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Hybrid Gas Mileage Good? Bad? As Expected?
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Comments
Your efficient driving skills deserve good comment.
It sure gives you a good feeling when you park and realize what you and your machine have saved.
"Man what a car!" is what I used to say with mine. Now I'm pretty much used to it unless I have an exceptionally good run.
I am still attempting to get my first Hybrid vehicle, but was it expected and what will be is expected to be different based on vehicle & where I live with which type of terrain and weather conditions. Several people say they get close to what is expected for EPA rating, but we don't know if there are a lot of hills, traffic conditions, snow & rain, etc.
All my non-hybrid vehicles in the past have gotten much worse and lots of times better then EPA depending on where I am driving, How I am driving, and how my vehicle is (type of gas, new plugs {tuned up}, air filter is clean, tires are at proper PSI, is the vehicle whole and waxed or rusted with holes all through the fenders and body, and speed and the number of people in vehicle or total weight when driving)
We should try to understand what people are doing or not doing and where they live when they post here, before saying what should be. Everything is being averaged out by EPA for the entire country.
Please give us more information when posting MPG to help us all understand if what we are getting is average for our area.
Thank you,
How you drive is key to high mpg. The hybrid gives you the feed back to get way over the EPA estimate.
I've got as high as 74 mpg on a 40 mile round trip . Always reset you mpg trip odometer so you can learn how your doing.
Jim
I have an '04HCH and have driven it almost 40K miles, my average is about 60MPG. I live in North Georgia in the foothills of the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains (Very hilly) and the winter weather here is pretty mild.
It sounds like you are already ahead of the curve about efficiency. Things like driving skills, maintenance, tire pressure, weight, etc. I'd say that 90% of other drivers have no clue at all and think their car just does what it does.
The MPG swing depending on the issues above are much greater in a hybrid compared to a regular vehicle. For example our Grand Caravan can go as low as about 14 and the highest we've seen is 23-24, about 10 MPG swing.
My HCH has more than a 30MPG swing.
I'd like to say that flatter, milder areas like Texas would give better results but I haven't noticed that much of a difference. There's a Insight hypermiler (Xcel) who has averaged better than 90MPG in the Chicago area with some tanks well exceeding 100MPG. As with my own numbers, Xcel and eaa are not typical or average but should show what these cars are capable of.
The current average over many owners of the HCH is about 46-47MPG. This is a combined mix of not-so-skilled efficiency drivers, average ones and a few hypermilers- all owners across the country.
I live in Davis California, and last week I found a newly delivered Salsa Red Prius at Hanlees here in Davis. I bought it on the spot. I drive a lot of miles for work In CA between the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento. After putting 250 miles on the car, I fully filled the gas tank. 240 miles after that it took 3.97 gallons to again fill the tank, meaning 60.5 MPG. Yesterday I drove exactly 200 miles and filled with 3.34 gallons, or 59.9 MPG.
Of the above mentioned travel, I would estimate that 85% to 90% was on the highway at close to the speed limit of 65. The temperature was between 55 to 70. I drove carefully, but not overly. And all of the miles were with me at 180 lbs. and about 70 lbs. of work stuff. I like the car! It is weird to fill a car after al long day of driveing these days for under $10!
Dick Ford
Davis, CA
My last trip I left with 3/4 of a tank of gas and when I arrived it was almost full. It is now so bad that I have to siphon gas out with a hose if I don't watch it very carefully. The only way to safely drive now is to leave the gas cap off but then gas starts spilling out the side which sort of defeats the "anti-pollution" reason for driving the car.
Anyone else with the same problem?
No car the size and weight of the Prius can achieve the MPG that the Prius can achieve.....if Hybrids were not inherently equipped with a "mpg advantage" over similarly sized cars, they would never have been developed, eh?
You think some engineer at Toyota said "we can have a midsize car that is gas only which gets 51-60 MPG, but let's just "complicate things" and add an electric battery and electric drive capability just for the fun ot it, OK guys !!???!!"
That would be a ridiculous thing to say, no? So his statement would be a ridiculous thing to believe, right? Of course Hybrids use the electric drive system and battery to help increase the mpg efficiency - else why would they exist?
Think about it: The car burns gasoline to drive the generator to charge the battery to be used later to power the electric motor. How can this be more efficient than just using the gas to drive the car directly?
Don't read me wrong. I think that Hybrid Cars are the right approach to solving our oil problem but they aren't there yet. The pluggable solution being promoted by CalCars is really going to offer a benefit.
But the data you think you are lacking is this: "real world results" which indicate that no gasoline engine driven cars the same size and engine displacement of the hybrids currently achieve the MPG of the hybrids.
That's the data.....
