The American Wayne Gerdes has succeeded in beating Toyota's own fuel economy estimates in the Prius model by 39 percent. Enough for a world record.
A Toyota Prius has just achieved a new world record for fuel economy across the United States. The car set a record with a consumption of 2.5 liters per 100 kilometers.
This corresponds to 40 kilometers per litre. Or 39 percent longer than Toyota actually says the car can run on the litre.
Behind the wheel was Wayne Gerdes. He shortened the distance from Los Angeles to New York. A trip of just around 4,500 kilometres.
This is what the American Toyota importer writes in a press release .
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The trip, which primarily took place at an altitude of 2.1 kilometers and under temperatures of up to 40 plus degrees, presented Gerdes with a number of challenges. And yet the Prius shortened the trip with a consumption significantly below Toyota's own information.
If you ask the world record holder, there are a number of things you as a driver can do yourself to make the car save as much as possible on the expensive drops.
He recommends that you refrain from unnecessarily hard accelerations, keep a constant pressure on the accelerator (for example with the cruise control), and if you have to release the accelerator, it must be done as early as possible. At least these techniques helped beat Toyota's own fuel economy targets.
Toyota snatched the world record for economical fuel consumption from Honda, which has previously driven a car through 24 EU countries and on the trip achieved an average consumption of 2.8 liters per 100 kilometers or 35.7 kilometers per litre. It happened in a diesel-powered Civic.
The thing about driving far – quite literally – is nothing new to Japanese cars, however. Before his untimely death in 2016, Joe LoCicerro managed to cover 1.6 million kilometers in his 1990 Honda Accord.
The ' True Blue ' car still has the original 2.2-litre engine, five-speed gearbox, air conditioning system, brake calipers, power steering and is currently on display at Honda in the USA.
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