I finally got some time in the Prius. After wading through the reams of discussion on this site, some of which is clear and some of which is a little discolored , I was ready to try a pulse and glide session on a trip to pick up my Son from the moves. I've pulsed and I have glided, but never intentionally consecutively. It is a seven mile trip each way on flat roads that I can drive at any speed I choose due to multiple lanes and low traffic at night. I pulsed slowly to 40 and glided down to 30. I got segments on the histogram of ~ 85 mpg.

I think I can do this when traffic allows, but the up and down speed would drive my Wife nuts if she was with me. The overall trip time wasn't really affected that much since my averag speed only really dropped about 6 mph from the usual 40 mph that I would have driven, but my FE was up 15 mpg.

Thanks for all the help learning about my hybrid, which I would have never purchased were it not for the wealth of info from you all.

 

was your battery level the same when you ended your trip? if so that's impressive and give your right foot a massage.

 

Pulse and Glide = Road Rage. If you did that here I would think someone could catch a severe case of road rage & the police can ticket you for driving under the speed limit(impeading the flow of traffic)

But cool anyways, Iam always looking for more Fe's

 

I have read and understand the philosophy and activies of Pulse and Glide (P&G), but in my everyday driving environment (urban driving with lots of hills and poorly timed lights) the best I can really do is try to maintain a constant speed.

Almost none of my daily (15 minite) commute involves flat terrain and certainly includes zero highway or interstate miles. So it seems to me the best I can hope for is on the bottom end of the FE range for a Prius. My first tank of gas got me 39.6 MPG, that was done with temps in the range of 30 degrees F. On my second tank I seem to improving somewhat, I am currently at 40.4 MPG but temps are a little better and I have run the A/C or heater nearly at all.

During this second tank I have tried to use the P&G, but in reality I find I am trying to maintain a constant speed. My guess is that my improved mileage is related to temperature as much as it is my attempts at P&G. Over time I expect that I will find what works best for me and FE.

 

I did maintain about the same state of charge (SOC). The SOC can be managed by the pulse. If you put more into the pulse you will charge that batt instead of draining it. On the glide I was not using any batt or regen.

 

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___PriusGuy04, road rage? How in the hell are you going to observe a P&G inside of a 32 - 38 mph band on a 35 mph speed limited road? I was driving the Ranger P/U around your locale for 2 days last February and I didn’t see any road rage? You can bet I was driving her using some of the more famous and infamous techniques too. Maybe I drove in a different part of Orlando like the rest of the tourists then you normally do?

Here, 40 = 55, 60=75+, 20=35 & stop signs stand for (slow to observe police) thats something that seems has changed with all the new drivers, I think the new drivers are not taught what we were taught, or are just in a hurry and don't care.. P.S. they don't shoot at the tourists.

Has anyone figured out how much gas each bar stands for on the gas gauge?

Also the dealer stated that running the a/c does not affect the gas mileage due to it is not connected to the engine like a conventional car It's powered by electric simalar to an aircraft, also the power steering is also electric assisted on the prius..?..

lol or am I just being nieve........

 

My five Ts of hypermiling:
Technique: Pulse & glide, drive without brakes, and drive with load.
Time: How much time do you have? If you have a few minutes, to drive a bit slower (not speed), you can significantly increase your fuel economy.
Temperature: If it's cold, your FE will suffer. You can garage your car or get a block warmer, but it will still drop.
Traffic Conditions: You should only apply hypermiling techniques when traffic conditions allow it.
Tire pressure: Keep it up!

 

He's wrong. Running the AC will significantly affect your fuel economy.

 

The 04-06 Prius use an electric motor driven compressor. The earlier models and virtually every other vehicle have to run the engine to operate the compressor. A terrific improvement, your electric compressor is the automatic version of 'pulse and glide' cooling.

You could put your Prius in the hot, Florida sun and run the air conditioner and the engine, after warm-up, would turn on and off only as traction battery charge is needed. Meanwhile, the compressor would run as much as needed, independent of the engine, to keep the car cool. Any other car would simply run the engine constantly in a slightly accellerated idle and soon empty the tank (if it didn't also overheat.)

We modified our 03 Prius by adding a 1 kW inverter to provide emergency power for our home gas heater. Testing revealed that even with the maximum, 1 kW load running constantly, the engine ran less than half of the time. Subsequent testing with our gas furnace, 1/3 hp motor 800 W., revealled we can get 44 hours of ice-storm, power outage operation from the 11 gal. tank.

There is no 'free lunch' and the 04-06 Prius AC requires energy that ultimately comes from the engine. But the relative amount of fuel needed to power your AC will be no where as much as it is with the 01-03 Prius or any other engine driven compressor, AC system. Enjoy!

BTW, today I turn off the AC when at a stop or under maximum accelleration demands. One of these days I'll rig up a circuit to handle these tasks automaticly. Only "MAX AC" will bypass the automatic circuit. Our 03 Prius won't be as efficient as your system (Prius envy), but it will be good enough.

Bob Wilson