During the past few decades, I've usually driven my vehicles in a fuel-efficient manner. When I drive, our 2001 Buick LeSabre (now the daughter's car) gets 21 around town and an easy 31 on the highway. My GMC Sierra full-size 4WD truck (apologies to the greenest among us) even gets 16/20 normally, and a combined 18 when I tow my boat. I've always been able to beat the EPA numbers by a little bit. I had no doubt I would be able to get great mileage from our new TCH.

My wife has always been a little more spirited driver. I figured it would be an interesting experiment to see what kind of mileage she would get from a hybrid with her driving habits, compared to mine. Even during our multiple test drives of the TCH we now own, she was testing its limits for get-up-and-go, not for getting there without having to fill up.

Well, owning the TCH has completely transformed the way she drives. While she may not be an expert yet at pulse-and-glide, and she doesn't know all the tricks to get it into stealth mode at every opportunity, her first priority is to make the TCH happy. And it's so easy to do, with its instantaneous mileage display (non-NAV in our case), the shining blue instruments that show its glee, and the congratulatory "EXCELLENT!" when you've really made its day. Our first tank mpg was 36.6, and that included the learning process, many trips under 10 miles, and the drag racing test drives.

All this makes me wonder just how much of the mileage increase people see is because of the raw difference in efficiency the technology brings, and how much is from (perhaps subconscious) driving behavior changes. I guess in the big picture, it really doesn't matter. Either way, we're saving gas!