It all started with this photo in the share section:

Too bad it's not metric so you can have measurements above 99.9 MPG (>2.35l/100km)Someone should find out how to transfer the Canadian MFD firmware to the US cars, or if you have the $ import one from Canada since the speedo can always change miles and km, maybe even just the MFD is all you need? I don't see why Toyota couldn't include both versions and have it switch when the button is pressed to change the main readout... Many have complained about this, even since the first Prius. Here an 'off the scale' bar on the graph is equivalent to 23mpg or lower, everything higher than that shows as a smaller bar.How would you be any better off with the Japanese version? You'll have the same problem with high FE being off the top of the graph, like the US MFD, but I guess it depends what the top of the graph is, as it does in the US version.

It seems to me that measuring using the Canadian MFD would work fine (if not the best), since you can have measurements as small as you want, equating to very high mileage. How would it be worse?

Here's what your screen would sorta look like if you used the Canadian version to do the same type of trip:


If you got higher than 100 MPG there would be smaller bars on the graph, and a smaller number as an average, so it would be rather easy to test for even higher mileage. The problem with the Canadain version of the graph is when your consumption is over 10L/100km, but that's not often.

 

Hi Schwa:

___The Japanese version of the Prius II has a metric display although it too is lacking the necessary > 40km/L range. There are hypermilers in Japan that have rigged up a neat metric display with Insight like characteristics (metric display w/ resolution down to I believe 1 L/100 km and multiple trip meters). Hopefully Krousdb can elaborate further as I believe he has pics of what they have available to them across the Pacific …

___With that, Krousdb has a neat method of determining FE above 100 mpg in the Prius II over any given segment with a little math thrown into the mix. It works too

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Waynegerdes@earthlink.net

 

The Canadian MFD is pretty good, resolution down to 0.1 L/100km, Toyota really should have splurged on the extra chip to hold both versions of the program in the MFD, especially in the US version, and Canadian as well so we can compare more easily. It might help the metric system grow in popularity, who knows?

 

The Japanese MFD shows your average in kilometers per liter up 99.9 I assume. That equates to 235 Miles per Gallon.

 

After doing some more research, I can't be sure that the Japanese version will exceed 40 km/l.

There is a gadget called a SuperMID M-1 / T-1 which will report losts of interesting info up to 99.9 km/l.

http://babelfish.altavista.com/babel...FNENPIKEI.html

I hope that mine will arrive by Friday Aug 5 so that I can have it installed for the marathon. THe additional info that it provides will be able to help me hone the technique. It should be especially helpful for winter driving and determining what winterizing mods work and which are a waste of time.

 

That would be better, but the Canadian version essentially does that too, 1 L/100km is 235mpg, and it can measure higher than that by 0.1 increments... But it's just backwards, so that's the main advantage. We're measuring fuel consumption, and you're measuring fuel efficiency, if you could have it display in gallons per 100 miles that would also work, but even less recognized as far as making comparisons.

Personally I find the fuel consumption type display more useful because it tells you how much fuel the car is using at that moment, and it's pretty shocking to see just how much energy it takes to do something (like taking off quickly up a steep hill) but it's not so obvious when the units are fuel efficiency because it's low numbers, with big steps in consumption between each number.
Sounds neat, I think I'll try to get one of the mini-scan dealies for the Prius I eventually.

 

Two things

if your car is getting over 100 mpg which is wonderfull why does it matter ?? the difference between 98 and 102 mpg is very little. 2.4L/100km = 98mpg and 2.3L = 102 mpg.

second if you want to know simply take your mileage and divide by gallons pumped into your tank.

 

In this case it matters because the reason he gets over 100mpg is his specially engineered technique that can be mastered and fine tuned, so it's of benefit to know if what you are doing is improving the FE or not.
That's fine for full tanks, but it's not usually possible to do tank based calculation to get immediate feedback, at least it's not nearly as easy and useful as watching the screen.




The Prius I mini-scanner can be found here: http://www.ecrostech.com/Products/MiniScanner/Intro.htm

 

Thanks Schwa. I couldn't have put it better myself!