Welcome to the challenging and fun world of hybrids guys.

If you are willing to change your driving habits a 5-7 mpg increase is not that hard to achieve. My experience is that the break-in helped but not that much. It was the driver who had to be broken-in, not the car. Driving habits greatly affect Fuel Efficient cars.

My car started at 28 mpg off the dealer's lot. My first tank began at 42 mpg but was up to 47 at the end. I attribute this to changed driving habits, not a break in, because I managed a trip with 54+ mpg within the first 200 miles on the car. My current tank is averaging 52ish. My best trip is 58 mpg so far, and my worst is 38 mpg.

After maxing my tires PSI, the early tricks I used were pulse and glide, and watching the mpg bar to avoid overaccelerating. I learned to always coast downhill on the large hills we have here. I avoided using gas only starts (too little gas pedal won't kick in the electric assist), and avoided inefficient overaccellerating also. I rapidly started using the mpg bar as a training wheels guage to let it tell me where to place the accellerator pedal. I "drive with the load" over small highway hills, meaning I keep the gas pedal fixed and slow down on the uphill and speed back up on the other side.

I include here some of the more advanced things I have been learning also:

I gave up the air (I know you can't do this in south Fla), and learned other tricks like anticipating lights and traffic patterns for maximum regenerative braking. If you just barely touch the brake pedal you get almost all regenerative braking. The computer will actually draw more power in charging when it detects your brake pedal is slightly depressed.

The best way to brake to a stop is to stay in one gear and follow it all the way down (if you are in a 5 spd). The reason is that there is a delay from when you downshift to when the computer begins to draw power and recharge the battery. Also, higher gears seems to recover more energy overall as it takes longer to stop and the charging rate seems to have a maximum level that is fully met even by 5th gear, but the charging stops at a higher miles per hour in higher gears (because charging only occurs over a minimum rpm), so which gear to follow down is an important choice each time I brake. I end up using either 3rd or 2nd gear when braking to a full stop, and 4th or 5th when doing speed management on the freeways, we have a lot of hills here so I do this a lot.

I coast a lot too (clutch depressed). People say that taking it out of gear while coasting helps even more, I haven't tried this yet but know enough about cars to know the tranny is still spinning when in gear because the clutch is between the tranny and the engine and thus does not disconnect the tranny from the road.

I use the key to force engine-stops when the engine is cold, I never idle cold at a traffic light because that kills my mpg. One time I coasted downhill (engine on) to the first traffic light from my house and watched the mpg average drop from 80 to 45 before the light turned green.

4th gear has a sweet spot at 30-35 miles per hour where it gets 80mpg on a flat. And 5th gear likes 40-45ish for its maximum. I try to camp in one of those in city driving when I am not coasting (I generally coast unless the battery is low).

I live in the slow lane now, my target speed on the highway is 58ish, so I mostly keep up except for hill climbs and when the traffic is going a lot faster than that.

I live at the top of a hill. I don't even start the engine (except once for about 5 seconds to get brake pressure up) until I get to the bottom of the hill. The hill is big, coming home I hit the hill at 55 mpg, and it is down to 52ish by the time I hit the top. But coasting down the hill with the engine off I can get 120 mpg. :-)

I know how to use the accellerator pedal to always get electric assist when I want it. I can drive in ways that deplete the battery (pulse and glide) and get higher mileage, or ways that help it to charge (stay in gear with steady speeds) with a slight penalty in mpg. I vary strategies when I know I am approaching an area where I either need or don't need the electric assist as much (generally I need it in city driving and hill climbs). The electric assist is more powerful when the battery is near full charge. At lower charge the computer is less willing to give you electric assist (more gas pedal depression needed to kick in the assist), and more willing to go into charge mode, I take advantage of both tendencies as much as I can.

I have heard a lot about lean-burn, but don't know how to do that yet.

Some tricks to maximize mileage with air include keeping the thermostat one click above minimim (in econ mode), auto-stop seems to work better like that, and the compressor seems to turn off more often also, although things warm up pretty quick when stopped with the engine off. Using recirculate during auto-stops prevents things from warming up as fast (2006 HCH owners won't have to worry about this). The sad fact is that air affects mpg much more in fuel efficient cars because air costs about the same in gas even in an FE vehicle. I hear reports of about 5 mpg for us, but don't know for sure. Many claim that over 50 mpg can be achieved on the highway with air on (I assume they are going 65 miles per hour or below).

I have also played games where I drove fast, and got 42 mpg highway with the air on.

A lot of little games like what I described above are possible. It is part of the fun of driving one of these cars. I hope you enjoy yours. :-)