I would estimate that the average is somewhere between 60 & 65 mpg. In the final few minutes I leave the motorway and drive home at the 30 mph limit so the petrol engine turns itself off.

Thus by limiting my speed to 60 mph instead of 70 I can get what looks to be a respectable mpg but not close to the really good mpg figures that some others achieve. Perhaps the Prius is just capable of better?

[MEP's Yaris GS]

I drove home tonight and after I stopped the car I took a photograph of the mpg figures for the last 15 minutes of the journey (total journey time about 25 minutes). Reading from left to right, the first minute is gliding down a steep hill so no petrol used. I then pull away from the lights, turn on to the motorway and accelerate up to speed so the mpg is well below 50. I reach my intended speed of 60 mph (indicated on the speedo.) and drive on the motorway at roughly that speed for 11 minutes. It's fairly flat but not completely, so I get between around 55 and 76 mpg minute-by-minute. I would estimate that the average is somewhere between 60 & 65 mpg. In the final few minutes I leave the motorway and drive home at the 30 mph limit so the petrol engine turns itself off.

Thus by limiting my speed to 60 mph instead of 70 I can get what looks to be a respectable mpg but not close to the really good mpg figures that some others achieve. Perhaps the Prius is just capable of better?

How quickly did you get up to speed on the motorway?

[Alan_B]

It was quite a long downhill ramp onto the motorway; someone was approaching in the inside lane and did not want to pull out so I joined the motorway at about 65 mph to get safely in front of them. I then relaxed my foot on the accelerator and went gently down to 60 mph. So that was 0 to 65 mph in about 300m but I've no idea how long it took. I was probably near the top of the Eco range for most of the time then a quick burst of Pwr for safety followed by somewhere in the fourth of the six Eco segments as I took the car back down to sixty. You have to be somewhere in this segment to achieve the best mileage figures. Anything less and you won't maintain your speed at speed.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

I drove home tonight and after I stopped the car I took a photograph of the mpg figures for the last 15 minutes of the journey (total journey time about 25 minutes). Reading from left to right, the first minute is gliding down a steep hill so no petrol used.

With practice you'll be able to achieve that over half an hour. Seriously

This is the display from my Prius which is similar to yours. Each bar is a 5 minute average over 21 miles/30 minutes at a speed of about 45/50 (50 mph displayed speed) mph on a flat A road. Not trying to demean you but just show that with practice you'll be able to improve on where you're at now.

[Alan_B]

I know I would do significantly better MPG driving at 50 but on a busy motorway that seems decidedly antisocial. I'm not blessed with a regular journey along a flat A-road.

Does the Prius display really just show MPG in 25 mpg increments?

You would not like to 'test-drive' a Yaris Hybrid would you, Grumpy Cabbie? I would be really interested to know if, as an experienced Prius driver, you can achieve the same MPG in a Yaris?

[Grumpy Cabbie]

That particular screen shot of mine shows 25 mpg segments, as did the previous picture from the Yaris. There is also a sliding scale showing instantaneous mpg's and the option to change the screen from 5 minute averages over 30 mins to 1 minute averages over 15 mins.

You know what, I'd actually be very curious what the Yaris hsd would do with me behind the wheel. I'm absolutely definitely not a hyper-miler as I just couldn't be bothered with all that pulse and glide stuff. I just take it steady. I never use Eco mode on a run, but do round town once the car is warmed up. It really is just down to taking it steady.

The easiest way to tell if your car is capable of the high mpg's is to drive through motorway roadworks at 50 mph - the ones with the average speed cameras to slow everyone down. The roadworks are usually over a reasonable distance and if you reset your reading as you head into them and then see what the average is over that period. My car shows 90/100 mpg average on that type of run when fully warmed up. (it's the early morning warm ups that kill mpg averages). If you get something over 75+ mpg then your car sounds ok, but if it's 55/60 mpg then hmmm.

[PeteB]

...You would not like to 'test-drive' a Yaris Hybrid would you, Grumpy Cabbie? I would be really interested to know if, as an experienced Prius driver, you can achieve the same MPG in a Yaris?

This is an extract from a write-up I did on another site after a test drive in an early Yaris Hybrid

I liked the hybrid system a lot, but was expecting better mpg than I got, given this is a 12 year newer design than my old "Classic" Prius, and with better aerodynamics. I know I only did just over 31 miles in 2 hours or so, and worked the A/C a bit, but I was in ECO mode for almost all the time and got 58 mpg on the computer – I'm sure I'd have got about 55-60 on the computer on my old Mk1 over the same journey and conditions (I wonder what a T-Spirit with its monster wheels would achieve!). It would have to get nearer to 75-80 mpg to make sense for me, especially as they've shrunk the fuel tank to just 7.9 gallons. One of the many things I loved about my Classic was its 500-600 mile usable range.

[bTW: those 16" wheels on the T-Spirit turn a great 30 foot turning circle into a 36 foot one!]

