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I've started a Priuschat thread (http://priuschat.com/index.php?showtopic=26261) concerning my usual East Coast
holiday trip next month. Anyone interested in trying to get
together as I come past? Any gatherings or the like somewhere
between here and there that I might want to fiddle my schedule
to attend?
.
_H*

Hi Hobbit:

___Although I am not on any route heading south from your current locale, the wife is thinking about doing an interview in the Boston area and if the timing is right, I might be headed out your way for a few days. I would love to meet up with you and Mike for a lunch or similar if that is OK with you two as I will only have a few hours to spare at best if this comes about?

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Abso-tively! What timeframe, and what area around Boston?
[Move it to PMs if you don't want to get into detail here]
.
_H*

Well feel free to stop for a visit. I'm in Raliegh now so I should be right on your way. Give me some idea on your timing.

Hi Hobbit:

___Sorry for not getting back to your sooner … Dec. 3rd and 4th is when I may be in your locale. I will let you know by next week if you are still in the area.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Oh, I'm not heading off till more like the week of Dec 11,
sometime in there. So cool, I definitely want to get together
when you're here. This isn't the trip when you're bringing
our esteemed Japanese colleague along, is it??
.
_H*

Might as well keep using this thread as a running log.
The odyssey begins tomorrow morning, as I do the first leg
to some old friends in the DC area.
.
I've made several updates to the heat games (http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/heatgames/) pages, adding a
fourth page (http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/heatgames/pagefour.html) about the grille-blocking efforts and an annoying
animated GIF to page three (http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/heatgames/pagethree.html) showing what adding the spacers under
the heat-shield mounting accomplished. So tomorrow I get to
start seeing if all this was worthwhile, although it isn't
supposed to be particularly cold.
.
I'm going to try watching some of the fuel trims on the lappie
and see if I can notice any right-foot optimizations.
.
_H*

Hi Hobbit:

___You are on your way by now and I did not get the chance to say enjoy your vacation and the drive before hand. Reading about it in one of your many stops over the next few weeks will hopefully bring a smile to your face?

___Marian is again employed in IL. so our trip out east was canceled. To bad because I was looking forward to meeting up with you in the Boston area. Maybe Mike and yourself can once again visit HF2007 w/ a presentation on the real inner workings of the Prius II/HCH/Insight for the betterment of us all?

___Good Luck and have fun. I hope you can put the scope away, remove the projects and place the data sheets into the back of a drawer in your desk while truly enjoying your time with family and friends. This is after all the best time of year for that kind of stuff ;)

___Wayne

Okay, I've made it to the first waypoint, just outside of
DC. Might actually be here for a couple of days. Tanked up
in NJ [cheap!], after fighting a 51.something mpg average back
up to around 54; then since the afternoon was fairly warm
I watched the new average crest near 58.x and then some of the
PA hills and falling temps pushed me back down into 55
territory. But this is only 200 miles into the tank, so
we'll see how it goes from here. Speeds around 64 mph.
.
No incidents or near misses; one or two shots of the yuppie
button needed here and there to make 'em back off.
.
Yeah, Wayne, I was kinda wondering what happened to that
early December thing, but I understand now. 'Sokay, no prob..
.
_H*

It's been a nice little respite; a small group of us had some
really great melt-in-your-mouth sushi tonight. Getting on the road
again Thurs. morning, a brief swing into Blacksburg VA to hang
out with some colleagues, and then a long barrel-ass southward
from there.
.
_H*

Hi Hobbit:

___Enjoy the trip but more importantly, be safe out there! If you are already in VA., hopefully you are starting to see warmer temperatures vs. Boston and we all know what that does to ones FE :D

___Good Luck and keep us updated with your progress. Pass along some pics when you get the chance as well!

___Wayne

http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/pix/wtf1.jpg
.
Finally arrived at around 4:30 today. It was almost perfect
driving conditions -- 72F and *cloudy*, none of that florida
sunshine beating down on the car. I have many thoughts and notes
I jotted down while rolling, but that'll take shape after I catch
up on some sleep. For the record, my butt hurts.
.
_H*

