I filled up tonight after 40 days on my last trip to fill. I would say about 30 days of driving as some days we didn't go to town. Again I simply drove at 40 mph or slower in town using the cruise control. I was at 62 mpg till I got down to 1/4 tank. The cold weather moved in especially at night with 45 deg temps. The block heater I installed helped out some. I ran 61 mpg for a few trips to town but tonight it dropped to 60 then to 59.9 driving though some cold city streets to get gas. I used 14.99 gallons to fill the tank on the low setting till it auto shut-off. Calculated with the 857.2 miles came out to 57.18 mpg or 2.72 less. I use the B-trip so as not to accidently zero my tank miles when resetting the oil-change maintenance warning.

I use phillips 66 regular 86 octane gas that's listed on the www.toptiergas.com/ site. Play the video then choose Retailers to see the list of top tier brands of gas. Use www.gasbuddy.com/ to locate a low priced top tier station. Best if it's near a discount station. Simply type in your zip code or city, state into the 'Search for Local Gas Prices' window, then press enter. The zip code search is not working tonight for some reason.

I did my first oil change a week ago. I went with 'mobil one' 0W-20 full synthetic oil at 5000 miles. I'm using michelin primacy mxv4 tires aired to 40 psi cold. Actually their at 43 psi when driving to town during the day. I set them at 40 psi when the outside temp was at 45F degrees.

This time I remembered taking a picture of the cruising range which was down to 8 miles left to go. At 857 miles that would have given me a 865 tank which would be my max limit driving in this area. I caught the new cruising range reading after I left the station and it read 840 miles to go. Could be in the early next summer I might improve the tank mileage by upping the mpg.

I do spent lots of time glancing at the Hybrid System Indicator especially when in the EV mode. I think of it more a engine/EV load indicator. When in EV mode I try my very best to keep the needle under the ECO text inside the meter area. I can climb overpasses and if I do, the speed may drop to 30 mph during the climb. Climbing a short distance of 200/300 or so feet with the gas engine, can load the engine down to 3 to 5 mpg. Parking lots are killer on gas mileage. Try to charge your traction battery over half way before entering any large parking lot. This will help your gas mileage. Routing city driving this is rather easy to do.

I don't just drive the car, I work with the car to get the ultimate gas mileage.

WhiteSands

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Here is a picture of both gauges.

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Looks like you are getting the new Camry sorted out nicely.....

 

Thanks David, having the '07 TCH for 5 years learning to drive it slow at 44 mph with engine and 40 mph when in EV for max mpg. My low with the '07 over those years was 48 mpg during one cold winter and averaged 52 mpg over the time I owned it. It did take me a couple of years to find the best speed to drive with the hybrid. I will give the ScanGauge II credit for that by using its engine LOD feature and instant mpg readout. The gallons per minute feature also helped some.

I was anxious to start driving the '12 TCH. The problem again just like the '07 was having to wait till it was broke in. It's hard to find the best speed when your still having some internal friction pulling the engine down some. Around 4000 miles it started loosening up and at 4500 was much better. I did my own first oil change at 5000 miles to check out this new element filter inside a heavy black plastic container. It has the same serrated bottom as the filter on the '07 making it easy to remove with the small cup filter tool.

So far 40 mph seems the max speed for the EV mode for the '12 TCH. EV goes farther with less battery drain the slower you go. I find 35 works really well while in the city. Driving at 20 it will go somewhat farther like nearly 2 miles on battery. I do the 20/25 speed on the 2 mile paved rough country road to our house. That's 4 miles I can drive that slow each time we go to town especially if I got the T-battery charged to 80%.

I find if their is no wind or a tailwind the engine's peak mpg is at 45 with cruise. I would say 40 mpg when charging and around 50 once the T-battery is charged. I think most here know that I use the cruise-control all the time even down to 25 mph.

I think others could get this kind of mpg performance only if they lived in some small town a good ways from the big cities and far away from the interstates. From here it's 85 miles south to I-10 in El Paso and 200 miles north to get to I-40 in Albuquerque. Population here in Alamogordo, NM is about 37,500. Their is not much traffic here other then around 4 to 5 pm when lots of people get off work from the Holloman AFB 10 miles SW of town. Friday nights is rather active due to payday including people from El Paso traveling though here headed to Ruidoso, NM for the Casino's up in the mountains there. I better mention the desert floor elevation here is around 4200 feet and the dry climate also helps my mpg attempts year round.

Living out here sure beats Garland, Texas just northeast of Dallas. It was a small town was 3000 population when my parents moved their when I was 9 years old. Today it's booming city with 250,000 population. We don't even go back to visit my cousins as cars there will run over you as they drive 70 and 80 on the freeways. That one visit back in 2002 sure reminded me how very similar it was to the way they used to drive in Los Angeles.

