I got great mileage for my usual 7 mile drive home from work tonight. My 2007 barely has over 500 miles on it, so I know I may be able to get better mpg after it is broke in. I ended with an 88mpg average! The best I got with the Honda Insight CVT this Prius replaced was 71.2mpg for the same path. It was rather cold outside too.

 

Excellent!

Do you remember the outside temperature?

Bob Wilson

 

It wasn't freezing, probably in the mid 60's.

 

You are in for a real treat when it reaches 80-90F.

Bob Wilson

 

Well only if I can get mileage like this for longer distances.

 

Nice work! Would you mind sharing some info about your route and technique? And what is the round-trip mileage? 88mpg on a Prius with 500mi on it is really great, and I don't think that triple digits would be out of the question for you in the long run. Maybe not sustainable (not without superhuman effort and control over Nature itself) but very likely repeatable.

 

. . . and more than once. <GRINS>

It turns out two of the higher mileage Prius-I records, the ones with multiple tanks, show a curious dip in mileage around 60 and 70F. My mileage local minimum is at 70F and the other owner's dip is at 60F and could be just different ways of estimating temperature. Both of us have higher mileage in the next two higher temperatures and lower temperature ranges.

Also, Ken has suggested and I agree that you need to use a topographical map to identify the change in altitude between the start and stop points. I consistently get better mileage going home than going into work which is a little higher.

GOOD LUCK!

Bob Wilson

 

I also get slightly worse mileage going to work than coming home. I always reset my averages for each leg of my trips. I wish the Prius had an overall average mpg meter.

 

I live in Wisconsin. Tomorrow will be one month that I have owned my 2007 Prius. I have put on 2500 miles already. I have a lifetime MPG of 52.6 driving in temperatures mainly in the 40's. I installed a block heater, which I use in the morning, along with pipe insulation stuffed into the front grill. I am using winter time RFG gas. I figured I would only get around 48 MPG with this gas, so I am quite happy so far. Any idea what I could expect next summer with warmer temps and summer time fuel?

Steve

 

Use the mileage database.

I took another NHW11 Prius data and mine, both have dozens of fill-up records, and loaded the data into a spreadsheet. This allowed me to plot MPG as a function of temperature (normalizing for trip distance.) I soon discovered that our NHW11 gets best MPG at 80F +/-5F, second at 60F and third at 70F. I can not explain the local minimum at 70F but just note that it exists in two sets of records.

Do the same with an equivalent model car with a simular driving profile to yours (aka., distance.) Use several cars to equalize the 'noise' and you should be in a good position to predict performance . . . except for your block heater. . . . hummmm.

Bob Wilson