Here's sort of a trip summary to date, with various observations
about MPG and the WAI [both related and not]. Interim conclusions
and discussion of the WAI itself are in a separate article (http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/heatgames/results-02.html); this just

sort of recounts the recordkeeping and features of the trip. Average
MPG was left alone between tank fills [when, in the Prius, one has no
choice since the FCD resets itself as soon as you move again]. I
don't bother resetting on tiny little segments; I can do the math if
I need to extract a chunk, or just seat-of-the-pants guess how I'm
trending it up or down based on how far into the tank I am.
.
The first day, I rigged up to monitor and log the three key temps:
ambient, IAT, and coolant. Headed out from Boston in 46F ambient
and a pre-existing 52.3 mpg average, and got most of the way through
NJ to a 54.8 avg before tanking up. After a miserable hill-climb
past the Delaware river that knocked the new one down to 38, I fought
it briefly to a peak of 58ish as I tooled into the evening through PA
and MD, and arrived at my DC-area waypoint showing 55.8 avg. The WAI
tube to the airbox was installed this whole time; I was seeing IAT
around 140F through most of it -- 90 - 100 degrees above ambient.
I was finding warp-stealth a bit difficult to hold -- the "restart
injection" threshold seemed annoyingly much more sensitive than
usual, and I had to carefully hold battery current right around zero
to prevent re-lighting the thing. This of course wouldn't let
warp-stealth runs go quite as far, since now I couldn't seem to
draw that extra kilowatt to help spin the engine while keeping it
in fuel-cut.
.
Got rolling again a couple of days later, heading down I-81 toward
Roanoke VA. Held the average at 55.x for most of that run, until the
terrain began to climb... from the couple of hundred feet I'd been
at, up to 1200 ft which put a pretty good dent into the average.
Battled it up and down for a while; I was thinking I should have been
doing better since ambient was close to 60F. I started wondering if
the WAI was starting to be a hindrance, and stopped a couple of times
to swap it off and on and off again and keep eyeballing the MFD. But
the average just kept slowly but steadily dropping through the
mid-fifties regardless. The tank was getting pretty low and I
started thinking about where to refill, and right then was where the
terrain decided to climb even *more*, up to 1800 feet! Pulled into
the truck stop with a relatively dismal 54.6 average, which may be
sub-fifty in real-life measurement. I could only think "okay, let's
see what we can do with a fresh tank and no cold-starts".
.
Hopped on again, and what's the first thing that happens? The terrain
dropped right back down to around 1200 feet. I had apparently
selected the "truck stop at the top of the world" as far as Virginia's
section of I-81 is concerned! 12 miles later, I was warp-stealthing
along with a very short-term average of 73 mpg, and then 50 miles
after that and another bump back up to 1300 ft it had pulled down to
60.2 and that's when I ran into a huge stand-still construction +
rush-hour jam-up right near Roanoke. Pretty much emptied the battery
by creeping along through it, and then getting to the VT campus to
find my dinner companion involved another hill-climb to his
building's parking lot at 2120 feet, average down to 58.1. The Prius
cooled down some while he drove to the restaurant and back, and later
I headed out to see how far I could get before needing sleep. I had
no more waypoints planned between there and FL, and Blacksburg is
about the halfway point on the whole trip.
.
The ambient headed slowly down in the course of the evening, but went
from about 35F on the high ridges I was crossing [read: prius snowflake
icon] back to mid-forties in the lower parts. Since my direction had
changed toward the southeast there were several more fairly steep ups
and downs as I crossed the rest of the Appalachian line, which took
its toll on the average since I actually had to push pretty hard to
get up some of these suckers even in the slow-truck lane. Around 1am
I found a rest stop a little south of Columbia SC, and slotted into a
parking spot that wasn't *too* brightly lit. Went to sleep with the
car still powered up, fan gently running for heat, showing an average
of 56.0. As dawn broke and I woke up again, it was only down to 54.9
and the engine wasn't cycling particularly often -- no more than
it usually does for SOC maintenance. So that confirms that using
the car as a little furnace works well. I suspect that as much heat
emerged from the electronics as from the heater core, especially
since the delta from outside to inside was only 20F or so.
.
Got onto I-95 and closer to Georgia before stopping for gas and
coffee, average only 55.0 at the fillup. Bah. At this point I was
down in the flatlands, and starting to see some long steady-state
stretches where I'd hardly move my foot at all except for trying to
pull it back as far as possible and still hold somewhere just north
of 60 mph, which should have helped push the average up some. The
WAI hose was decidedly relegated to the back seat at this point -- done
with that, until I get back to cold temps. This new tank started
doing a bit better overall, slowly climbing through the high fifties
average as the day warmed up and I crossed into FL and neared
Jacksonville. A little further west and I hopped off to take US 301
and cut a big corner off the web of interstates. Since it was up to
70F outside by then, I pulled into a parking lot to drop the lower
grille-blocker to make sure I had enough cooling capacity. So, no
cold-weather enhancements at all at this point. 301 is a secondary
highway with a high speed limit but the occasional slower town and
traffic light, which fortunately were easy to time since I could see
them very far out.
.
http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/mfd-hwy301.jpg
This is a segment of the 301 leg, along which I finally crested 60
mpg average -- not really notable numbers, but the interesting thing
here is that it's very easy to see where those long warp-stealth
slowdowns for lights occurred! Each one of those made a high spike
for its 5-minute segment, which I found really entertaining. And the
slow bits really were 10-15 minutes [e.g. miles] apart along there.
.
Finally I got onto I-75, which is well-named, but despite that I
spent the next three hours gently babying it along just over sixty
MPH trying to get that average to climb further. It had turned into
a perfect driving day -- ambient 72F and cloudy, no sun beating down,
most of the buttheads keeping their hazardous antics over in the left
lane far away from me. And yet, the average had planted itself at
60.3 and *stayed* there, unmoving except for one or two very minor .1
deviations, for that entire time. Now, while north-of-60 avg is more
like it and I don't know if South Carolina does winter-blend gasoline
or not, these were not the mid-to-high-60s MPG averages I had been
doing on interstates back in summer. But I was *in* summer-like temps
now, so I'm a little disappointed I couldn't do that again. Using the
cruise-control wouldn't have mattered; I experimented a little with
it and it found its steady-state level right at the same place my
foot would have, at least until I'd go over one of those little
overpass rises in which the CC would push too hard and then let off
too far on the backside into the "efficiency pit". It seemed better
to hold my foot more or less constant in a DWL sort of way for those,
and let the speed drop back and recover later.
.
Florida is quite a tall state. My ass officially fell off somewhere
east of Tampa, but now being just an hour out I kept churning along
and finally pulled into my parents' place around 4:30pm. Just the
long decel off the ramp and the short piece to their house popped the
average up to 60.7, which is interesting since I had otherwise hardly
been able to *touch* it all that way down and the tank was way down
to 3/10 fuel-gauge pips by now. Curious. Even more curious was the
woman in a nondescript sedan with a Puerto Rican flag hanging on the
mirror, consistently following me in the right lane but at a very
respectful distance for the ENTIRE stretch, occasionally getting lost
behind trucks but reliably reappearing and somehow even tracking my
occasional slowdown up and over overpasses. She must have been DWL
too, or something, because she didn't get any closer during those.
It was relatively astounding to see another driver with a notion of
good following distance! As I finally exited and she came level with
me in her lane I gave a big wave, but she just looked confused.
.
Now, let's keep in mind that all of this is on the new Hydroedges,
which possibly cause a bit of MPG hit by themselves. On the other
hand, their smaller radius should make the car's FCD read about 1.2%
high since it thinks the car went that much farther. [This figure
is from comparing car's mileage vs. GPS and crosschecking with the
circumference measurements I did when swapping tires.] It is said
that new-tire MPG doesn't break in and get up to where it should be
until after 5000 miles or so, but I don't know if there's any real
basis for that or if it's really fact. According to my little
real-life-gallons calculation script, I was probably averaging more
like 51.6 MPG over the three fillups, which doesn't include the
current warm-weather tank and thus should bump up a bit at the next
one. Then we'll see what happens when heading back north. Still, it's
ballpark-EPA in weather that wasn't particularly cold and at fairly
modest speeds, so there are probably more factors in play. But the
reader should probably digest the companion article (http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/heatgames/results-02.html) first.
.
_H*

