My best to-date is 3 little green cars on a single 5 minute bar. Achieved by decelerating slowly with just a little braking on a motorway exit ramp.
Today, while driving home I managed to use 0.2l/100km in 5 minutes on a downhill section and then using EV mode in town, with half a little green car as a bonus. I have been trying to do well there, traffic lights were favourable... (usually I have 1 1/2 little green cars there because I have to stop for the lights).
After having traveled a meagre 841 kilometres on this fuel tank, I added 44.65 liters (by far the most, pretty near the end of the 45l capacity), yielding:
5.308 liters per 100km (Prius meter shows 5.0).
Converted to other measurements, this means:
44.31 MPG USA
53.22 MPG Imperial
Explanatory factors include:
- Even more motorway driving (went to a far away airport);
- Getting stuck in several LONG traffic jams (after 30 min of start/stop crawling where the Prius is awesome, it desperately wants to charge the battery);
- Heating (last days were 2-5-8 degrees centigrade); the Prius heater is amazingly quick, you get real heat in under 1 minute from cold start.
Now I've grabbed that Total Excellium fuel again for a second try, to see if their claims have any veracity.
Note: the Prius fuel tank contains a 'bladder' which responds to temperature and air pressure etc, which explains (I hope) the differences between the Prius meter and my own measurements. Then again, my maths might well be completely wrong.
Solar Hydro
P.S.1. The price was €1.288/l for 95 octane
P.S.2. Bad start: after 1 day Prius meter shows 5.3l/100km.
Ack, I needed another pitstop after all before the end of the year...
Sixth refuel on the Prius today.
After having traveled 774 kilometres on this fuel tank, I added 43.5 liters (costing 55.55 euros, Q8 brand), yielding:
5.62 liters per 100km (Prius meter shows 5.3), i.e. by far my worst result.
Converted to other measurements, this means:
41.85 MPG USA
50.26 MPG Imperial
Temperature in the past weeks was around freezing for several days, we had snow again, and I had to wait for my colleague to defrost her car's locks with my engine idling for 10 min (from cold start while it was freezing = very bad for fuel efficiency). Note: The Prius doors can be opened with the key in one's pocket... it's called "smart entry" and it works ;-)
Solar Hydro
Happy New Year, again princess:frosty::wizard:
Ahhh cool! I hadn't seen that video earlier, just got back in this thread
But that is definitely cool :up: Thx. Trying to understand what all the arrows mean... but I am sure it is for that brake generator stuff. Neat to see it so active. I am almost thinking of having a hybrid at some point... I want to get some crazy mpg, and save cash of course
Bismarck asked me for real-world performance statistics (high up in this thread); I am providing them
The car fully meets my expectations, until now, but I've only had it since 3 September 2005, so it's early days yet to judge.
Points I don't like: rear-window visibility is poor (strange rear spoiler), too many electronic beeps for all kinds of 'features' (including reverse gear), fuel gauge not detailed enough (doesn't have a countdown in km like some recent cars), the emergency triangle in the boot gets loose and rattles (I've fixed that a few times, but it starts again after a while, need to think of a permanent fix), traction control and stability control cannot be turned off, a new little rattle in the right front door (I HATE rattles, need to look into fixing that one), the plastic wheel covers, still looking for proper rims.
I added a picture of a Prius taxi I spotted in Ljubljana to the set of pictures linked at the start of this thread. Saw another Prius taxi there again this month of December. It had 'HIBRID' written in big black letters on the yellow rear bumper.
Id say its a part of a promo campain or something, like the taxi company got them for a lower price. Because they are not popular here, I've only seen one since they came out. Just around the border in Italy it seems to be different, I even saw a honda insight there.
I went to the car wash with the Prius today for the first time, a little over 4 months after taking delivery of the car (I don't EVER plan to wash it by hand!). I needed that car wash because the salt spray from the roads had obscured the side windows and especially the little window under the rear spoiler a bit too much, which impeded visibility. It's quite difficult (for me, I'm not very tall) to reach over the roof to take off the little antenna, so perhaps the car isn't that low after all.
In addition, I did the seventh refuel on the Prius later in the day. Quite quick, because I drove 600+ km to Amsterdam and back the other day, with suspicious green battery almost all the way while driving mostly 120-124 km/h for the whole distance, with limited sections at 100-104km/h. I attribute the green battery to the low outside temperature which was 2-3° centigrade. The Prius meter was showing a flat systematic 5.5l/100km on that trip. It was remarkable to see the completely constant readout on the meter. (Holland is flat).
After having traveled 788 kilometres on this fuel tank, I added 45.0 liters (the fuel tank capacity is... 45 liters), deliberately choosing an 'el cheapo no name petrol station' to check whether the 'el cheapo' fuel makes any difference. (the price was €1.14/l, my dad paid €1.31/l at a branded petrol station the same day).
