Before the Prius, I drove an E320, my commute route is 12 miles one way in all local traffic, stop start etc. I am not one to jack rabbit out of the green light and brake till the last moment. I ease off when I see traffic ahead or red light and with this driving style, I average 24 mpg on the MB. On this route, I often saw Prius sprinting first off ahead of all cars and thought wow that's nifty! I would have to push my MB a little bit to keep up with that. Now that I drive the Prius, I find that to sprint ahead of the traffic like that, I would have to push quite a bit and with that, would get single mpg briefly and not even then that I could jump ahead. Is what I saw just a few example of heavy footed Prius drivers or is there an optimum way of launching a Prius? For the moment, I just drive the way I drove the MB and got just under 50mpg with about 600 miles on the odo. Cheers
I would go with the "heavy footed" theory. To get the numbers I get, I try to start off by not having any yellow arrows going to the wheels on the energy screen. I sometimes try to use the battery to get up to 15-20 mph. This technique was good for several 80+ mpg tanks last summer.
I'd have to say heavy footed too. Heh. I find it surprising when me and another prius are at a stoplight, with me behind, that I can't keep up with him when the light turns green, even when I'm accelerating at 2400rpm.
Which won't produce the best mpg. Slow acceleration is a mileage killer, unless you are creeping from light to light. As long as you don't have to stop right away, the best mileage comes from brisk acceleration up to your intended cruising speed. The idea is to run your ICE at its sweet spot, without having to go into the battery. You can get some idea from watching the Energy screen, but some sort of CAN viewer is better if you are serious about it. You can do pretty well by ear: Just accelerate briskly, but not so fast that the engine races. Tom