Couple of further notes...
.
I was out bicycling around today, and what blew past me? A
silver Insight with a pizza-delivery thingie stuck in the window!
I'm fairly certain it wasn't Jack Lee's car... he lives around
here someplace but I've failed to get hold of him so far.
.
Oh and y'all in the RTP/VA-Beach/whatever area -- we should start
planning. Xmas week, sometime, maybe the 28th?
.
_H*

Great story Hobbit! Enjoyed the read and keep up the good work.

Hobbit,

Are you going to pass through on I-95 at the North Carolina and Va Border? Are you still interested in taking the eastern shore route in Virginia?

Hobbit:
If you are still interested in the Eastern Shore route, I'd like to hook up with you also, possibly with Chris at the same time?

Thanks,

Bob

Absolutely! I was figuring on branching off of I-95 somewhere
well before Richmond and heading east. But this depends a little
on some folks around the Raleigh/Durham area, when they might
want to get together, and whether they want to try and pull *all*
the locals together for one gathering. The transit times
between all these areas aren't all that long, at least on the
scale of my whole trip, but when-and-where depends on what folks
want to do and when they're available.
.
VaBP, I've also got this fantasy of getting you at the helm
of my ship for a go-round of your normal work commute, so I can
see just what you've been doing all this time! I.e. make a day
or a half-day out of all this. However, I don't think there's
any way I'm going to do the 850 miles to Norfolk et al on one
tank ... if I had four days in summer and a well-planned route,
maybe, but not on the interstates...
.
_H*

Hobbit,

JimboK is in the Richmond area.

