The huge jump in mpg on the 01 Prius is because I took it on my comute while I was waiting on clips for my Insights windshield replacement. Its amazing how much Interstate trips help the mpg. On the trip to Washington I was above the 70 mpg mark but fell below it on the return. It is a bit different to drive because of the varaible transmission. In the insight I simply set the throttle so that my fuel consumption meter is in the 100+ range which is usually around 1800 rpm on a flat road. The Prius on the other hand varies the final drive ratio. Using Grahams miniscanner I just tried to set the throttle so that I was in the 30% range for engine load on a flat road. In that position the mpg guage would show 80-90 mpg while it was running at 1300-1400 rpm. When you would encounter a hill the % load would go up along with the rpm to about 1700-1800 and the fuel economy would drop off to 25 mpg or so. Anyway in my testing anything above about a 46% load would result in a huge fall off in mpg. I highly recommend the miniscanner for the 01-03 Prius. Hopefully one will be built for the 04 Prius as well. Perhaops I will try the 04 Prius on my commute sometime as opposed to the Insight. Have fun, RIck
|