MPG Happy Talk

[tombarker13ffh]

No rain today. Interesting, I used 0.329 gallons driving 15.5 miles yesterday and 0.297 gallons driving 17.6 miles today..

 

 

Shorter trip home

 

Edited May 7, 2013 by tombarker13ffh

[Da0ne]

 

Now if I can get the same results in the morning I would be happy

 

 

7 miles til empty first time I get close to 500 miles on one tank

Edited May 7, 2013 by Da0ne

[acdii]

I found a way to kill the MPG in my Flex! :) Hook a horse trailer to it! LOL Hitched it for the first time tonight and it looks so good!!!! I got over 21 MPG today in it, its getting easier to stay in the 20-30 range now.

[hybridbear]

Had great mileage today driving around

 

From work to go play baseball, cold start, 70 degrees outside

From park home, engine had cooled off and this was another cold start

Going to go visit a friend later on this evening

From the friend's house to gas station

From gas station home

Lifetime Summary is up .4 MPG during this last tank of gas. Fuelly still exactly matches my display on the dash

Last tank of gas. I would have gone longer without filling up but I had $.10/gal of gas rewards discounts that we expiring today from a local grocery store

Edited May 7, 2013 by hybridbear

[hybridbear]

That's really impressive to get such high mileage with idling warm up time. This makes me all the more eager for rjent's analysis of the warm up period

 

Yep.

[gadgetguy]

Some really great numbers going on here lol. My drive to Daphne AL was terrible today. Bad rain, cold and having to climb the ridge made for some terrible MPG the first leg. Once I got to about Prattville I filled up and maintained a 36 mpg average going 70 to 75 and it was very windy the entire way.

 

I also got really ticked off because some dude in a POS truck was literally spewing oil out of the back on to everyone behind him including me. The entire front of my car was literally covered in oil. I could barely see and had to divert to the nearest car wash to get it cleaned.

 

The weather is supposed to be much nicer tomorrow and the rest of the week for that matter. I hope my drive back on Wednesday is better....

[Riggo]

Hybridbear. I'm curious about all these 60+ mpg trips. Were your trips on mostly flat terrain drives?

[corncobs]

No they are all downhill @ 30 MPH ?

 

but seriously I have been asking my self the same question.

[corncobs]

Some really great numbers going on here lol. My drive to Daphne AL was terrible today. Bad rain, cold and having to climb the ridge made for some terrible MPG the first leg. Once I got to about Prattville I filled up and maintained a 36 mpg average going 70 to 75 and it was very windy the entire way.

 

I also got really ticked off because some dude in a POS truck was literally spewing oil out of the back on to everyone behind him including me. The entire front of my car was literally covered in oil. I could barely see and had to divert to the nearest car wash to get it cleaned.

 

The weather is supposed to be much nicer tomorrow and the rest of the week for that matter. I hope my drive back on Wednesday is better....

Not sure if I should hit the like button since its nothing really to like especially the part with the oil.

Hopefully you get better weather on your way back.

[gadgetguy]

Well I did get it washed so that's something to like lol.. I'm sure the trip home will be much better!

[GrayStrider]

Geez, how do you manage to get a 100% braking score on every trip??? I work hard at it but typically have upper 80's to low 90's for my braking scores.

 

 

Had great mileage today driving around

 

From work to go play baseball, cold start, 70 degrees outside

From park home, engine had cooled off and this was another cold start

Going to go visit a friend later on this evening

From the friend's house to gas station

From gas station home

Lifetime Summary is up .4 MPG during this last tank of gas. Fuelly still exactly matches my display on the dash

Last tank of gas. I would have gone longer without filling up but I had $.10/gal of gas rewards discounts that we expiring today from a local grocery store

 

[hybridbear]

Hybridbear. I'm curious about all these 60+ mpg trips. Were your trips on mostly flat terrain drives?

Our terrain in Minneapolis is a lot of rolling hills. This route is mostly flat but there are a number of rolling hills that might be a 50-100 foot change in elevation going up and down each time. I'm not sure of overall elevation change from start to finish, since the MPGs were pretty close I'd estimate that there wasn't much elevation change.

 

No they are all downhill @ 30 MPH

 

but seriously I have been asking my self the same question.

What makes this particular route so good is that I don't stop much. On one road the lights are timed pretty well where I can get through 4 or 5 in a row without stopping and go a mile or two without having to stop. And then I get on one of our parkways that goes around some of the lakes we have here. The parkways are all 25 MPH and are designed with minimal stops. Few streets intersect the parkways and when they do, the parkway almost always has the right of way. On average it's probably .5 miles or more between stops on the parkway, sometimes more than a mile between stops. That also leads to great fuel economy. I'm going to start a thread under the "Hybrid Driving Tricks" with more of my observations from these trips, I'm not really doing anything to hypermile, I'm just driving under nearly ideal conditions for our cars.

 

Geez, how do you manage to get a 100% braking score on every trip??? I work hard at it but typically have upper 80's to low 90's for my braking scores.

When I know I'm going to be stopping (for a stop sign for example) it's very easy to get 100% all the time by being smooth in my application of the brakes and beginning to brake early enough. I don't know how large the city blocks are in So Cal, but here if I'm going 30-35 MPH I'll usually start gently braking at least a half block before the stop sign. I'll start braking even earlier if the stop sign is downhill. I also try to watch the traffic lights in front of me so that I don't get caught by one turning red and making me hit the brakes hard. More and more of our lights are getting the type of crosswalk indicators that count down the seconds until the light is going to turn red, these are awesome when it comes to getting 100% brake scores because I can see from far away if I have enough time to make it or if I should start braking even before the light turns red. As I drive the same routes over time I learn where all the stop signs and red lights are and I then can make sure I plan far enough ahead to get 100% even when the stop is at the bottom of a hill.

