Prius real mileage ?

"witfal" ...

Cool. Agreed that this would be a good thing. I am thinking that the dealers should provide the whole education on how the drivetrain works along with education on how to best drive it to maximize the mileage while also ensuring that they understand that there are times and not times for each action. Tomes

It all depends upon the road characteristic. On a level road or one that drops, one can indeed maintain 40 MPH or any other speed while using the electrics. I do it every day. Tomes

I repeat: it is impossible, on a level road, to drive at 40mph for more than a mile with the engine not running and with the electrics doing all the propulsion.

So you define "maintain" as including the concept "for a mile" while I don't include that concept. I define "maintain" as "indefinitely".

At some point, pretty quickly, the Prius will kick in the engine to maintain 40mph.

Yeah, if you're going downhill, the engine isn't on. So what?

Regardless, after the computer determines that the engine needs to kick in, you pulse and glide using your "Priusfoot". And you end up pissing people off.

A mile on electrics at 40mph. That's it. If you're claiming otherwise, it's pure bullshit.

The dealer's job is to SELL THE CAR. Period.

Driver education, of any kind, is not what the dealer exists for.

And the complexities of when to do what and how in order to "maximize mileage" is BEST left to people who, on their own, decide they want to learn it and are able to learn it. At that point, you're beyond driving it like a normal car and you're into learning it like a fighter pilot learns his aircraft--complete with SA (situational awareness) and every nuance of the car interacting with every nuance of the driver's desires interacting with the situation around him.

And even if the dealer does train adequately on the nature of the car and the NOT normal or obvious things to do that save gas, there's no way to make people understand or act on SA and evaluate contextually appropriate behaviors. It just won't happen. People are completely selfish, and will do what they want to do--period.

Hell, they do now. Just watch traffic go by and see.

You live in a fairy tale world, and frankly there's no doubt in my mind that you're doing what you want to do when you drive your car. And there's no doubt in my mind that you THINK you're not pissing off people around you when in fact you are.

The fact remains that the Prius is a marvel of advanced engineering in that anyone--ANYONE--can get in it and drive it like a normal car, like the Buicks and BMWs they've been driving, and get 45 to 50 miles per gallon.

There is NO NEED to alter your driving style just to get good gas mileage in a Prius.

And yet, I keep seeing people talk about "oh, you're not driving it correctly". Bullshit.

Oh, so it is a mile. Roads are never flat here for a whole mile anyway so this is all irrelevant.

It looks like we agree that we disagree. You drive your Prius your way and I drive it my way. It is all good and that is fine.

Enjoy, Tomes

"Elmo P. Shagnasty" ...

No one ever said that folks drive it incorrectly, just that using different techniques can yield different results.

We obviously disagree and that is fine, no problem. Enjoy, Tomes

Ever been to PriusChat?

Someone complains about getting only 29mpg, and the only answer he gets is, "Oh, you're not driving it correctly."

And that's bullshit.