Originally, the Yaris Hybrid came in T3, T4 and T-Spirit trim levels, with compulsory 16" wheels on the T-Spirit which slugged the CO2 and mpg figures.

In the end, I bought a Gen 3½ Prius - I really wanted a Yaris sized car but they'd removed the best bits of the previous 14 years of Yaris (brilliant central digital instruments, lots of oddments space, sliding rear seats, good rear headroom) and failed to add things like electric folding mirrors. Plus the tinny clicker for the indicators, which doesn't seem to bother anyone else, would drive me insane!

FWIIW I don't think a Yaris could match the 70 ish mpg I get on 60-70 mph 120 mile each way trips, as I think the better aerodynamics of the Gen 3 Prius (on 15" wheels) makes a big difference. I get similar figures on longer journeys through the local villages, which again I doubt the Yaris would match.

WIth many short journeys, I'm generally getting calculated tank mpg of 58-64½ (display is 3½-4 mpg optimistic), with just under 500 to 535 miles per tank. Pretty happy with that. With fewer very short journeys now, the overall average is increasing every time I fill up.

When the 2nd generation Prius arrived in 2004, many on the discussion groups anticipated that within 10 years we'd be able to buy a Yaris size car with realistic 100 mph plus tank to tank capability - but then in the 1970s, many of us though that in this century we'd all have flying cars!

[Alan_B]

That particular screen shot of mine shows 25 mpg segments, as did the previous picture from the Yaris.

No, my previous picture showed 25 mpg markers but the actual readings are not segmented so all the bars have different heights. Your bars seemed to show either 75 mpg or 100 mpg; I could be mistaken as the image is quite small.

When I drive at 50 mph on motorways most minute-by-minute readings exceed the 75 mpg marker. I have not tried resetting the average counter as I enter the roadworks - that's a good idea. Please do consider testing a Yaris hybrid, Grumpy Cabbie. It's a pity some motoring magazine hasn't done a side-by-side comparison of different hybrids so we know how they compare.

I would like to think that by 2024 all new cars will be plug-in hybrids (if not fully electric) but it won't happen.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

No the gauge isn't in 25 mph increments. They vary to the resolution of the dot matrix type display. It's just on that picture (which was full size when I posted it) I was at 98/100 mpg all the way other than the first 5 minutes of the journey where it was about 85 mpg.

The little blobs at the bottom of some of the columns is the amount of regen captured - which was hardly anything, so I'm guessing the car was running in that elusive 'super highway mode'.

http://priuschat.com/photos/dsc01478-jpg.11103/view-image#axzz3Gy53kdE3

That MIGHT be in full resolution.

[W1P30UT]

I got 71mpg the other morning during rush hour into London on my MY2015 just been careful to watch the flow of traffic and drive smoothly. Still kept with the flow of traffic. Short of the official, but still impressive.

[Alan_B]

No offence, Nigel, but my point to this topic was not to say how well I have done in a single journey but to report the mpg figures for a full year. You can see figures like that for the Prius here <href="http://www.fuelly.com/car/toyota/prius>

To my mind those numbers aren't that impressive. But I have not found any similar information on the Yaris Hybrid elsewhere.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

Well it depends over what distance he got 71 mpg. If it was 3 miles then yes, it's not impressive other than for his personal best. If it was over 20 miles then yes it's not bad and showing what the car is capable of. With a bit more tuning of his technique he could up that from 70 to 80 or 90 mpg.

But I don't think we should pooh pooh anyone for their mpg achievements as encouragement is the best way to help them achieve more.

[RunningInPleasePass]

I think the Prius is the best for MPG in the Toyota Hybrid range, I suspect it's down to aerodynamics, it has less wind noise on motorways then my Auris.

The Auris and Yaris Hybrids are just the standard car with a Hybrid drive, the Prius was designed for the hybrid drive and fuel efficiency.

I had a Prius on loan to me while my Auris was in dock for 3 weeks, I drove it just the same as my Auris, and I averaged over 65 MPG on about 6 tank fulls, that's about 10% better then the Auris!

Most of my miles are on motorways and fast A roads, and I drive it like any other car, never use ECO, and only use PWR for the occasional overtaking manoeuvre.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

I think the Prius is the best for MPG in the Toyota Hybrid range, I suspect it's down to aerodynamics, it has less wind noise on motorways then my Auris.

The Auris and Yaris Hybrids are just the standard car with a Hybrid drive, the Prius was designed for the hybrid drive and fuel efficiency.

I had a Prius on loan to me while my Auris was in dock for 3 weeks, I drove it just the same as my Auris, and I averaged over 65 MPG on about 6 tank fulls, that's about 10% better then the Auris!

But the official line is that the Prius is the LEAST efficient. Just shows what rubbish the ratings are. I think the aerodynamics is the key to the Prius economy. With good LRR tyres it just glides along at 60 mph.