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Old 03-21-2005, 04:07 PM
tcampb01 tcampb01 is offline
Active Enthusiast
 
Real Name: Tim
Location: Dearborn, MI
Hybrids: '05 Ford Escape Hybrid 4WD & '06 Toyota Prius
Posts: 203
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Several factors will have enormous impact on fuel economy. Driving habbits are only part of it. I have the 4x4 version -- which his rated about 3 mpg below the front-wheel drive version. No jack-rabbit starts and no hard breaking... I milk it.

I can get 33 in the city routinely and about 31 on the highway. But that's the mileage *after* the car is warmed up.

In cold weather it gets (as all cars do) very poor fuel economy. This is partly because the engine has to warm up, but it's also because the batteries neither charge or discharge much until they warm up as well.

Often the car will make just one brief trip per day (only a mile or two) -- hardly enough time for anything to warm up. When temps are well below freezing, the economy is (predictably) awful. I think the worst I ever got was about 23 mpg.

If I consolidate trips so that the car drives quite a number of miles after being warmed up, things are considerably better. It tends to average about 26-28 in cold weather -- again, this is based on MY driving patterns.

On heavy use days (the engine/battery cold for only a very small part of the day, but most driving was with a fully warmed up engine and battery) then it does extremely well. It also does extremely well in warm weather because the engine warms up in no time and the battery doesn't really need to warm up before it's usable.
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