P.S. Something else I thought about also: if carmakers could do this without "hybridizing" the cars and adding additional cost and complexity, WHY WOULD THEY NOT JUST DO THAT? You see, logically, merely the fact that Hybrids even EXIST is a perfectly good reason as to why the hybridization is required...If they could do this with "lighter, smaller" car designs which would be palatable to buyers, you know they would..
The Prius gets such good gas mileage because it has a small engine that is tuned to what is called an "Atkinson cycle", which is a method of running the engine such that it gets better MPG, but has very little "get-up-and-go" power at low RPM. You are partially correct that a Prius with only the Atkinson tuned engine would get good mileage - but never the mileage of the hybrid. And no one would buy it, because the thing would take forever to accelerate. The electric motors are highly efficient at all speeds, but their best use is at low speeds, where the Atkinson cycle engine is least efficient. So in the first respect, the electric components allow adequate acceleration with a smaller, less performance oriented engine.
The second area in which the electric motors help is in getting the car up to speed. A large amount of gasoline is wasted on ICE vehicles just getting their 3000 + lb weight up to speed. This is why EPA mileage for a normal ICE vehicle is lower in the city than on the highway - once the vehicle is up to speed, it takes far less gas to get places. The electric motor takes on the brunt of the workload in getting the hybrid moving, thus saving gas. It is this characteristic that results in an EPA rating that is higher in the city for the Prius.
The other trick of the hybrid for city driving is shutting down the engine while the car is stopped (in traffic, or a stop light, for example). This behavior could be emulated by all cars, if they implemented electric air conditioning rather than engine powered air conditioning. But it might be a strain on a standard 12 volt electric system. However, some cars do have this feature, notably a French commuter car that is being produced at this time.
about 50MPG. Sure it was a smaller vehicle but most cars only have one person in them (the driver) anyways. No comments please.
read on http://www.calcars.org Web site. They are promoting a kit that will allow a Prius owner to add a huge battery and power cord for recharging it using the local Electrical Supplier. Many people said "Oh Great". Now we will just burn more coal to produce the electricity to power the car rather than burn more gasoline. Well guess what? It turns out that an electric motor uses less than 50% of the energy as a gasoline engine to power a car. In other words your electric bill would be less than 50% of what you would have paid for gasoline assuming $2.00 a gallon which looks like it isn't going to go down..... Moving this discussion to
"Advanced Course in Hybrid Engineering" section...
Been a crazy day and that saved it for me!
The "hyper-milers" getting consistently over 50 mpg generally travel long distances at moderate, consistent speed with little or no traffic or stops. Not having to reaccelerate the car makes all the difference.
Mike
What solar_dad says is entirely true. If I travel at 65 mph on a freeway, I can't help but get 50-54 mpg. If I take a 1 mile, hilly trip to the store and back, I will get under 40 mpg. And on my daily 6 mile city commute, I get over 45 mpg.
And I would add to what solar_dad said by saying that mileage is also determined by your driving style. Driving reasonably near the speed limits will achieve better mileage than burning rubber and slamming brakes at every traffic signal.
These effects of driving condition and style are true of any automobile, not just hybrids.
I also get best gas mileage on mid-grade gas.
On longer drives, I see pretty much the EPA numbers when the weather is cool enough for the airconditioning to be off:
27 MPG going 65 on the freeway
~30 MPG on city/suburban roads (that seems to vary a bit more than the freeway driving, perhaps because the conditions also vary more).
Air conditioning now that the weather is getting quite warm and short drives on a cold engine (2 - 5 miles) pull the average down. The first 5 minutes of driving always have a much lower mpg so short drives really hurt and we seem to do more of that than I realized. I guess they have a similar effect with a non-hybrid but I didn't have th ability to monitor so closely in my previous cars.
We try to anticipate stops and brake gently whenever possible. Other than that, we don't baby it a lot. I'm pretty pleased with the mileage numbers.
In other words the Insight is great for going to and from work.. but don't have a large friend or plan on picking up much from the home improvement store. (Imagine having to tell a friend - Hmm sorry Fred I think I can't give you a ride to home cause that would put me over the load capacity of my car.
Let's be real here. Any car that has limits like the Honda Insight does in terms of capacity is not in the same league as the Civic or Prius of a number of the other new hybrid vehicles. The Insight really is a true Hybrid, it's just not a practical car for anything but 1 person commuting. And a fairly expensive commuter vehicle at that. It was a nice start but only that - a start.
Blind allegiance to a cause or a car is not wisdom, it's dangerous and it will get you into trouble.
So Mr Insight go back to your Honda forum, hunt down and harass the disloyal Honda owners over there. Don't bother coming onto a Prius forum in an apparent effort to boast about a Brand or car that isnt' near the equal of a Prius. I've had a Honda before and I'm not driving one now based on that experience.
