Team Achieves 110 MPG Average In Prius

Dan Kroushl, Wayne Gerdes, Rick Reece and Bob Barlow drove 47 hours and 1,397 miles on 12.87 gallons of gasoline in an unmodified Toyota Prius. How did they do it? Carefully, of course. The 4 men alternatively drove the car in 4-hour shifts on a 15-mile stretch of Route 65 in the US and used the "pulse and glide" technique (some info about it here). They also tried to keep the car in the electric-only mode as much as possible, which resulted in the gas engine being used for only one third of the trip. They drove with the "low fuel" light blinking for more than 8 hours, something that few people could do without having a nervous breakdown.

This new record shows just how much our driving habits can influence fuel economy, especially with hybrid cars, and will hopefully bring more attention to hybrid cars and what is possible with current technology. Of course, this is an extreme scenario and the driving conditions were not "real world", but our everyday driving could benefit from more awareness of fuel economy (as we've already mentioned here).

::Post-Gazette, via ::AutoBlog