If you want to go the Eastern Shore, I think it would be quicker to get off at Emporia, VA and tank Virginia Route 58 towards Norfolk. From there you would then take Route 13 accross the Chesapeake Bay. If you travel too far north on I-95, you will end up really back tracking to get to the Eastern Shore. If you don't want to cross at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, your next chance of getting to the Eastern Shore is near Washington, D.C. You would have to take I-395 (beltway) around Washington, D.C., and take Route 50.

Let me know where you are planning on stopping. Maybe we could meet in Emporia if you are going to stay on I-95 northbound.

I will be glad to drive you to my work at 30ish mph if you can stand it. :eek:

Maybe krousdb is willing to split the distance for me to meet?

I will be in Pittsburgh for Christmas and driving back to Raliegh on the 27th or 28th for an overnight stay. Then it's off to Myrtle Beach for the rest of the week. I need to talk with my wife to nail the dates down for sure.

Hmm. If we time it just right, we might be able to intersect
in RTP. Lemme know when you find out, and I'll poke Galaxee from
PC who's the other party in on that idea. I can do RTP and
VABeach as separate stops, too, possibly even separated by an
overnight someplace on the short intervening hop.
.
I've been tooling around the area down here a little; very flat
and not too bad for P&G with fairly long glides, but the pavement
around here is fairly *rough*. It apparently takes a real beating
in the FL summer sun, and the tar recedes leaving all the rocks
sticking up. There are also lots of little raised cracks almost
like northern frost-heaves but it's got to be for some other
reason down here. So it feels like the car just doesn't *roll*
as well as it could. Some of the newer roads are better, but the
ones that were built 20 years ago are definitely in need of
resurfacing. The weather here definitely makes infrastructure
upkeep harder. Why every roof in sight isn't carpeted with PV
panels which could power all the air conditioning for free, I
can't imagine. It seems like *such* a waste ... but then again
a lot of the stuff in this area was thrown up in a hurry to cater
to a huge influx of retirees and snowbirds with as little
expenditure as possible. Which is one reason so many people are
living in trailer parks in the hurricane belt.
.
On Friday I think I'm getting together with DanMan32 who's the
"tech answer guy" over at Priusonline, and another local owner.
.
_H*

Hobbit,

JimboK is in the Richmond area.

Chris, thanks for thinking of me!

Hobbit, if you and Chris connect, I'd be interested in a tagging along if it suits your agenda and my schedule. I too would like to see Chris' commute route and his technique, and I'd like simply to meet both of you and pick your brains. Hobbit, when do you expect to hit VA?

Hmm. If we time it just right, we might be able to intersect
in RTP. Lemme know when you find out, and I'll poke Galaxee from
PC who's the other party in on that idea. I can do RTP and
VABeach as separate stops, too, possibly even separated by an
overnight someplace on the short intervening hop.
._H*

The probem is that even if we do cross paths, I don't think there will be adequate time in my schedule to stop and hang out with you and Galaxee. For now, I would say maybe next year. If something changesI will let you know.

Here's what I'm thinking as a northward schedule, still sorta
tentative. Head out from here on Wed Dec 27, sleep somewhere
near the SC/NC border [maybe even near that silly "south of
the border" place], continue to Raleigh/Durham the next day and
maybe meet up with galaxee-n-DH for lunch??, since I'd probably
be in their area way before dinnertime. Proceed toward VA Beach,
possibly taking a noodling route along some shoreline to see
stuff. Meet up with the near-Norfolk crowd, whoever that will
consist of and whenever seems right, somewhere in there, either
later Dec 28 or daytime Dec 29 or both depending on what we
want to do. From there, head over the Chesapeake bridge/tunnel
thing, tool around DE a bit, cross back to Baltimore to hook
up with some relatives for an overnight. After that, a
final shot to home is feasible.
.
If Dan K. manages to cross this path at the right time that's
great, otherwise ... Tour de Sol if it happens? Hybridfest?
Whatever.. Oh, another wrinkle that's being talked about is
that I might be convoying on part of this with DanMan32 since
he's heading north too.
.
Really, it's all about the food, right?
.
_H*

Hi Hobbit:

___Glad to hear you are nearing home after the long tour of the SE US for the Holidays. I hope you enjoyed it as ¾ of us would have gone to great lengths to experience even a few hours of those 70 + degree F temps you had the chance to drive in while visiting Florida in particular!

