yeah, since I wrote that I have gotten better at it. Now I can sustain 5 bars on a smooth road (no foot jostling) and a full battery charge.

The tach won't change as you go in and out of EV mode since the DC motor is mated to the crankshaft. The only thing that affects the RPM is your speed and the CVT gear ratio.

Yeah it's easy to enter, but seems difficult for me to maintain. I know when the I-FCD is maxed to the right I can just lay my foot gently against the pedal, "think" about pressing it, and I'm in EV. And I've done it at lots of speeds, even a couple times around 70. But some days just keeping the I-FCD anywhere above 50 mpg (driving with load) is tricky. Then the next day it will tease me and hang up there forever. I either need special shoes or start driving in my socks to find the right pressure to keep the needle where I want. Although I'm on my, what, 6th fillup I haven't broke 45mpg on a tank yet and it irks me no end. I keep checking my hand brake to see if maybe I'm driving with it on or something...

do you feel any difference in pwer I mean, between 2 bars and 4/5? I do not...

I was trying several times and while EV'ing I was doing 4 bars, then 2 bars, then 4 bars again, just to see if there is really any difference in speed. I felt nothing. The only diff I can feel is from nada bars to 2... then, it just stays the same. Am I just insensitive? And also, from 0 to 2 the difference is... almost nothing... I just cant even tell precisly.

It's *very* subtle, but if I am rolling through a parking lot to a space, it can sometimes make the difference between getting all the way there in EV mode or needing to turn the ICE back on. I can't feel any difference, but I do notice that speed does not bleed off quite as fast (again, very suble difference).

I've also noticed that maintaining 4-5 bars and getting in/out of EV mode has gotten much easier since the car has broken in (~5000 miles now), but it's hard to tell how much of that is because the engine is smoother or my fine-control skills have improved; probably a bit of both.

Is the above quote true? I finally entered EV mode as described by nasaengineer (100 mpg display w/ 1-3 bars of assist). But I could have sworn I saw the RPM was higher than 1100 rpm unlike what GreenAndBlue describes.

Also I really didn't notice any kind of power "surge" in this EV mode. It almost felt like the car was just coasting with no noticeable propulsion from the electric motor.

I am on my second tank and I can just barely break the 42 mpg tank. (But I do A LOT of stop-and-go/rush hour driving.)

Tempus fugit, memento mori...

You're not going to see any power surge. The EV mode never has enough power to maintain constant speed on a flat road. The most it can do is extend your glide distance, perhaps double it.

The power of the electric motor is about 1/5 the power of the ICE. And the most power you can use before the ICE will kick back in is 3-4 bars out of a maximum 8, which means that at most you're getting about half the power of the electric motor. In other words, the maximum power you get in EV mode is about 1/10th the power of the gasoline engine. Not much. The battery capacity on the HCHII is so small that, when using the full 8 bars of assist, I think you'd drain the battery pack in about three minutes. That's not enough capacity to obtain a meaningful distance under pure EV mode.

The RPMs you see in EV mode can vary, depending on your speed. I've seen it anywhere between 1000 and 2000 RPM.

2006 HCH Alabaster Silver w/Navi
2003 Honda Accord LX

Stop and go is where driving habits and technique can make the most difference. You have to concentrate on your driving to get the most of it - gradually coast to stops, accelerate moderately, keep a distance from the car in front to let you maximize FE. I find that when I'm in the mood to maximize FE the best opportunites come in stop and go traffic. It's easy to glide in EV mode, for example, when you're crawling at no more than 30MPH on the freeway. My average MPG goes up when I'm in that kind of traffic.

2006 HCH Alabaster Silver w/Navi
2003 Honda Accord LX

My 03 HCH was a manual and was better on FE than the 06. My 03 HCH FE would go up when going in town and I saw ave 48+mpg with 54mpg high.
My 06 HCH is consistent at 40mpg and does not ever go into new EV mode.
I hear conflicting stories how 06 EV mode works in here but the Honda website clearly says the 06 HCH can run on Electric motor alone at speeds up to 35mph. This would be logical for improving starting FE at low speed stop an slow take off loads. EV mode at cruising speeds seems plausible but the battery pack is limited and would not last long - The system would then have to charge this oscillation between charge and boost at highway speeds would yield a net gain of "0" so this would not be very feasible.
My guess is that what a lot of people are seeing at highway speeds is just the assist or coasting with all the valves shut on the engine as it does in regen mode. If EV mode is activated then instantanious FM should go to max. I'll have a big discusion with technicians at 10,000 service.. Turok