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Originally Posted by Orcrone
In general that's true, but not necessarily for a hybrid. Toyota's HSD does not use anything remotely resembling a regular transmission. Instead it uses the ICE, motor/generators and a power split device (PSD) to perform the same function. For the most part while cruising along running on ICE (above 42 miles per hour) the engine will run at a constant RPM regardless of speed. That means it's using a constant amount of fuel per second so the higher the speed the more distance you're covering for that amount of fuel. It's not until the speed gets higher that the aerodynamic drag starts becoming a major factor (guessing at 65 miles per hour) and fuel efficiency starts decreasing as speed increases.
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And to add to that, I find it's not necessarily consistant depending on the road. At ICE required speed (45mph+) sometimes I find driving 55mph gets best FE but othertimes I've seen getting crappy FE at that speed and it improves quite a bit going up to 65-70mph.