___To add to your tour, are you possibly considering heading over to Georgetown, KY. for the Toyota Camry factory visit in 3 weeks? It is climbing on my list of things to see in January although I just realized there is a Milwaukee Hybrid Group Meet I will attend on the 15th in its place …

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Hobbit,

JimboK, Skywre7 (priuschat), rhwinger, and myself are interested in meeting up with you. Skywre7 and JimboK are from Richmond.

JimboK, Skywre7, rhwinger,

Would you guys come down from Richmond / Williamsburg since Hobbit plans on crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel?

.
If Dan K. manages to cross this path at the right time that's
great, otherwise ... Tour de Sol if it happens? Hybridfest?
Whatever.. Oh, another wrinkle that's being talked about is
that I might be convoying on part of this with DanMan32 since
he's heading north too.
.
Really, it's all about the food, right?
.
_H*

Funny yo should mention the TDS. Wayne and I have been PMing about that. I guess it depends on the course.

Im still in Pittsburgh, heading home in the morning. Doesn't look like I will have time to meet. Maybe TDS.

Well -- wayne, I'm not nearing home yet, I'm still in FL! But
I'm starting the long road north tomorrow morning, in fact, which
will probably put me somewhere in NC for the night and then at
relative leisure to head toward RTP and thence toward the shore
afterward. Now the question is, how should I try to schedule
things for the VA Beach area, or any other area that would be
convenient for you folks? What I'd like to be able to do is
take US-64 east and actually briefly hit the outer-banks islands
and go past Kitty Hawk, and then wander north toward VA Beach.
I realize that that could be an all-afternoon endeavor, so
I'm open to wiser guidance on my timing for the greater good of
the group. It wouldn't do me much good to finally arrive in
the Norfolk area late at night if we wanted any time to hang
out and chat!
.
It would be useful to have some contact numbers. Feel free to
send various cellphones to hobbit .(at). avian.org [tonight,
please, if at all, since I'm unlikely to be online again tomorrow]
that will enable closer-in logistics.
.
Hey Dan, if you're heading that way tomorrow too, maybe there's
a chance we can meet up, but if you have to bust on prepping
for the next leg of your trip, don't sweat it...
.
_H*

This afternoon was a pleasant little trip up to St. Pete, to meet
up with DanMan32 [mostly from Priusonline] and another guy from
prius_technical_stuff, spcentsp. Dan toured me around the Fort
deSoto park and the old fort itself -- interesting mortar
emplacement from 1902-ish that never really saw any action.
The park is very nice and big and flat, and would be great P&G
territory if it hadn't been for the 30+ mph wind screaming across
the whole place on this cloudy, somewhat blustery day. Still,
I saw quite a few maxed 5-min segments while tooling around the
island. Then we went inland for a nice lunch and chat.
.
I was with the wind on the way back from there, floating down
the interstate turning no more than 1500 rpm most of the time.
Nice. Got some good pix of the Sunshine Skyway bridge, too,
although the sun was nowhere to be seen.
.
I'll be taking off tomorrow about 170 miles into a tank, with
a current 62.4 average. Probably won't see that again until
spring, unfortunately...
.
_H*

JimboK, Skywre7, rhwinger,

Would you guys come down from Richmond / Williamsburg since Hobbit plans on crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel?
I'd be glad to if Hobbit can hit the Norfolk area late Thursday afternoon or early Thursday evening. I'm off Thursday, but I have to be at work Friday at 7:00 a.m. So I'd have to head home by around 9:00 Thursday at the latest. (I don't do well on less than 6 or 7 hours sleep!)

Hobbit, I've e-mailed you my cell # as requested. Chris, I will PM you with the same info.

Hi Hobbit:

___ I hope you enjoyed it as ¾ of us would have gone to great lengths to experience even a few hours of those 70 + degree F temps you had the chance to drive in while visiting Florida in particular!

___To add to your tour, are you possibly considering heading over to Georgetown, KY. for the Toyota Camry factory visit in 3 weeks?

___Wayne

I talked to my mom yesterday in Key Cudjoe. The sun was shining and 78 degrees. I sent her a pic message after that of my two Big Green Eggs with a patio umbrella over them while I was grilling the Christmas dinner in upper 30's temps and RAIN!

Is it a special event tour at the Toyota factory?

Hi Msirach:

___We have had some rain this past week which is better then snow but the 31 - 34 degree temps these last few days is the real killer in the Chicago area :( I know Hobbit will be dreaming about his Southward haul all the way into May when the Boston area finally heats up for summer! I did see New York hit 55 today so maybe he won’t have it so bad for his trip back home ;)

___About the Camry Tour, B. Wilson is putting something together for Saturday, January 15th at the Georgetown plant. If you need more info, you can find details in the Prius_Technical_Stuff forum over at YaHoo. I was about to setup a weekend trip until I found the Milwaukee Hybrid Group has a meet that same day.

