But in suburbs with low traffic I should be able to pull 50 miles/gallon, right? And 60 on highways?

I take it your opinion of the "enhanced" batteries is rather low. You would not buy one, then? The new cells have been out for 4 years... I'm having a hard time finding feedback on them. Are the new packs reliable/economical?

I don't want to even think that the CVT could be bad. Seems unlikely though because the outlet I bought the car from gave me a 3 month warranty on it.

 

50? 60? Where are you getting those absurd numbers?

https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find...n=sbs&id=24829

I gave you data. I did not give you an opinion. Please don't confuse the two. Concerning reliability, Bumblebee has been in business since 2012 offering a 3 year warranty, and they're still in business. Form your own opinion.

The likelihood of your CVT being bad is in no way related to any 3 month warranty. They are independent conditions.

The driving factor in your particular situation is what appears to be near continuous recalibration, which will kill mileage.

Did you check your CVT fluid?

 

People posted on Clean MPG of getting in the mid 60s fuel economy without mods in highway driving. Also the Prius II gets 60 MPG average in SW Ohio despite an epa rating of 46. I know because I test drove two of them. Never went below 49. 70 at 70.

But in terms of mpgs, I expect my MPGs to be in line with my RPMs. That's the primary use of a hybrid engine after all: to produce maximum power at the lowest possible RPMs. As it is my RPMs are shooting to 3-4000 whenever I accelerate. Don't think that's supposed to be happening.

 

You are looking at the outliers and NO vehicle gets 70mpg at 70. Period. It's not physically possible without violating the laws of thermodynamics.

I've owned:

2X HCH2, 40-42mpg
2X G1 Insight CVT, 50-55mpg
2X Gen2 Prius, 42-46mpg
1X Gen1 Prius, 40mpg
1X FEH, 29mpg

Yes, with EXTREME skill and hypermiling techniques, you can experience big mpg improvements, but it's not sustainable, and you will not be able to operate without being a roadblock to other drivers.

 

Absolutely not.



Supposedly the very latest generation Prius can get near 50 mpg in low speed driving, but no HCH is going to do much better than 40 on average. Air drag goes up as the square of the velocity, and it is already the dominant drag at 40 mph. So what makes you think that speeding up by 1.5x, which will increase that drag by 2.25x, would possibly result in better mileage? (Admittedly a car able to sustain 45-50 mph for long periods of time may get marginally better MPG than one doing stop and go to 40 mph, but that is a smaller speed ratio, and once the losses from the stop and go braking and accelerating are offset there is nothing else to be gained.)

 

My Corolla 2002 automatic gets a solid 30 even with the heater on (in fact it seems to get 30 no matter what). The Corolla manual is rated for 38 highway. A CVT with electronic propulsion assist can only get 40 mpg, you say?

 

Heater isn't going to drop mpg, A/C will. All the heater does is move heat which would have gone to the radiator into the cabin. The A/C presents an additional load.


The hybrid's only efficiency advantages over a convention car are: recovers some energy otherwise lost to braking, able to turn off motor while stopped, assists gas motor when it is least efficient (at low RPMs), and the small electric motor lets the gas motor be smaller. On the highway at steady speed the only one that is still a factor is the last one, and as a corollary the car is somewhat underpowered in highway usage (compared to a conventional car). The Prius has a very low coefficient of drag, so it gets especially good highway mpg. It would still do that if all the hybrid parts were removed and it just used a small conventional motor.




Honda Civic Hybrid, yes, in that range.

 

Maybe if I were trodding along at 90 mph, with the ac on 68 in 100 degree weather. The AC is at 75 (when temps are 80 or above) and I don't go above 70 on the highway. I heard there was a battery nerf by the software, but tweaks can be made that enable the battery to work at lower voltage and thus, evade the update. There is no warranty to speak of so no reason not to do the mod. Maybe not all the way back to the HCH I level which Honda hastily attempted to force the HCH II to perform at after lean burn was prohibited, but enough to get decent power for 6 years. I figure that's the effective lifetime of the battery after all.

 

Well dealership looked at the car and sure enough it's the battery. CVT is fine, they say. They said the battery had like 3 dead cells, and that the mpgs of the car would continue to suffer until I got Ford Silverado-level economy So it looks like I'll be buying a new battery. They quoted 3k, saying they'd replace all the cells in the battery case with new, plus 3 year warranty. So yeah I'm looking at Bumblebee or Greentec, mobile or white glove install depending on the price... Gonna fish for more info first though as to the difference, in lifetime/power/mpg terms, between the 6.5 cells and the 8.0 cells.

 

It's not a battery nerf. It's a modification to the battery management that makes it more comparable to the way a Prius manages the battery (40-80% SoC). Unfortunately, for a marginal or failing battery, it causes an increase in frequency of recalibrations for a long time before it throws an IMA code unless there's a catastrophic cell failure.

However, it extends the life of good cells by reducing the total depth of cycling.

Please provide info on this "mod" of which you speak.