Driving habits of conventional cars have to be forgotten. They will only keep your MPG from hitting hopeful numbers. You have to retrain yourself to make the most of your HCH. There are posts on this forum in which you can find hints on improving your mileage and some that will bring you to hypermileage status.



Some simple pointers:

-The car is not a pocket rocket. You have to drive with a light foot and coast whenever possible (making sure that you coast without the IMA regenerating). Take off from complete stops with gentle acceleration (at least 5 bars on assist).

-FE is the key to great mileage. Try to keep the bar at least in the 40's if possible but 60 would be the sweet spot for best results.

-Tailgating traffic will kill your mileage (not to mention your brake pads). This took some patience on my part for fear of cars cutting in front of me when leaving a gap which always drove me crazy. Now I just shake my head and let it slide reminding myself that I'm saving gas and decreasing my chances of rear ending another car (which is a good thing).

-I live in a hilly area. Anticipate power needed to climb hills by attaining enough speed before you make the hill to use less demand on the engine rather than to just putt to the hill and climb it.

-A/C is a necessity at times but can be used wisely. A/C does put a drain on your mileage but it should only dip a few MPGS at best. I pulse the A/C button which means, with the vent ducts directly pointed to me, use the A/C till cold then toggle the button off with fan still running till the air becomes warm again. With re-circulate button on, the cool air will last for a bit for me.

-Try not to let the car idle in one place for very long. I start my car in the morning and while I let the car warm up I watch my MPG indicator go down (it starts to plummet very quickly when the car is idling at 1,300 RPMs when first started). I usually let the RPMs drop to 1,200 before I drive off taking it easy till the car warms up which will cost me about .4 MPG and a little more in the winter months.

There are ton more ways to maximize your mileage to be found. Experiment with them and find what works best for you.

The nice part is using this knowledge to get better MPGs on any car you drive.