___Hobbit, enjoy the ride back home. I know Rick Reese used to drive from the Carolina’s to Washington DC. every weekend along the coastal roads IIRC. He said it was an excellent hypermiling drive with slower speeds and far less aggressive drivers then what is the norm out on the Interstates.

___Good Luck and be safe!

___Wayne

Oh, right, forgot to comment on this: Yes, I *wish* I could get
to the plant tour. That's the very same weekend as the event
I have to get back up north and help with planning! See
http://www.arisia.org/ for details... not only that, but there's
work to do on the next tech-training effort, too. busybusybusy.
But please, anyone who goes on that tour get plenty o' pictures
and info and opportunities to bend the right ears about "power"
hybrids vs. the ones we're looking for...
.
_H*

Jimbo,

Have you heard from Hobbit?

___About the Camry Tour, B. Wilson is putting something together for Saturday, January 15th at the Georgetown plant. If you need more info, you can find details in the Prius_Technical_Stuff forum over at YaHoo. I was about to setup a weekend trip until I found the Milwaukee Hybrid Group has a meet that same day.


___Good Luck and be safe!

___Wayne

Wayne,
Is it possible that the plant tour and the MHG meet is Saturday, January 13th? I may have to try and make that .

The plant tour is Monday the 15th. Saturday the 13th is the Madison Hybrid Group meet-up, not Milwaukee.

Wayne

Hi Wayne:

___Thanks for the clarification.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Amazing where you can find internet. I just pulled into a random
super-8 motel lot and poof, 192.168.1.something. No stupid
browser dance, even. So anyway, I'm just shy of Fayetteville
NC, it's a little after 11pm and I'm going to snoop around for
somewhere to snooze [which is NOT the super-8] and start
figuring out tomorrow's schedule tomorrow. 12.5 hours, 633 miles.
.
I logged 25 solid minutes of keeping engine RPM at 1600, the
bare minimum before vacuum starts to lift. 20% sweet-spot or
so. That took me along at between 55 and 57 mph, settling
steady-state to just about 58 MPG near as I could tell. This
was after working a start-off after filling up of 36 MPG just
after merging onto the highway... those fillup-and-go stops can
really start off on the low side. As the temp dropped from
55F down to about 38F now, the MPG has slowly come down to
56.8 and that's *not* completely babying it like that all the
way up but rather running at maybe 60-62 mph and giving a little
more on the rises. A brief period of cruise-control weighed
in with some lower 5-minute bars, by eyeball, so I gave up on
that as I hit some very gently rolling stuff in GA. But for
the most part, I-95 is just bloody flat. What it's giving me
a good opportunity for is playing with various steady states.
.
Oh, and I took a quick swing through that silly "south of the
border" place long enough to get a peecture. Their signs don't
start over 200 miles out anymore, I guess they had to cut back.
.
[edit: before I was doing the Slow Thing for a while, I was
minding my own business in the RH lane at a more normal speed
and some truck came wailin' up behind me and starts in with the
high beams. In the RIGHT lane. I could understand if it was
in the left, but this was idiotic. A shot of the yuppie button
garnered *more* high-beaming in response and continued unsafe
proximity, until finally there was room for this yutz to pass
on the left.
.
About ten minutes later, I suspect that a FedEx driver lost his
job. Yes, I called it in. No excuse, and they totally agreed
with me.]
.
Anyways, virtual bedtime. Found a wally-world lot with a bunch
of parked RVs and idling trucks; looks like a slumber party
to me! And just enough signal from the nearby Best Western
to be able to finalize this post. Heh.
.
_H*

Hi Hobbit:

___Do not forget to take a few pics of the final miles of your SE and East coast tour!

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Many meetings today. I got somewhat lost around Durham and
only managed to connect with Galaxee and DH briefly -- they
were finishing lunch as I arrived and had to get back to work.
Next was a pleasant countryside drive over toward Norfolk to
hook up with VABeachPrius, JimboK, and [i think] skywre7 for
dinner and chat. Just made it. Virginia is truly the home of
the lane-clueless, in a big way. They'll scream by on the right
and hang at 50 in the left, and all way too close together. The
secondary roads have way too many lanes, so if you need to get
from right over to the left-turn lane in the space of one block
between lights, GFL because they're oblivious and give no quarter
to allow maneuvering. I had to pull a Boston to get U-turned
around to head for the restaurant.
.
I don't want to do the Delaware bridge/tunnel thing until
daylight, so being at a loose end I went out toward Virginia
Beach itself, and found that they've done a fairly amazing bunch
of xmas lights all up and down the shoreline. As I walked out
toward the boardwalk I realized that cars were drifting slowly
down the road on top of the seawall, with their lights off so
they could see the lights. Just for a hack, since I had no idea
if this was some official thing, there was a clear driveable
path from where I'd temporarily parked to this little road so
I just jumped into the procession about halfway along and went
to the end where a blinking armwaving santa directed traffic
back onto the real main road. Funny stuff, and it's clear that
they've put some thought into all this.
.
So I'll overnight somewhere around here and hit the big bridge
thing tomorrow, and that'll probably start the final leg home.
.
Oh, today's mpg stuff: The MPG average went from 56.8 down
to 54.2 while the car was keeping me warm. The engine ran for
about 30-40 seconds every 15 minutes or so, keeping the coolant
temp just above 40C which is the "I'm warmed up" threshold. Since
it was running a little more than when the heater is off, the
SOC stayed up around 50% rather than drifting down to two-pink-
bars territory. Shortly later that morning I filled up and got
on some dead level and straight secondary highways heading on a
small detour to see a long-lost cousin, and for that 45-55 mph
region it's apparently just impossible to find a steady-state
set of conditions for high MPG. Has to be some variant of
pulse-n-warp-stealth, I think, since the efficiency curves for
the engine and that of the transaxle just don't mesh that well
at certain speeds. Still trying to work this out. The deal
with the engine is pretty well known, but where the rest of it
it plays in is still unclear. It's not enough to try and watch
the iFCD, since one has to deliberately dip that pretty low
to gain better overall efficiency. Despite fairly fast secondary
highways, I arrived in the Norfolk area having just about held
60.0 average all afternoon, 300 miles.
.
If all this is fairly incoherent, it's because I'm fairly tired
and have no idea whose wifi I jumped on this time and just wanted
to document where I'm at by now. More later when I parse more notes.
.
_H*

I returned to Boston last night around 11:30 pm, and was too
brain-fried to bother firing up the 'pooter to post anything after
about 17 hours on the road. But the bottom line is that I'm back,
and will post a bunch of followup once I finish juggling a mess
of numbers and decipher my notes.
.
_H*

test: see if clickable inline images are possible...
http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/pix/tideland_s.jpg (http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/pix/waterpri.jpg)
.
Hmm. They are, but forcing it to open a new browser window
is incredibly annoying. Remains to be seen if I need to do
this at all for the followup posts, or if they'll wind up
being separate pages.
.
_H*

Hi Hobbit:

___Didn’t you know you are not supposed to take your Prius II swimming :D

___Great pic by the way. What is the story with that one?

___Good Luck

___Wayne

3700 miles, Boston back to Boston, including the local running around
down there in FL. I'm still working on some conclusions pages and
how to organize the info, but in the meantime I've got some pix and
narrative up for general amusement:
.
_ A few Florida pix (http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/pix/FL06/i1.html)
_ Pix from the return trip (http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/pix/FL06/i2.html)
.
Oh, and this is VABeachPrius' MFD from when we had dinner Thursday
night ... with a Marathon-loop and/or Teddygirl-grade commute he can
do at average of 28 MPH, he's *not* lying:
http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/pix/FL06/vabmfd.jpg
and one agreed-upon item that came out of our dinner conversation
was "1700 RPM". I'll expound upon that at much greater length
once I finish the third page of all this.
.
Random other notes...
.
Rougher pavement seems to demand quite a bit more sustained power
to maintain speed on. Maybe this is an illusion..
.
I was practically forced to do some ridge-riding through parts
of SC, where the pavement on I-95 has these regular little annoying
dips especially in the truck-pounded right lane [and with nice
firm tires] creating a loud *thunk*-a *thunk*-a *thunk*-a mile after
mile. Moving over a little seemed to smooth that out a little bit.
.
I-78 now makes a bypass around Phillipsburg and Easton at the NJ/PA
border -- a *new* road, and it has some of the most uneven concrete
paving I've been on. It feels like the badly aligned stuff you go
over in construction zones, but appears to be, uh, "finished". Can
you say, pork-barrel project with really shoddy workmanship?
.
Virginia has some idiotically huge secondary-highway intersections.
Five lights hung over each approach side, two left-turn lanes, extra
pavement to accomodate nearby strip-mall entrances ... a pedestrian
wouldn't have a chance trying to cross any of this, even legally.
.
The "waterpri" picture linked above was from the flood page (http://www.avian.org/06flood/) I
constructed after returning home from Tour de Sol last May and
finding my whole neighborhood flooded out. I thought I posted
that one over here back then...
.
_H*

Hobbit, it was great meeting you for dinner in Va Beach. Let us know when you'll be down in this area again. I'm sure VaBeachPrius and JimboK wouldn't mind meeting again for some more conversation.