Additionally the Prius Hybrid system uses a mix of gas and eletrical power at optimum times to provide the requried power to move vehicle. This also includes shutting down power sources (Gas engine) when not needed. This isn't simple technology so don't dismiss it simply because the evidence doesn't jump out at you. Credit the engineers at Toyota with a lot of work to devise a very smart system to optimize the cars power consumption.
Perfect it isn't - Yep that's right, the technology continues to be refined and there will be some issues, however, today's Prius is a major improvement over pure electically powered cars of even 2-5 years ago. Just a comparison of the Prius to the Honda Insight will provide a clue as to how much better things are getting in the world of Hybrid technology. MPG alone isn't the measure of a Hybrids success - practicality is a major factor as well. After 2 1/2 months of ownership, 1 1200 mile cross country trip and driving experience in Big City traffic, highway and 'small town' commuting I can honestly say the Prius does a great job at them all. Now if they could only add in some of the handling characteristics of my 02 MINI Cooper, I'd be ear-to-ear smiles 24 hrs a day.
As to your ride comments on my previous car (MINI) Many owners wanting smoother ride are going away from run-flats which, by design have stiffer ride. I had little problem with the stock 15" tires and wheels and when I sold the car with 35,000 miles I estimate there was still another 5 miles of life in those tires.
When a car is as carefully crafted as the Prius, I would be very careful to inquire about ANY changes to things that could impact the cars behavior. Change the daylights out of the paint, interior etc but 1) don't add weight and 2) Don't mess with the running gear/suspension.
Now we have a real test case to look at. The Lexus RX330 and the RX400h. They have the same engine and the same body other than the mods to add the hybrid like extra air vents in the front bumper for the extra cooling. The AWD RX400h weighs about 300 pounds more than the AWD RX330 (and about 500 pounds more than the FWD RX330).
EPA numbers city/highway are:
RX330 FWD 19/25
RX330 AWD 18/24
RX400 31/27
Even on the highway, the EPA number on the RX400 is 2 miles per gallon better than its conventional FWD cousin and 3 mpg better than the AWD cousin. What has really surprised us is that at 65 mph we are really getting 27. On top of that, the RX400 has better acceleration than the 330.
Why does the hybrid help on the highway? Because the engine doesn't have to be efficient over as broad a range as on a conventional car, it can be tuned to maximize efficiency for the narrower range the hybrid uses. Also there is what gscooter pointed out. On the freeway when I need to give it a bit more throttle to maintain speed on an upspeed or adujst to traffic flow, the electric motor kicks in. When there is a down slope or a need to drop back a bit, I've seen it use just the motor or go into regeneration. It doesn't get as much gain over the conventional mileage as the city number, but there is a real gain.
From what I've experienced so far (3 tanks), the highway mileage is very repeatable.
Hmmm, I thought that the definition of hybred in these automotive applications was "Gasoline / Electric dual propulsion". I think that the HCH meets this definition, since it will use both electric and ICE to propel the car. I haven't yet seen a definition of "Hybrid" that says the car has to be able to run on either propulsion. In any case, the Prius won't fit that definition either, since it cannot run on ICE alone.
Obviously, everyone realizes that Honda and Toyota used different technologies to achieve hybridization. The advantages / disadvantages of each system have been discussed ad nauseum in this and other threads.
HCH seems to be averaging a combined city/highway of 46, and Prius about 48.
The vast majority of these drivers are typical from all areas, with a small number of hypermilers in the mix.
I've owned my 04HCH CVT for 17 months and have driven it over 40K miles.
My lifetime average is over 60MPG and the last few tanks have been 62-64 and well over 700miles from 11-12 gallons of regular gasoline.
This is determined by the miles per gallon pumped calculation.
My best trip was back in January where I averaged 68.9MPG over 46miles.
My commute is 46 miles twice a day. About 20 miles are rural highway with quite a few stops, about 20 miles is on 65-55MPH limit freeway, and the last few miles 5:00-5:30PM worst Atlanta rush hour traffic.
There are a few HCH drivers who are doing better in the FE department than me.
Better FE is not difficult but requires training. Once learned it can be applied to all vehicles you drive be it hybrid, EV, diesel, motorcycle etc.
For example we've applied the same principles to our 2001 Grand Caravan and have improved its MPG by 8, as we are now beating its rating as well.
Wgate.com has more pictures of the Ojo and more information.
i recently rented a prius for a week and got 53 mpg on a 161 round trip. My new Prius arrives the coming week.
http://www.consumerreports.org/main/detailv4.jsp?WebLogicSession=QpyFjEqMV99BTETBzIpt0WMRw- jWoI3dRId7TF4LHatCS1VZyX1kW|-840875848657064/169937913/6/7005/7005/7002/7002/7005/-1|-1124- 202329229838292/169937904/6/7005/7005/7002/7002/7005/-1&CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=303375&FOLDER%- 3C%3Efolder_id=113261&bmUID=1117554060987
What have I told you about CR, Toyota pays the big advertising bucks and gets the good write-ups. Their tests are very subjective and can go anyway the tester wants. I think that a certain green hybrid website keeps the best track of average MPG. I wish there was such a place for all vehicles.