Edited May 7, 2013 by hybridbear

[corncobs]

Thanks for the route description hybridbear; that explains a lot and don't get me wrong I agree with you that's perfect hybrid territory!

That also explains your 100 % braking score; it's lot easier to get 100 % at such low speeds even up to 45 MPH it's doable. Everything faster gets tricky even if you have the space and distance on a off ramp it's not easy to get 100% going from 65 - 0 MPH. But don't get me wrong again it's pretty awsome that you can do that every time. ?

[acdii]

And he drives with both feet!!! J/K LOL

[ROB281]

this morning's commute 70+ till I hit Houston traffic for the last 10 miles

[gadgetguy]

Awesome!

[hybridbear]

http://fordfusionhybridforum.com/topic/6606-why-hybrids-are-so-efficient/

 

Here is the thread I started to talk about efficiency and it breaks down some of the numbers behind the efficiency of hybrids and PHEVs

[hybridbear]

Thanks for the route description hybridbear; that explains a lot and don't get me wrong I agree with you that's perfect hybrid territory!

That also explains your 100 % braking score; it's lot easier to get 100 % at such low speeds even up to 45 MPH it's doable. Everything faster gets tricky even if you have the space and distance on a off ramp it's not easy to get 100% going from 65 - 0 MPH. But don't get me wrong again it's pretty awsome that you can do that every time.

I find even on highway exit ramps it is not hard to get 100% if you start braking early enough.

 

The inefficiency of our cars on the highway has to do with the starting and stopping when entering and exiting the highway. Since there are energy losses on both acceleration and with regenerative braking it is better to avoid the highway for short trips within the city. Winter weather might be an exception to that since the ICE won't stay warm driving in the city in the winter which will cause it to run more and lower efficiency. But above 50 degrees I'm realizing that it's better to stay off the highway unless I have to. For most trips under 15 miles I don't mind the additional time it takes to drive the city route since the city route is usually relaxing and will net a 25-50% increase in efficiency over taking the highway. If I can take the highway and get 43 MPG or take the city route and get 63 MPG I'm seeing my efficiency increase by almost 50% by taking the city route. To me the increase in efficiency combined with the increased enjoyment of the car driving in the city makes it worth the additional time in most cases

[neod192]

I find even on highway exit ramps it is not hard to get 100% if you start braking early enough.

 

The inefficiency of our cars on the highway has to do with the starting and stopping when entering and exiting the highway. Since there are energy losses on both acceleration and with regenerative braking it is better to avoid the highway for short trips within the city. Winter weather might be an exception to that since the ICE won't stay warm driving in the city in the winter which will cause it to run more and lower efficiency. But above 50 degrees I'm realizing that it's better to stay off the highway unless I have to. For most trips under 15 miles I don't mind the additional time it takes to drive the city route since the city route is usually relaxing and will net a 25-50% increase in efficiency over taking the highway. If I can take the highway and get 43 MPG or take the city route and get 63 MPG I'm seeing my efficiency increase by almost 50% by taking the city route. To me the increase in efficiency combined with the increased enjoyment of the car driving in the city makes it worth the additional time in most cases

Your city route is way different than mine. My city route involved poorly timed traffic lights with heavy traffic and lots of stop & go - even worse during rush hour. I still only get 43-44 by taking the city route.

[hybridbear]

Your city route is way different than mine. My city route involved poorly timed traffic lights with heavy traffic and lots of stop & go - even worse during rush hour. I still only get 43-44 by taking the city route.

Minneapolis has made a point of timing the traffic lights to minimize stopping in most cases. You can get all the way from downtown 6-7 miles south to the suburbs without stopping on some streets if you set your cruise control right at 30 MPH (the speed limit). Even during rush hour traffic flows very well. I also am usually able to avoid rush hour since my commute from home to work is so short our driving is mostly in the evenings and on weekends. We try to wait until after 6 to go out in the evenings or to get things done between 3:30 when I often leave the office and when traffic gets bad after 4.

 

Yesterday when I left work at 3:30 to go play baseball there was one stretch on a busy street where I got through a bunch of lights where I often have to stop on the weekend but that were all green yesterday being setup for rush hour traffic. I went from 76th Street all the way to 50th Street without stopping, that's almost 3 miles without a single red light.

[hybridbear]

And those 3 miles were without the ICE coming on once since the power demand is so low to cruise at a steady speed I was able to go a long ways on very little electrical energy from the battery

[JSKershaw]

My MPG is getting way better with this beautiful weather.

 

This is my commute to work today

4.0L/100km = 58.8 MPG US

And this is my current tank of gas. I reset the trip computer every time I fill up the tank. I still have about 1/2 a tank and the Distance to empty is reading 497KM. At this rate I don't see any reason why I can't get about 950km on this tank of gas,

4.7L/100km = 50 MPG US

 

 

[mokee]

The 2nd second Trip odometer has never been reset on "Old Blue." It reads 5989 miles and 42.0 MPG. I'm satisfied since my wife is always pedal to the metal with hard braking. It is her car. My log MPG of actual gallons pumped divided into total miles is 41.9, so I know the above number is real.

[AmpedFFH]

Some of you are putting up some crazy numbers. Hopefully one day we will get those kind of numbers. My Wife's MPG to and from work continues to climb (she got 49.3 mpg) maybe as the car is breaking in (still only 326 miles) so maybe some day we will be posting crazy numbers. My best mpg to the same area was 45mpg. I know this is the happy talk forum, but I'm not happy that my wife is still winning on the MPG game :(

 

And she is not even trying - how frustrating! :)

Edited May 7, 2013 by AmpedFFH

[neod192]

It's getting better day by day :)