The usefulness of single-journey data

[Luke717]

Yesterday I drove into and out of central London for the first time this year. It's about a 60-mile trip each way for me on the A4 and M4. Much of the journey on the M4 between J12 at Theale and J3 before the services at Heston is under 50mph or 60mph speed limits due to the huge project to widen that whole stretch to 4 lanes.

On my return journey late afternoon, I was part of the congested rush hour traffic flow that, pre pandemic, would normally see every lane nose to tail with vehicles travelling at 60mph, or faster if anyone got a chance. This is a moving landscape that needs serious attention to what everyone else is doing.

I stopped at the westbound Heston services for a 'refreshment break' and then continued my journey. Nearly all of it was on the M4, so exclusively a motorway journey for over 30 of the 42 total miles for this part, with the traffic flow and speed ebbing and flowing throughout. I find adaptive cruise control not really ideal in these situations as the car tends to slow down/speed up in an over cautious manner in the former and with too much enthusiasm in the latter. In any case, given the extra attention needed on what others are doing, setting cruise control of any type isn't a good idea in my view. You need to be in control not the sensors.

So I drove with caution, keeping to the low speed limit or lower depending on the traffic. A look through the metrics in the My T app for this journey showed my average speed at 47mph. That looks about right: actual speeds of 50mph or less for the journey between J3 at Heston and J8/9 at Maidenhead, and then 60mph or less from J8/9 to J12 at Theale.

The screenshot shows fuel consumption of 68.2mpg, much better than I expected - I was thinking it might be in the low 60s, even high 50s. Perhaps that thinking is influenced by typical use on a motorway with generally higher travel speed with ACC in constant use, perhaps with some liberal acceleration here and there to get past bunches of slow traffic.

It also shows that 39% of the journey was in EV mode, so using the Battery. That's in line with my expectation. (Related: on my inbound journey earlier, driving in central London in very heavy and very slow stop/start traffic, EV use was 80% with mpg at 57.3 according to My T. A good scene-setter for pure EV in my future!)

Either way, I find journey data like this really useful to understand better the capabilities of this hybrid car in tandem with my own driving behaviours and how I can improve it further. This isn't about mpg but overall behaviour.

As a final note, the overall average info you see on your dashboard is also useful (for me, it's currently showing 62.2 mpg). But I find individual journey data even more useful.

How do you see it all?

[bigblock]

I'm glad you say it isn't about mpg because trying save petrol costs and then spending money on a 'refreshment break' just makes the whole thing pointless in my opinion. Not having a go at you at all. But it beggers the question on how much these pure electric vehicle owners are spending  at a motorway stop while waiting for there vehicles to be re-charged. 

9 minutes ago, Luke717 said:

Yesterday I drove into and out of central London for the first time this year. It's about a 60-mile trip each way for me on the A4 and M4. Much of the journey on the M4 between J12 at Theale and J3 before the services at Heston is under 50mph or 60mph speed limits due to the huge project to widen that whole stretch to 4 lanes.

On my return journey late afternoon, I was part of the congested rush hour traffic flow that, pre pandemic, would normally see every lane nose to tail with vehicles travelling at 60mph, or faster if anyone got a chance. This is a moving landscape that needs serious attention to what everyone else is doing.

I stopped at the westbound Heston services for a 'refreshment break' and then continued my journey. Nearly all of it was on the M4, so exclusively a motorway journey for over 30 of the 42 total miles for this part, with the traffic flow and speed ebbing and flowing throughout. I find adaptive cruise control not really ideal in these situations as the car tends to slow down/speed up in an over cautious manner in the former and with too much enthusiasm in the latter. In any case, given the extra attention needed on what others are doing, setting cruise control of any type isn't a good idea in my view. You need to be in control not the sensors.

So I drove with caution, keeping to the low speed limit or lower depending on the traffic. A look through the metrics in the My T app for this journey showed my average speed at 47mph. That looks about right: actual speeds of 50mph or less for the journey between J3 at Heston and J8/9 at Maidenhead, and then 60mph or less from J8/9 to J12 at Theale.

The screenshot shows fuel consumption of 68.2mpg, much better than I expected - I was thinking it might be in the low 60s, even high 50s. Perhaps that thinking is influenced by typical use on a motorway with generally higher travel speed with ACC in constant use, perhaps with some liberal acceleration here and there to get past bunches of slow traffic.

It also shows that 39% of the journey was in EV mode, so using the battery. That's in line with my expectation. (Related: on my inbound journey earlier, driving in central London in very heavy and very slow stop/start traffic, EV use was 80% with mpg at 57.3 according to My T. A good scene-setter for pure EV in my future!)

Either way, I find journey data like this really useful to understand better the capabilities of this hybrid car in tandem with my own driving behaviours and how I can improve it further. This isn't about mpg but overall behaviour.

As a final note, the overall average info you see on your dashboard is also useful (for me, it's currently showing 62.2). But I find individual journey data even more useful.

How do you see it all?

 

[Luke717]

25 minutes ago, bigblock said:

I'm glad you say it isn't about mpg because trying save petrol costs and then spending money on a 'refreshment break' just makes the whole thing pointless in my opinion. Not having a go at you at all. But it beggers the question on how much these pure electric vehicle owners are spending  at a motorway stop while waiting for there vehicles to be re-charged. 

 

'Refreshment break' is a polite euphemism for having a pee so there was no cost involved. I didn't spend a penny 😄

As for people charging up their EVs and spending money while that happens, each to their own. I imagine many could make a great case that buying a coffee from Starbucks or Costa while their car is charging is perfectly justifiable from the cost saving in not buying fuel especially at the prices motorway services charge.

[TonyHSD]

Beaconsfield services 27/11/21 lovely numbers for the fuel, but as you said politely having a p. only, not filling up there, no no. 

[Stopeter44]

25 minutes ago, Luke717 said:

'Refreshment break' is a polite euphemism for having a pee so there was no cost involved. I didn't spend a penny 😄

Nice one ! I don't see how you can have a refreshment break without spending a penny ! 😉

[Luke717]

10 minutes ago, Stopeter44 said:

Nice one ! I don't see how you can have a refreshment break without spending a penny ! 😉

It's a magic trick! 🪄

[trashman1965]

I tend to check the last journey on MyT regularly - even if it is a short journey - for the same reasons: understand the car better and understand how I am using it better. I find the newer hybrid drivetrain is a very different beast from my previous Auris models so MyT lets me see how adjustments to my driving impact the numbers.