* Cruise Control Is Your Friend! Even on the overland roads (assuming you're on a road where it's safe to use it.) The CC is "smarter" at maintaining a constant easy speed on the car, and can make adjustments faster than you can. I keep my CC system on all the time, and click it on as a matter of course every time I get on the highway.

* The Honda hybrids seem to like highway driving better, especially the Accord. While I can get really good mileage on the up-and-down country roads (Cue "Deliverance" theme here) with my Civic Hybrid, the Accord does better when stretching out on the highway and cruising along with the green Eco light on.

* Like everybody else said, ignore the "Charge/Assist" lights (for the most part) and concentrate on the green Eco light (this is the reverse of the Civic where the C/A lights tell you when you're doing it right.) The more you see Eco (you're running on 3 cyl. instead of 6) the better you will do at the pump.

* Break the car in: even though you don't have to "Baby" the car during breakin like in the old days, you'll see a jump in FE at 1000 miles. Mine went from mid-20s to 33-34 at 1,000 miles (this is a combination of breaking in the car AND the tires. Expect mileage to go down slightly when you put new tires on it in a couple of years, until the new tires get broken in again.)

* No jackrabbit starts. The power is there if you need it for jumping into traffic and passing ne'er-do-well's on the road, but for the best fuel performance, easy and gentle wins the race (but don't drive like my dad - Mr. Pokey - who does freeway on-ramps at 45 because that's a safety hazard.)



Find a friend who has a pre-turbo (1981 or older) Mercedes Benz diesel, and drive that for a month. I guarantee your mileage will improve because if you can drive that car (and survive) in and out of stop and go traffic, then you'll know how to launch an Accord hybrid.

The old MB diesels were small (83HP?) diesel engines (picture a Massey-Furgesson tractor motor in a Mercedes skin) with NO ... ZERO.... ZIP off-the-mark acceleration. Once you got that sucker moving, it LOVED to cruise on the highways around 75-80 (if you could stand the noise from the engine) but leaving a stop sign was an exercise in grace and patience.

That car, even more than owning a Civic Hybrid, taught me how to maximize the mileage on this one (actually there's very little driving tips that transfer over from the Civic to the Accord.)

One last suggestion:

*If you're in it for higer mileage (but don't want to get all crazy with it, ie, you want to drive it like a "normal" car) then drive at the posted speed limits. The higher your speed creeps up, the lower your FE will be. (Of course this is prefectly good sense for ANY car, but makes more sense when the goal is higher fuel economy in a Hybrid car.)


Otherwise.....

Drive it like you would a regular Accord, and enjoy about 30% better gas mileage.