The world seems to be trying to hide the fact that the Prius becomes much more efficient at low speeds, as seen by the higher MPG number for city than for highway driving. In fact, a few years ago I was in a Los Angeles traffic clog for a couple of hours and when I finally arrived at my daughter's home, I was surprised to see my last average was 56.3 MPG. I suspect regular non-hybrid cars in that clog were getting less than 10 MPG.
What does your car get on your Highway 4 commute?
Hide? Nobody is hiding that, it is the only time that the Hybrid actually works to the full advantage of the driver. It's the main selling point, not a hidden jewel.
Not every single Prius driver.
I'm happy enough with the 47mpg I got going 80mph yesterday.
But yes, when you see a Prius driver going slowly like that, he's playing his rolling video game.
He needs to be dragged out of his car and beaten with sticks. He thinks the world revolves around him and his desire to maximize the score on his rolling video game.
Hi, Jeff - - I'm judging by what I find in Consumer Reports - - always just a single combined value - - currently 44 MPG - - totally misleading, and I suspect a bought and paid-for favor. I believe the EPA estimate is the only one allowed in advertising and I see the EPA currently have a new combined number of 50 MPG for the 2011 Prius. Although that's a much more favorable number than what I recall, that still helps sell all other cars because it hides the EPA official 51 city, 48 highway that are so indicative of Prius low-speed efficiency. I'm sure they'll say, "The combined number is easier to remember, with no need to explain". Right - - contributing to the dumbing-down of America - - and the selling of big, heavy, inefficient, gas-hog cars.
While the Prius gets a theoretical infinity MPG at low speeds on battery power, the MPG numbers fall off rapidly when the car is driven at expressway speeds. But, nobody is hiding anything. The vast majority of Prius owners are driving with a profile that more closely matches the EPA standard than the profile you stumbled upon.
Your driving pattern is where the Prius shines. And everybody knows this, and it is the Main Selling Point. The fact remains, far too many Prii are operated in an environment such as mine, and the Prius does poorly here. The Prius shines in urban settings where the stop-n-go traffic is mostly stop. Outside of this environment, the Prius is just another car. Everybody knows this, except that you just figured it out.
Odd, Considering that (2009 model) the smaller Yaris only gets 80% of the highway MPG of the Prius even though it has the same engine. I guess the Prius having Atkinson/Miller cycle intake valve timing and a lower cruise RPM means nothing to you even though it matters in the real world.
But it doesn't have the same transmission, or tires, or body shape, and its body is made of heavier materials, and...
A car is not just an engine going down the road.
Oh--not to mention that it's NOT the same engine. They may share a block, and they may have the same displacement, but they're most certainly not the same engines.
We're not comparing the Prius to other cars, we're comparing it to the EPA spec and a figure that the OP reports getting. The OP then asserted that it's a hidden secret that the car can get up to whatever figure he got. He got 56 mpg when the EPA gives it 50 mpg, or whatever.
It's entirely true that the car can do better than the EPA spec, but most don't. The real world's hidden secret is that most Prii don't get even the EPA spec because they are operated at highway speeds where the engine is doing all of the work, instead of being operated in stop-n-go, mostly stop, traffic where the engine is not even running and the car operates on its batteries.
Most that buy a hybrid will never realize the benefit in fuel savings because it takes far more miles to recoup the added purchase cost than most people will rack up during a typical ownership cycle.
I was comparing 5 speed manual to the PSD
175/65R14 or 185/60R15 VS Prius 185/65R15 and BTW the OE GY Integrities aren't LRRPrius is more aerodynamic but bigger.
True
Well the head is different (I think)
And yet as I said despite all of this it still gets better highway MPG.
My current car is a 97 Lumina 3.1 (3100) that gets half the MPG of the Prius with an engine twice the displacement and 4 cubic feet more interior volume.
The fallacy is that people think it is the HV battery that causes the higher MPG, hint: it isn't. Charging and discharging the HV has about 70% effeciency IIRC, it is for this reason that one of the biggest Prius hypermiling methods (pulse and glide) avoids the HV battery at all costs. Pulsing is done by feathering the accelerator so that there are no arrows to or from the HV battery (under light to moderate acceleration charge is sent to the HV to load down the engine to a more effecient point on the brake specific fuel consumption table), this is followed by gliding which is letting off the accelerator to shut off the engine then gently reapplying just enough pressure to cancel the "fake engine braking" regen. All of this is done at a max speed of 41MPH as above that speed the engine crank remains turning at all times.
Probably not but I don't want one to save any money anyway, and ever since they released the ZVW30 model, which I hate, I won't be buying one new anyway which nicely avoids the off-the-lot depreciation.
Excuse my stupidity, but in stop-n-go traffic that is mostly stop, one can go for an hour and never get to the magical 41mph. The engine might never run on some buyer's commute, and that owner would realize a very high MPG that is a rating of gasoline efficiency.
The driving profile that can lead to 56mpg in a Prius happens almost daily in the urban parts of Los Angeles. It almost never happens at my house,
90-ish miles away from LA, so Prius owners in my area do not get the spectacular mileage that one might expect.
Hint: at the same time, it is.
Hybrid Synergy Drive is a *system*. You can't point to one thing and say that's the cause or that isn't the cause. The bits all work together to create what the Prius is.
Absent the battery, mileage would be lower.
Why?
Look up Atkinson cycle.
Trust me, the Yaris does not use the same engine that the Prius uses. Not in any way, shape, or form.
But true MPG can only be quoted with an unchanged HV battery SOC, If your entire commute never had the ICE start and it wasn't all downhill the SOC would end up lower at the end resulting in an artificially high MPG number, the next trip where it did start would have a low MPG number due to the recharging.
Yes it is, the 1NZ-FXE is identical to the 1NZ-FE except for a higher physical compression/expansion ratio and altered intake valve timing so that some of the charge goes back into the intake runner each cycle which results in a lower effective compression ratio, and since it has VVTi the CR is variable. It is NOT a true Atkinson, IE it doesn't have the special linkage between the crank and piston rod. A true Atkinson has unequal stroke lengths but a fixed compression ratio.
The only thing special about the crank in the 1NZ-FE and 1NZ-FXE is that the crank centerline is offset from the cylinder bore centerline so that the rods are more straight during the power strokes, this reduces the side load on the piston skirt which reduces drag.
Note this image:
So, take it up with the OP.
His assertion is that the higher number he gets/got is a hidden secret that if known would make the car more attractive to more buyers. You and I are both saying that his high number is an anomoly among the general population, or at least an anomoly among the vehicle trips that when weighted against other trips results in the MPG number that is at or below the EPA estimates.
If one is buying a Prius to save money on gas, one could easily buy a vehicle that is more environmentally friendly and saves more money on gas and is cheaper to buy in the first place.
Buying a Prius based on fuel economy and environmental concerns is false logic. That's the bottom line.
Well, my 3.8L SC'd GM cranks out twice the HP and nearly three times the torque and uses less than 1/2 gallon an hour at idle. Obviously, it'd do better if I turned it off at prolonged stops.
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