 

I have a 23 mile commute but most is interstate where you either run 65 to 70 in the right lane or you get run over. We also have a lot of hills in this area that make life difficult to get very good mileage.

 

On long trips where I have driven at 60 so save fuel. Going up any hills I drop the speed in short spaced increments using the cruise control lever. I slow usually 5 mph (each pull down on the CC slows the car by 1 mph) going up and then regain the 5 mph going down the other side. Somehow I maintained a 40 to 42 mpg (summers) with a 2003 Corolla I owned at the time. I was able to get 39 to 40 combined by easy footing the accelerator and driving it at 48 mph to town and back using the cruise.

 

I have had my 2012 TCH for 10 months and 32,000 miles. I have never seen better than 43.4 mpg combined (pump to pump).

Now that it's cold out I am lucky to see 36 mpg (pump to pump)

I track every fill up using an Android app called Fuel Log. I don't understand how you guys can hyper-mile that much out of this vehicle.

 

I pick my Camry Hybrid HL up next week, but around town my current hybrid (07 Civic) would be stretching it to better your 36 mpg figure.
So really those figures you have quoted are very respectable.

 

All I can say is to slow down. Anytime you drive at 40 mph with the Camry Hybrid your getting top mpg with both the engine or in EV. 37 mph is even better as the Camry can find places to run in EV where it can overlook some when driving at 40.

It's easy to see in most cities where you just have to drive along with the traffic. Were I live traffic in the past has not been a problem. My wife and I are mostly day sleepers and retired. We go to town at 6 pm after most workers have already went home. We eat out a lot then go to walmart for a few groceries then back home around 10 pm where I have the 4-lane highway almost to myself. The drive or loop to town and back is about 33.5 miles. So it's easy to see how I know ever area where I can drive in EV to increase my mpg to max.

It's about 4100 feet elevation here in the desert where it's very level. Very little wind and the humidity runs from 5% to 10% in the summer and 15% to 25% in the winter unless it rains which is a little rare out here.

I have noticed being the hypermiler that I am that higher humidity somehow hurts the cars ability to get the higher mpg.

I rarely calculate my gas mileage. I find it's more consistent using the mid readout. Using that method I can tell from tank to tank if my driving technique has helped or hurt my mpg.

Your max over 45 mpg is great and don't complain about the 36 mpg. Compare that number to driving a V6 during the winter.

I did try one tank of gas while driving normal and got around 43 mpg combined. So my car is just like all the other '12 Camry XLE hybrids. I did buy a set of michelin primacy MXV4 (series 94H is best) tires for my car when I first received it at the dealer. I got a good trade-in price for the new oem bridgestone tires. I wanted the long lasting MXV4's as they ride good and give me about a 2 mpg increase due to them being a better LRR tire than the competition. I run mine at 40 psi cold using nitrogen which was done by the toyota dealer.

One thing for sure your new '12 TCH is well broke-in at 32K miles. My few suggestions is to stick to the 0W-20 oil in the engine, keep the tires aired to about 36 psi when cold. Best to use a top tier gas from the Retailers list at www.toptiergas.com/

Ron in the group says, Cosco's Kirkland Signature 'Clean Power' gas is as good as any top-tier gas. I'm not sure if all the Cosco's include the Clean Power gas as yet.

You will see your best gas mileage during the warmest part of Spring and Fall, without the AC.

 

Our main thoroughfare here is Highway 1, a four-lane freeway. Although there are times when everybody is driving at 40-45 mpg, other times they're driving hell for leather over the 65 mph limit. I try to stick to the slow lane at 55-60 mph, but at 40 mph, I'd be run over.

We had to drive to San Francisco yesterday, an 83-mile drive mostly on I-280, where the posted speed limit is 65 mph. I drive the posted limit there. (Any slower and ...) We got about 38.5 mpg on the way up and 42.6 mpg on the way home. We had to run with the car heater more on the outbound trip than homeward bound, which is how I explain the difference.

We're averaging a bit north of 40 mpg with 7,700 miles on the car. I don't think we've ever gotten more than 600 miles out of a tank of gas, nor will we ever.

 

In some areas and cities you have no choice but to drive with the other traffic. I went to Los Angeles a few times on vacations when I was young. At the time we lived near Dallas and was familiar with 60 mph bumper to bumper freeway traffic. Once on a big freeway in Los Angeles we found they were driving almost 80 mph so we just kept up with the traffic. This was back in 1970 and their was no gas mileage while in the big city.

You still have the advantage of driving the TCH in the city streets. Any traffic jams, the engine should shut off and should see better mpg than the other cars around you when your driving.

Your average of 40 mpg to San Francisco and back is really nice when driving at 65 mph. You will notice most places you drive like that will be uphill one way and downhill the other. It's that way on my short 8 miles trip to town and back where I live.. Not steep but enough to see a couple miles difference in each direction I drive.