I bought my highlander about two months ago. I was disapointed with the MPG as well. Now I am a little bit happier now since the MPG is improving. The key is to maintain 40 miles per hour using battery only. I found out that the best way to improve mpg is maintaining speed using battery only. 40 miles per hour is the best speed to do so on a relatively flat or small uphill. I have short drive to/from work (7 miles). I am happy getting 28 mpg.

peter



congrats on your highlander. We too were getting 22mpg until i realized driving with the ICE and EV working in tandam gives the best mileage. The thing with driving in EV is that it depletes the batteries very quickly, thus the ICE has to come on to recharge it, instantly draining your mpg. So, having the battery constantly charged at around 40-45 miles per hour has given us consistent readings of over 30mpg -with the ICE on.

The idea of driving in EV though , is the main reason i am chaffing at the bit for plug in hybrid options to make their way onto the scene.

What about pulse & glide? I've heard it's more difficult in the Highlander, but I'd think that would yield the best mileage.

foo

what is this 'pulse and glide' , maybe i will give it a try.......

It's a technique where you moderately accelerate to about 40MPH, then feather the throttle to put the car in the glide state. That's where there's no arrows on the display. The car's in the hybrid equivalent of neutral, where the only energy being used is to power the car's electronics. You then glide down to 30MPH or so, then accelerate back up. Using this technique, some guys got 110MPG out of a single tank, in a Prius, last August.

Obviously, you can only P&G where traffic conditions allow it. You don't need to do both, either. Once you get the hang of gliding, you'll find lots of places to use it. From your first post, it sounds like you're using the electric motor at times where you could glide.

I've never driven a HH, but I've heard the glidingg technique is not as easy to do, as in a Prius. You also won't glide as well, but it's worth a try.

I bought a SUV. I really don't want to drive 30 miles per hour or 35 for that matter. 40 miles per hour is a right speed if you don't want to drive aggressively. In my oppinion, the key to drive hybrid is to use the battery efficiently. Toyota should have done a better job allowing you to do so. In my experience, the most efficient way to use the battery is to maintain speed at 40 miles per hour using battery only. It is very sensitive. If you press the pedal a little bit harder, engine will kick in. If you press the pedal a lit bit softer, the car will slow down. Toyota should have designed better. While driving in the city you have enough opportunities to recharge your battery (stops).
Short trips kill mpg. I was doing 1.5 mile trip daily to YMCA and 7 miles trip to my work daily. The mpg (manually calc) was about 26. I started using my wife's car for the YMCA trip (experiment for one tank. I am not crazy enough to switch cars to gain mpg). I am getting 29 mpg this tank. It is not 33 mpg but makes feel somehow better about my purchase