Well, I finally got my Alabaster Silver no Nav HCH yesterday. I've put 64 miles on it and the trip A mpg is sitting at 40.0. Not too shabby considering my 50 mile round trip commute includes 2100' of elevation loss on the way in and gain on the way home. Oh, and it was raining for my morning commute. And I haven't checked the tire pressure yet, either. I'm pretty happy with the mileage already.

Here are a few things I've noticed:

-AM radio reception is OK, but sound quality is not good. No big deal, I just listen for traffic reports/news.
-Steering wheel controls are great.
-A/C controls are not intuitive. I've got it figured out now, but I wish they'd just left these old school.
-Ride is tight a pretty quiet. Handling is really good.
-I got into EV mode a couple times in ~20-30mph creeping traffic this morning and did the 100mpg glide a few times, too. Love it!

Questions:

-Can the mp3 player handle VBR encoding?
-My house is at 2150' elevation. The first mile of my commute is relatively flat (slight elevation loss) and curvy, so I'm cruising in the 15-25mph range. Then the big downhill starts. For about 2.5-3 miles I'm on 5-10% downgrades to get to the freeway at about 500' elevation. This road is 30-40mph territory. The problem is that going home I use some assist getting up the hill, but when I get to the flat, the car wants to charge using the ICE. I'd really like to delay the charge so I can get more regen on the way back down in the morning. Regen cut out after only a mile of downhill this morning, so I was wasting all that energy and wearing my brakes. What's the best strategy for mileage here?

This is a cool forum. I've learned a lot during my interminably long wait for my car. It's nice to have a community to help learn all the secrets of hybrid driving.

Packrat