Folks, I have a little more to share about my beginning experiences with the HCH.

As noted yesterday I drove from Davis to El Cerrito, 60 miles, after buying the car. Today I made the same trip twice more to correct the date on the sales documents. I took the opportunity to do some FE experimentation.

Yesterday - drove with CC at 60MPH in rain. Got 44MPG, corrected to 45 to allow for the big hill at the end.

Today - drove from EC to Davis with CC at 65MPH. Dry road, slight tail wind. Got 49MPG (corrected to 48 because I started with a big downhill).

Return home from Davis with CC at 70MPH. Dry road, slight head wind. Got 43MPG (corrected to 44).

Then I made another 60 mile trip from EC to Menlo Park on the peninsula, with a detour in San Francisco to get my Fastrak transponder. So it was mixed freeway/city driving. Couldn't use CC much due to heavy traffic. Averaged probably 60MPH on the freeway. Got 44MPG.

Make of it what you will. BTW, temperature was in the 50s on all those tips.

On the way to Davis this morning I noticed at some point that the steering was really hard. I thought - this is different from any car I've driven. Honda must be trying to think for me - preventing me from making any sharp maneuvers at high speed. Then as I got off the freeway in Davis, turning to follow the off-ramp was really hard. And a yellow warning light came on at the top right corner of the instrument panel. I parked at the dealership and looked in the owners manual. It was telling me that the power steering wasn't working and that I should restart the car to make it work again. I talked to the Honda service people and was told to keep a watch for it and bring it in if it happens again. We'll see.

One tidbit I learned about Auto Stop that I haven't seen mentioned. If I glide to a stop very gradually the engine goes into Auto Stop when the car is still moving at 4MPH. I tried to make it go in EV mode after the auto stop but couldn't do it. As soon as I added the slightest pressure to the gas pedal the ICE kicked back on.

The capacity of the battery pack is really disappointing. When I drive downhill from home (an 800 ft drop), starting with five bars SOC (5/8 of capacity), the regen brings the batteries to FULL charge half way down the hill. From that point on I don't get any regen and of course I have to use the brakes to slow down. What a waste. I wish the battery pack had double the capacity. I know it could help my FE, in my somewhat unique situation, a lot.

2006 HCH Alabaster Silver w/Navi
2003 Honda Accord LX