MPG city vs freeway

Easy.
Math and physics.

In order to answer this question more effectively, let's look at one of the most efficient vehicles ever produced:
The Dodge Hellcat.

At idle, it can deliver something like 18? 20? hours of run time.
However (comma!!!)
If you mash the 'fun switch' to the floor while the car in in drive?
This same car will empty over one and a half full Prius fuel tanks in 11-13 minutes....

@ 203MPH....

 

the epa uses a specific testing proceedure, which may or may not come close to real world individual results.
i can do pretty well in local driving using pulse and glide techniques, coasting to lights and etc.
it can be exhausting though, and frustrating if there is traffic behind you.
highway is set it and forget it, but it is mostly engine with a little battery

 

You need to forget about what other people are saying about YOUR car, including your car's MPG video game
If fuel efficiency is your goal then run two or three tanks of gas through YOUR car and use a pencil and a hunk of paper to determine YOUR real-world tank average.
Or?
You could just relax and enjoy the fact that the G4 is a VERY fuel efficient car.
Somebody a LOT smarter than I am once said that you can drive a Prius like "an ordinary car" and it will deliver extraordinary mileage.

My advice?
(street value: < 0.02 $USD)
Just drive the car.

Circle back on this topic in 6 months or so......

OH....and GET a spare tire!

YMMV

 

Unfortunately, it would be impossible for the epa to emulate all the different driving styles and circumstances into one test.
Being a moderate type of driver most of my life (obeying the rules of the road and accelerating modestly) I have always been close to epa results or better.
The test is supposed to help with comparing different cars, not predicting what an individual will get

 

It’s like buying an appliance, and the sticker tells you about how much it costs to on average.
But they don’t know how much you’re going to use it, or what your fuel costs are

 

You're just now figuring out that you shouldn't believe everything you read?

 

There’s reasons why the city mpg rating is better:

1. Electric-only propulsion can only happen below a certain speed.

2. Air drag is less.

3. Lower speeds keep the engine in more efficient range.

 

it has been agreed here that the ev button is almost useless since it first came out

 

everything on the net shows hybrids get better city than highway, so i'm at a loss to explain your experience

 

Often someone will come to PriusChat under a misconception that driving EV will be more efficient than when the engine runs.

If you have a Prime that can be true, because some of your electric power can have come from somewhere else besides the engine.

In an ordinary Prius, any time you're using electrical power, you're using gas engine power that was inefficiently put into the battery earlier and being taken inefficiently back out now.

So it turns out that trying to maximize your engine-off driving isn't really a route to good efficiency. The battery serves best as a buffer between momentary surpluses and momentary deficits of gas engine power; you don't beat the efficiency of when the engine is producing just the amount of power needed.

 

I made a road trip last summer that passed through Montana and Wyoming, where some posted freeway limits were 80 or 85 MPH.

That gave me the opportunity to vary my MPG by a factor of roughly two just by choosing what consistent freeway speed to drive.

 

What speed are you going on the freeway? 67mpg sounds much higher than expected.

For my 2017 gen 4 Prius I would get 52 mag on the freeway doing 65-70mph. For commuting with a mixture of stop and go and expressway running I would get 65-68mpg. For the same commute my 2012 Mazda 3 I would get about 30 mpg or 40mpg on freeway. These measurements are by measuring fuel consumed - not from the dashboard display which is usually a couple of miles per gallon optimistic.

Although the stop and go traffic makes the efficiency much worse with a conventional vehicle the battery buffers the inefficiency of the Prius engine so that the much lower air resistance results in a higher fuel efficiency (at least for most people and the EPA test).

The Prius attempts to always use the engine at its optimum power point or not run the engine at all when appropriate. Forcing use of EV mode will usually result in worse efficiency

kw

 

not arguing. you are stating your reality. i understand and can't refute it.
most everyone else, it's the opposite. i don't know why. 40 is super low around town, but there are a lot of driving variables.
set it and forget it on the highway removes some of those