CU is very focused on PERFORMANCE. So yes, they were treating the HCH like a Ford Mustang.
This brings to mind a question I've had about hybrids in general: Are hybrids more sensitive to....ummmm....'exhuburant' driving than standard ICE vehicles? I mean, if 'realistic' mileage for an HCH if around 50 mpg (or substantially higher according to some posters), yet 'treating it like a Mustang' will cut the mileage in half, is this normal?
Point of comparison, if I 'baby' my Celica GTS, I can approach 32-33mpg. But even if I flog it for an entire tank, it only drops down to the 25-26mpg range (roughly a 20% drop in economy). But it sounds as though CU got around 50% less fuel economy than what seems to be reported. I can't even imagine the abuse I would have to heap on my Celica to cut my fuel economy in half (well actually, I can, but a full day spent hot lapping at TWS doesn' t count).
I guess where I going is this: would the average person see that big of a boost in fuel economy by driving a hybrid and keeping their same driving habits, or is a change in driving habits necessary as well?
Hybrids use software and system integration (how much gas to use, how much electricity to use, etc) to achieve high MPG ratings.
If you floor it, and thrash the engine, then the electric portion is used way LESS and the GAS engine is used way MORE and thus the benefit of the "systems" working together to achieve high MPG is completely compromised.
As far as changing driving habits, my opinion is YES you must do that to achieve GREATEST miles per gallon performance. But it's a GOOD THING to change. For example, I know for a FACT that I will NEVER EVER get a speeding ticket again in my life. I just don't speed anymore - that's too costly on gas mileage.
But if you want to buy a hybrid and drive it like you have always driven, then you will get about the same percentage below EPA ratings as you get in your current car. Any car driven without "fuel conservation" in mind will get less than EPA mileage - guaranteed.
P.S. Let's disregard CU's 26 mpg in City in the Civic - something was COMPLETELY WRONG with that result. Like I said, you cannot find me a driver ANYWHERE who could take a properly performing Civic Hybrid and get 26 MPG in City driving, unless it was a 2 minute early morning drive in the freezing cold with the accelerator floored. It's just abnormal beyond measure to get such a low number.
The real CR rating for the HCH is 36mpg, which still is terrible and must have been done while dragging overweight oil company executives from a bungee cord or something.
From ConsumerReports.org:
"The Hybrid model is slower and averaged 36 mpg in CR tests with the CVT."
I noticed another one of your posts:
markdel, "Hybrid Tips: Optimizing mileage" #255, 2 Jun 2005 2:48 am
While it is good to experiment this is not the best direction to go for good results in an HCH.
I'm very generous with the pedal in my Prius, taking full advantage of the electricity but not enough to cause the gasoline engine to rev high. That results is a very pleasing MPG... low 50's for me right now.
JOHN
Actually it's both.
I don't want to post too many tips on this forum but when I begin from a stop I want the Assist to latch in at its highest reading, usually 36 (One bar below 40) or 40 MPG and hold it there until I get up to speed, then back off in the 60+ MPG range depending on conditions.
If I had no Assist beginning from the same stop my MPG would likely be in the 20's.
In this instance the Assist contributes around ~15MPG.
If I'm pulling hard up a hill I'm also targeting that highest Assist of 36-40MPG.
Often times if it is at 36MPG I can raise it to 40-44 MPG and still keep the Assist latched in. That would be 4-8MPG improvement up hills contributed by the IMA alone.
In almost every instance my car will never be in the 20's MPG range except for the very brief moment accelerating from 0-20MPH where it climbs at least into the 30's.
There's alot more than just the smaller engine for MPG but the whole package.
LRR tires, aerodynamic panels underneath, heat rejecting glass, electronic PS etc all contribute, rather than just one item.
"when I begin from a stop I want the Assist to latch in at its highest reading, usually 36 (One bar below 40) or 40 MPG and hold it there until I get up to speed, then back off in the 60+ MPG range depending on conditions"
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Just how do you get the HCH to Assist when you are at 36MPG indicated. I cannot do that no matter how I try. To get the minimum 4bar assist my indicated MPG is 8 to 10 which raises up to 20-30 at my MPH goes from 0 to 35. To get the maximum assist, I need to really press down on the accelerator, and in that case my indicated MPG stays at 10 until I get to 35 MPH (When driving in town with 35MPH the posted speed limit, or 60 MPH on the freeway, either case). I just don't see how you achive the conditions that you are talking about. :confuse: :confuse: :confuse: