High Speed Prius Trip

Fuel efficiency for my 2003 is the same as yours under the same conditions. Two people instead of four, but fully loaded down with easily 250 pounds of gear all told between trunk and back seat. Car handles well at 85 mph. But handles much better doing 85 in the hot summer.

I smell Class Action Lawsuit!!!!

WHY did I quit Law School?!?!?!

Oh, dear...this is about the same as my $1400 Tercel was doing...

This probably means you were on the Gas a lot more than on the battery. The mileage numbers here are just a little bit better (~.5%) than I was doing with my AT Tercel. Since the engines (gas that is) are both 1.5L FE models, my suspicion is that at highway speeds you are using the gas motor more often, and not reaping any benefit from the Hybrid technology. I'm also guessing that your batteries were fully charged, so the generator wasn't called into play. The difference in economy between the two cars could be accounted for by the Prius' more efficient aerodynamic styling.

I like my Supra, but if I knew gas prices were going to become what they are, I would have sold the LHS for less than the Tercel and used that money to buy the Supra.

We don"t have any roads in VA where you can legally travel 80 MPH much less

85 MPH. We love to give speeding ticket to young college students so add that into tuition costs.

And confiscate and smash their Radar Detectors before their very eyes!

He didn't say he was doing 85 in VA. Part of the trip was in NJ. In my experience, the only thing going less than 85mph on the NJ Tpk is the roadkill.

Whether animal or human!

I have no idea why NJ doesn't give speeding tickets based on the time on the turnpike compared the time you pay the toll....

I can think of a couple of reasons:

1. Why bother? And if they did, there would probably be a state-wide revolt involving tossing out ALL the current scoundrels and electing entirely new scoundrels, in which case the new scoundresl might take their mandate seriously and close the Turnpike Authority or do any number of crazy things that would rock the boat.
2. If there's more than one person in the car, who gets the ticket? "Sure, I'm driving NOW but which one of us was driving when the speeding occurred?" "dbu" can tell you the red-light cameras here have been shut down for that reason (which is dumb, just get a better camera angle and cite the drivers where you've got a good face shot).

Are we to believe you used your foot all the time (never cruise control)? There should be a significantly better gas mileage under cruise control.

Low test scores and GPA?

mike

Got laid off from the company that was footing the bill...

I was on the gas a lot. At 85, with other traffic moving at 85 there is not a lot of opportunity for PriusFooting. I still did generate electricity however, as noted by those little cars that the display puts into the 5 minute mileage bars. I usually had 1.5 - 2.5 in each bar. On the rare occasion that I flipped the display to look at the battery gauge, it was indeed pretty much full in the green zone.

It is a time like this that I wish that it had a tach in it. I suppose that the engine pretty much runs at an optimum RPM and uses the CVT to set the speed. It did seem like it might have been running faster - at least differently as noted by the sound. Tomes

Did not say where, but this was a trip where we were going to get there ASAP. I take Wolfgang's comment with a good chuckle however, like he has never gone above the limit ever, lol. 85 is not exactly legal on any portion of the trip. If you are in the left lane and the other cars are going 80, then not to go 80 is 'obstructing the normal flow of traffic' - another offense (folks do get tickets for that in NJ). Did not need to use the NJTpk tho, there is an I295 that parallels it below Trenton, and coming home we used I95 on the PA side to NJ31. Tomes

This has indeed been discussed in NJ and it is viewed here as the evil 'big brother' thing, and thus would never come to pass here. dh is right, there would be a mass revolt. dh's other thought that they could not identify who was doing the speeding would likely be used as a defense in a very publicized way. The people who would put this into place would be vilified. Tomes

"Chuck Olson" wrote

Yep, this was done almost entirely without cruise control. I tried it for a bit and was not happy with the results for a couple of reasons.

If one is in traffic with changing speeds and traffic patterns, cruise is useless. In this trip I drove differently than the rather gentile driving that I usually do in this car. If I am driving fast, I need quicker response time and cruise tends to lull one 'to sleep' (relatively speaking), yielding slower reaction time. On the wide open is when I tried it out, but I was enjoying the drive too much to take the fun of having the foot on the pedal away. I have always thought that one way one can divide up people (if one must) is into two groups where one group wants to get a job over with and be done with it and the other group revels in the doing of the job. Normally I am in the first group. In this trip I was in both groups (where the Venn diagram overlaps).

Also (and this applies more to PriusFoot driving and not to the 'gotta get there as fast as I can' driving), it is reactive and not proactive. This means that I do a much better job of building up a bit more speed going down a hill to lessen the load going up the next hill, and also 'coasting' in situations where the cruise just wants to keep on pushing.

I have cruise on all my vehicles (Prius, Sienna, Wrangler TJ) and I find that I do not use it much on the highway. I use it mostly in the Jeep which has manual transmission where I need to stick to an exact speed for speed trap purposes. In an automatic, cruise tends to let the speed waft up when going down a hill and overcompensate (downshifting into too low of a gear with a jolt after it did not react soon enough) going up a hill, particularly a steeper one. In the manual transmission Jeep, it does one of this gear shifting or floating up, it just keeps it right at that speed, using engine braking on the way down nicely. Thus, I can put it at

48 in a 45 zone and not worry. This is why I complain about minimum thresholds in the MPH that cruise engages. I use it at lower speeds, not so much at higher speeds. Tomes

Well, I didn't have a Tach, or a CVT (um, the Prius *DOES* have a CVT, doesn't it? Pardon my ignorance on this one) but I found, as with almost all my Toyotas, that the highest mileage results were acheived at 70 MPH on the highway, and 45-50 MPH everywhere else. Well, where I could! I live in a somewhat rural area, and a lot of my trips were ~8 miles at 45-50 MPH (8 miles to work).

And, my 'posted' MPG of 42-45 was OVERALL! That includes the 2 mile trips gor gallons of milk and 25 mile trips to shopping centers and practice sessions. Car probably got >50 on the highway!

I am thinking apples and oranges here. The Prius does do the CVT thing - it is part of the whole basis on how it works. Your conventionally transmissioned car found its optimum RPM-power curve-power demand spot at those speeds. I have seen similar with the Sienna. I am still getting the hang of the CVT basis and how to drive it best. Tomes

I don't have much of the speed waver on the 05 corolla with A/T. It's pretty steady, even going up and down hills. The one on my accord was pretty erratic in comparision, although it might have needed an adjustment. I have noticed one thing about the corolla cruise control.. It seems to be partly computer driven. And the computer seems to average out hills, etc to keep a steady speed without shifting. If you engage cruise right before going up a hill, it will often downshift and rev up the hill, which I don't really like. But... If you have been driving a while, and the cruise has had time to get stable, and get used to the terrain, it's not near as abrupt. In that case, it will go up the hill just by adjusting the throttle, and will rarely downshift, unless the hill is really steep and it actually needs to downshift. So overall, I like the cruise in the corolla, and use it nearly all the time if at a steady speed. I only wish it would work at 20 mph, so I could "cruise" through school zones.. It's lowest speed seems to be about

30 mph. It will hold 30 no problem. Another thing I like about the corolla cruise is the "stalk" type control. At first I thought it might be a bit mickey mouse, but after using it, I much prefer it over the usual steering wheel controls oft used by U.S. cars. On those I always have to look down to make sure I'm hitting the right button, and they have to be lit at night. But the stalk type control used on the corolla is so much easier. You don't have to look at it at all. You can do it by feel, even in the dark. So I've found that design is much easier to use. The corolla cruise never is off more than a one or two.. It's pretty steady unless the road is ultra radical.. Another thing I noticed... The speedometer is quite accurate. Way better than my honda accord, which runs about 9 mph more than you are really doing.. The corolla is nearly spot on at 70 mph when comparing it to the GPS. At 50, it might read 1-2 mph more than actual, but still pretty close. BTW, I was getting about 40 mph at 60-65 mph.. Maybe 35-37? at 70-75 mph.. Not as good as a prius, but the car costs less.. :/ I can hang with 35-40... I seem to get 30+ in the city..At least until A/C season, and I notice the compressor on the corolla seems pretty low drag, so it might not drop too awful much with the A/C on. MK