Let me first apologize, I'm totally new to hybrid driving - and I'm curious how you guys are getting the mileage you are getting. My TCH doesn't have the NAV, so it's just the little LCD display.

I'm still on my 1st tank of gas, and it's showing a disappointing 31.5 MPG for tank average . I've hit 40 MPG on the ECO Drive Level a few times practicing the "pulse and glide", but have never achieved the "no arrows" between wheel and battery. I've watched the analog Fuel Economy Meter hit 60 and into e-mode quite a bit, but I have no idea how you guys calculate the 50+ mpg I've been seeing.

Is there additional info on the NAV display that the non-NAV models don't have?

My commute is very much in the city - lots of stop and go, hardly get above 40 for more than 30 seconds before hitting a stop sign or a stop light, that maybe a reason for the disappointing mileage, but maybe you guys can enlighten me?

Thanks.

Constant changes in speed will kill mileage. Stopping, then accelerating, then stopping, etc., is really bad for fuel economy, so that's why you get 31.5.

Mileage is calculated by taking the miles traveled on a tank and dividing it by the gallons of gas needed to fill up. If you start with a full tank of gas, travel 500 miles, and refill the tank, and it takes 15 gallons to fill up, then the mileage is 500/15 = 33.3 mpg.

By the way, nobody has 50 mpg over a tank with this car, just over a short duration in some cases. Me, I got 35.3 mpg for my first tank and 37.5 mpg for my second. My third will have more city driving and may be 35-36 mpg.

Then, just a simple question...
Why the EPA city mileage of TCH is better than the highway mileage?

Ken@Japan

Ok a couple of things:

First off MPG is Miles PER Gallon. Any time you have anything PER any second thing you always divide the first thing by the second thing. Miles PER Gallon is Miles / Gallons.

Second, I bet someone does get 50 MPG for an entire tank eventually. 50 MPG would be about 30% higher than EPA which is not much of a strech for a hypermiler. My current tank is running aroud 80 MPG which is about 60 percent higher than the EPA combined rating of 48.5.

Have you red the tutorials or looked at wikipedia or howstuffworks.com, or the Toyota website? They all explain pretty clearly why Toyota hybrids get better mpg in local driving than the highway.

Similar systems are used on the Camry, Highlander, Escape, and Prius. They are able to use only the electric motor for propulsion at lower speeds and moderate acceleration- the gas engine is off. That saves more fuel under those conditions, which are the conditions seen in 'city' driving. The highway is faster and the engine is on almost the entire time.

This is different from the Honda system which only uses the electric motor to assist the engine- the engine still has to provide propulsion all the time.

Yes. I know about that.
However, CGameProgrammer wrote...
And, he is expecting lower mileage number coming city driving than before.
So, I'm asking him why.

Ken@Japan

the part about the ice on toyota's hsd being on most of the time on the highway is definitely truer than ima. ima has a much better time at shutting off the engine at highway speeds than hsd - especially at higher cruising speeds. i can set my hch.ii on cruise and see the gas engine being cut off quite a bit.

the part about ima needing its ice to propel the car all the time is a bit misleading. gen 2 of ima can propel the car by itself and does but not as frequently as hsd in the city and the car needs to be up to speed already. better to say that hsd can accelerate the car from a standing stop while ima cannot.

don't mean to be a nit picker but ima sometimes gets interpreted as an inferior system b/c of information that is interpreted the wrong way.

All cars, including the Prius, do get worse mileage during typical suburban or city driving, unless it's slow enough that they can stay in electric-only mode. Driving in cities sometimes is slow enough, but regular suburban driving is not -- you run the engine much of the time.

Highway driving is much more efficient. I drive from San Diego to LA and back at speeds usually between 75-85 miles per hour (most often at 80) and got 39.2 mpg according to the display. But it went down to 38 after the trip due to city/suburban driving. I get around 35 mpg with non-highway driving.

So, when I drive to work in the morning in bumper to bumper stop and go traffic that barely gets up to 10mph for large stretches, will my TCH run on gas or electric? I really do need to read more about the HSD before I actually get my TCH.

My commute is very much in the city - lots of stop and go, hardly get above 40 for more than 30 seconds
Don't get discouraged. Also note that some comments on this thread are not on TCH's. City driving should yield high mpg's averages. However, if you're getting up to 40 miles per hour in short distances then you're running your ICE a lot and not going to see high city milages. I'm not sure what you drove before the TCH but what kind of milage did you get there? Anything near the EPA? All things are relative. If you could get up to speed and let off the gas then use the battery to power you the mpg's will increase. However in traffic you may be intimidated to jack-rabbit start and not want to appear to be a slow driver. Traffic would move better with a smoother flow if everybody didn't jump at the light , fly to 40 and then slam on the brakes at the next light.

Then again I don't know that you can change people. You do however have the right (reguardless of the middle fingers flying) to obey the traffic laws if you so desire. Hopefully with some practice and patience you'll do better. One thing for sure though when everyone is sitting at the light and your ICE is not running you're still doing a lot better than they are.