After recently hitting 2000 miles I thought my car would be getting better than the 41/42 mpg I have been averaging. But with the recent cold weather I have been getting just that.

Now with the "heat wave" (in the 60s) this weekend, I am finally starting to see the results of the break-in. My wife, whose never read any of the FE articles here, got 47mpg driving around this weekend. And this morning I got 57 mpg on the way to work.

I am beginning to see the alure of the block heater.

nf

 

Wow, I am finally starting to see some good mpg! Steady at 50 mpg for the past couple days. Unfortunately this tank started in colder weather so, I will still prob only avg. in the mid to low 40s.

And by my next tank, I'm sure it'll be cold again.

Oh, well... next spring should be great!

 

Congrats brother. I also had a great day yesterday. Daily mpg have been in the 46-48 mpg range for my 150 daily miles (average). Yesterday without even trying I finished at 146.7 miles and 51.1 mpg. This was due to the daily temps being in the mid- to high-60s rather than the 30s-40s and little wind. I even found myself trying to get the SoC as low as possible on the 22-mile drive to work and I was able to get it down to 2 bars (getting up to 4000 rpm up some of the hills). Guess what the mpg at the office was -- yep - an astounding 50.5 mpg. Imagine if I was actually trying that time.

My block heater is getting installed on Thursday and hopefully Friday will be a cold morning and I'll finally be able to compare/contrast. I have been testing out the cold engine stats the past few days. I can go basically two ways from home to Pittsburgh and it is roughly the same distance. On warm weather days (or when the engine is already heated) I can do this 6-mile trip and get somewhere around 60 mpg (it is mostly downhill). On cold weather days like today I struggle to reach 46 mpg. Most of the time I am able to go from 60 mph at the top of the grade to 50 mph about 2 miles later almost all in EV/EV-Assist mode and this raises the FE from 20-25 mpg to 45-50 mpg. It usually goes up 10 mpg for every 1 mile during the first 5 mile trip (so at 3.0 miles it is 36 mpg, 4.0 miles it is 46 mpg, and 5.0 miles it is 56 mpg) and shortly thereafter is a hill so I lose the gaining power. I will see what Friday yields as it should be over 50 mpg when I bypass town rather than below 45 mpg. Time will tell.

And on the cold days I will get to the office (22 miles) around 43-47 mpg but on the warm days it is always over 50 and more like 52-55 mpg. I think I would heat the car even if it only has a 10 mpg effect on 22 miles (or consuming 0.5 gal at 45 mpg to consuming 0.4 gal at 55 mpg and only 0.1 gal saved over 22 miles but when I roll over 600 miles total a week and many of those miles in mornings when it is cold or easily 50 miles on a cold engine a week then 50*0.1=5 gal saved per week -- yeah -- heating the car should help the winter FE not take as much of a hit; even if it only helps for 50 miles a week that is still 5 gal or half a fill-up).

 

Yeah cold is a real killer. And having to gun it to merge onto thte interstate with a cold engine can't be good for FE or the engine.

Let us know how the block heater goes (as if I need to say that ).

 

I also get to claim work miles as reimbursement so any savings I can get on fuel helps me so taking a hit on electricity at home to warm the car helps as the work reimbursement is a fixed price and at home I can just put on a sweatshirt to save those pennies I used to warm the car. =)

When I bought the car I noticed that it claimed, "$600 annual fuel cost" and if the average for people is 10,000 miles a year this makes it $0.06 per mile for the car but if you drive 12,000 miles a year (average American) then this is $0.05 per mile. I don't know what number they use but I'm averaging 48.2 mpg and $0.0507 per mile. If the car's average is 49/51 mpg and I'm at 48.2 mpg but still $0.05 per mile then maybe the average driven per American is higher now. Doesn't matter. All I know is that I get more than that as reimbursement per mile so I'm happy to be "making profit" from a car for once.

 

After last winter, I wasn't doing too fantastically with FE. I thought that I knew what the car was capable of after using it in the fall, and my expectations were not too terribly high, though I was hoping that warm weather would help. Then came summer. Wow! What a difference! Over a matter of days, my numbers started shooting up. I thought my driving technique had improved, and it had, because the numbers were far better than I'd seen last fall in similar weather, but I'd been unable to reliably discern the pattern because of the cold.

Now I'm spoiled. After several months of high temperatures, the cold weather is starting to really hit around here. My last tank was my first sub-50 mpg tank (49.9, but still) since ... March, I think? So far on the new tank I've just been hoping to meet the 'Speed' rule- Stay Above Fifty! I don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep it up, though. Temps will be in the 40s this week, but when it's below freezing consistently for long periods, I expect a severe drop. It'll be sad to see it go.

Driving techniques are helpful, no doubt- but temperature is king in the mpg race.

p.s. I guess I'm the only non-flashy person in this thread. hee hee. make up your minds, people, flash or no flash!

 

Just to chime in on this topic... and also to add another perspective to the fuel economy issue in winter driving.

- My average mileage for the summer months was 51.6 mpg (Stop & Go traffic, no highway driving).
- My most recent tank barely made it to 41 mpg. The displayed FE for the tank was more like 39. By the way, I always us a block heater.
- If I project into the upcoming months with lower (normal) temps, I can expect to do no better than 33 mpg. Oh, talk about a hit!

Now, the sad thing is that some of the hypermiling techniques we use on HCH-2 no longer work very well. Why? No assist and no regen at these temps for several months. We can still do cold-start P&G but the glides are short and the pulses not very helpful to the engine's longevity.

Face-out ? Not when many tall banks of snow exist in parking lots.
DWB? Sure that helps a little when possible.
DWL? Yep, we do alot of that when we're alone on the road.
Fake shifting? Yep, lots of that... unless Santa and his Reindeer are pressing you to go faster from behind.

How's that for hypermiling winter? I just can't wait until summer returns again.

Cheers;

MSantos

 

Actually here in Houston heat and humidity is the real FE killer. Your IMA doesnt always work if the battery is hot after parking on a hot parking lot surface and of course, you use the AC which shaves the MPG a bit. No that we are in the 50s 60s and 70s it basically 52 MPG and above.

 

Marc- Now that's a low blow. Still, silver lining: I'm glad to see that SOMEONE is profiting from this season (winter- yick). You people who live in warm places should just enjoy it while it lasts, and let us in the colder places suffer in peace without all of your gloating.

 

hehe. I used to live in downtown Chicago so I feel your pain. It was 78 here over the weekend. AT this rate, it should be about 130 next July.