[mpg_numbers_guy]

Mini hypermiling success from yesterday:

A buddy of mine owns a 2012 or 2013 Prius V. His average MPG is about 39. Recently while carpooling he had me drive his car to see what kind of MPG I could get. His bet was that I could not break 50, but that I might be able to break 50 in the summer (it was in the 30s *F outside, clear roads) when it was warmer.

Scored 56.0 MPG over 15 miles in the V, starting from a cold engine, a very slight decrease in elevation - not much, mostly just the last quarter mile down to where his apartment was. My friend was pretty shocked. I didn't do any kind of crazy hypermiling other than stick to the speed limit, keep out of power mode when accelerating from all stops, and half regenning and half coasting to stops.

On the highway you can definitely see the FE loss that the bluff rear end of the V has compared to the standard Prius, but the MPG isn't that much lower around town. I'd estimate about 5 MPG loss around town and 10 mpg loss on the highway versus the standard Prius.

The 1.8L on the 2010-2015 Prii supposedly has a more efficient operating range than the 1.5L on the 2004-2009 Prii, so it isn't exactly apples to apples.