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Old 07-07-2006, 07:34 AM
Orcrone Orcrone is offline
Ridiculously Active Enthusiast
 
Real Name: Marc
Location: Chesapeake, VA
Hybrids: Camry Hybrid
Posts: 1,031
Default Re: Body Colored mud guards and poor city mileage

As far as the city mileage goes I have a few suggestions:
  1. Try to learn to anticipate lights and coast as much as possible to regenerate the batteries.
  2. Accelerate moderately quickly to your city cruising speed (can't be too high in Cambridge) let off the gas pedal to shut down the ICE and then lightly give it enough gas to maintain your speed. This should allow you to maintain your speed without starting up the ICE.
  3. I used to try to accelerate slowly from a stop using the electric motors only. However, it's an excruciatingly slow acceleration and wastes a lot of the battery's charge. That's why I suggest using the ICE to accelerate.
  4. Combine trips. If you're taking a short trip, shutting the engine and letting it cool down you're not going to make best use of the car. That's because the ICE will stay on when it's not at operating temp to bring it up to normal. So if you're doing a lot of short trips with time between each trip you're going to hurt your mileage.<<
  5. Pay attention to the analog mpg gauge. It will often tell you when you're being efficient and when you're not.
Hope this helps. I used to live in Massachusetts but I'm now in southeastern VA. Most of my city driving is on roads that are 35 mph with traffic lights every 1/2 mile. On those conditions with a warm engine I can average close to 40 mpg.

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