The analysis of this fuel tank is as follows:
5.71 liters per 100km (Prius meter shows 5.4, on the edge of 5.5 where it was earlier in the day), i.e. I keep racking up worse results over and over... as the temperature gets lower, but this tank was the max on motorway distance for sure.
Converted to other measurements, this means:
41.19 MPG USA
49.47 MPG Imperial
Solar Hydro
P.S. Taking advantage of a passenger for the trip to Amsterdam, we managed to isolate the developing dashboard rattle noise (I am notoriously sensitive/hysterical about rattle noises in my cars) as coming from a little grid on top of the dashboard screen. When pressing a finger on it, the noise stops, so I'm hopeful that it can be fixed.
HO MY GOD....
so many gadegts and gizmos.. would not like to be you when the ecu starts throwing out fault codes.. i am in the motor trade and main dealers have enough problems fault finding normal cars with out this little pandoras box....
but on the bright side you could be really eco friendly and recycle it into a hair dryer..
lol.. as i said i am in the motor trade and know all about computers and ecu's on cars.. i also know how many fault codes prove untraceable even by main dealers on there own cars.. and that is on conventional ic cars, let alone hybred cars which are even more complex....
lets not forget hybred technology is brand new to the market place and theses early cars are bound to have problems and faults not thrown up in testing as do all new concepts..
so basicaly your a guinie pig, driving a prospective hair dryer
That's natural, since nearly all codes point out to several possible targets. In my opinion, those codes are good for diagnostics and evaluating possible problem areas. While my knowledge of latest machines is very limited, I still don't think there will be a ecu capable to pinpoint failure (or even fix it real-time) in near future.
That's the price we have to pay for new (and usually better) technology
well this is not new technology really is it .. it's a mish mash of current technology put togther to help our goverments meet emmision levels they have promised each other to meet..
100 mpg is not world shattering, david vizard built a 100mpg mini back in the 70's and that was just a good engine build ... no pluging hair dryers into it
now when we get fuel cells that will be new technology!
This thread (largely at Bismarck's request - see near the top), keeps track of real-world Prius performance in a continental European country. It is, and will remain, an honest account of the car's life, and my driving behaviour/experience as its only driver.
I haven't had any problems (yet?), but I will be brutally honest in reporting any problems or issues (see also my post criticising some aspects), and the car's maintenance track record will be reported. I was told by the dealer on purchase that the first maintenance would be either at 15000km or 1 year (Prius enthusiasts say you should change the oil earlier, I haven't). I think I'll hit 15000km earlier than 1 year (I passed 6000km today).
The Prius is optimised for environmental performance, over and above fuel efficiency (little diesels will match it or even beat it on pure fuel efficiency).
My name is Solar Hydro for a reason.
Hydrogen direct vehicles have worked for some years (I still regret not buying a BMW 7 HL in the Internet boom times. Even if it would have been a bit difficult to refuel, it would have looked nice in my museum).
Fuel cell vehicles have worked for some years, can even be leased today on a more or less commercial basis (The Honda FCX has been leased to governments/companies/rich families but the price is not realistic for the average consumer and the refueling infrastructure is not practicable today for general purpose use). I firmly expect that it will eventually become economic (compared to transport alternatives), but the price point is/will be influenced massively by overall energy economics (which are extremely thwarted by commodity supply conditions/sources, environmental conditions and differentiated taxation). I fully expect to be a very early adopter of a fuel cell vehicle, but I'm afraid that it's unlikely to be imminent.
I remain on course for the purchase of an expensive a plug-in hack for the Prius (I personally experienced a long urban drive in an experimental hacked Prius with 62kg batteries in the boot, and its performance was objectively spectacular, even if the electronics and battery placement were a bit pre-industrialised).
The OLFSL crowd is invited to type 'Toyota Alessandro Volta' in a search engine. Sadly, it's only a prototype, but effectively built... and worth having a look at. Speed is electronically capped at 250km/h.
I think everyone knows what a mini is. Seeing as you mentioned production cars, what production mini achieved 100mpg? I bet you won't find any no matter how hard you look.
hmmmmmmmmmmm
mini's are a production car, and once more David Vizard, built one totally for economy, back in the late 1970's and he was achiving 100 mpg with it. it retained it's standard "A" series engine, so was not extenslively modified, just a carefull build using chosen components ... cant make it clearer than that..
if you want proof of those figures you will have to check in this book, as the end economy figures and all the build spec's are in it..... http://www.bevenyoung.com.au/prdt1149.htm
David Vizard is renouned as a mini guru has written several books on them and many other cars.. he is a free lance engineer as far as i know and is world renouned for being one of the best.
the point i was trying to make there is you cant compare a concept built trike type thing that one small person rides in, built of carbonfibre and other lavish meterials,that would probably get blown away in a gentle breeze, to a production road going car, capable of carrying passengers and practile use.. can you?
princess:frosty::wizard:
Omg! You're really obsessed with that fuel consumption. 
And electric motors are for wheelchairs 
and that is on conventional ic cars, let alone hybred cars which are even more complex....