I have *finally* finished up the last "observations" page of
this thread, posted here (http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/heatgames/results-03.html).
.
_H*

Hey, Hobbit. Good stuff, as always! Some paraphrasing (to assure understanding for me and perhaps others), observations, questions, etc. … subject to your corrections and clarifications (please):

The theory is that at a certain combination of vehicle and engine speeds MG1 will float around at a relatively inefficient range – inefficient because of the tendency toward back-and-forth switching between normal and heretical mode. This then becomes a source of overall inefficiency for the HSD, and greater efficiency is seen when MG1 remains in one mode as much as possible. Correct so far?

How confident are you in the existence and limits of the forbidden zone?

Normal MG1 mode presumably is the dominant (exclusive?) mode to the lower right of the chart's “forbidden zone,” whereas heretical mode prevails to the upper left. Still on target?

Am I interpreting it correctly that you still regard low ICE RPM – “loafing,” as you’ve described it – as an independent source of inefficiency? Assuming you’re avoiding the forbidden zone, is there an absolute minimum ICE RPM also to avoid?

For optimal pulsing during P&G it would appear that if one wants an RPM goal to maintain throughout the pulse, 2200 might be suitable.

What all this seems to suggest is that a goal of driving should be first to avoid the forbidden zone. At speeds <40, P&G is the perfect tool. But you obviously can’t avoid it at higher speeds, so next best is to minimize crossing it for fear of hanging around in it too long. So after crossing the 40 MPH threshold, best is to moderately accelerate to 60 and stay there.

But unfortunately our routes routinely require something other than one of those extremes. From your work and my own experience I’ve already surmised that to maintain vehicle speed in the 40s is inefficient, but this helps explain why. What this makes me realize anew is the folly of maintaining 1700 RPM (which we’ve discussed as a target) in this speed range. So it would appear that if my ultimate goal is something faster, I should be accelerating faster. If speed limits, traffic, or safety insist upon speeds in the 40s on level terrain, then a narrow-range, high-speed P&G variant might be in order: pulse up to, say, 50 MPH at 2500 RPM or so, then warp-stealth (and glide, if possible) as low as conditions allow. Gently rolling terrain, as you’ve suggested, seems by default to do this for you at a steady speed.

All this presents a challenge for those of us with travel routes with significant variations in speed and traffic conditions. But this should help us plan our routes and driving techniques accordingly. Thanks for sharing your results!

(PS for newbies just stumbling upon this: This is all Prius-specific.)

I haven't had the time to "study" Hobbit's info, but I did glance at it.

I've been doing something similar with my pulses. I've been pulsing at about 1800-2200 RPMs when I'm below 40MPH. I've been listening to the car (as Hobbit reminded me I should be doing), and it seems very happy with this. This has also lead to some very nice mileage.

When I'm going above 40MPH, I've been keeping it in the 1600-1800 RPM range. It seems to kind of settle in here. However, if I can get some nice warp-stealth glides going, I'll usually pulse up at about 2200-2500 RPM. This has also lead to some very nice mileage. I may have to look at this further though.

You [JimboK] have it mostly right.. although the "low end"
loafing thing isn't necessarily strictly RPM, it's low *load*
which I see by the rise in the vacuum gauge as the throttle
starts closing. There's a little region in between 1800-1900
RPM and maybe 1500 where you still have high load but low RPM.
Unfortunately it seems to be not quite sufficient to keep the
car moving, and yield high instantaneous MPG. So all this is yet
another wild-ass set of theorization on how to optimize mid and
high speed travel, which has evidently been a puzzler since the
earliest days of the Prius and may just be into areas of
diminishing returns and we've just got to live with it.
.
But the next phase for me in this is to start fooling around
with very gentle biases on the throttle-position sensor, to
see if I can swing that either way at all just by intake airflow.
Not till warmer weather, though.
.
_H*

This seems to explain a lot. Lots of my driving is on back roads at 35mph and instantaneous FE readings at steady state just suck. 50-55mpg max, which is worse than even the Accord could achieve while cruising at very low RPM in 5th gear. This might explain why, when maintaining speed is a must, my lossy practice of swapping between ICE power (higher load) and battery power (lower load) seems to give me the best numbers. This also explains why my highway numbers at or below the 60mph mark are so much worse than they should be. Warp stealth P&G all the way...