spiff72,

You mentioned two huge factors in fuel economy, length of trip and cold weather. The EPA takes neither into account in it's ratings ( at present ). Together these two will/could reduce the fuel economy of any vehicle by as much as 40%!!!!

If you only drive 10 min or so in 40 deg weather a 'normal' V6 might only attain 15-18 mpg i.s.o. the 'normal' value of say 25 mpg. Most people don't pay any attention to this since it's hard to identify and there is no system to 'capture' the data from a series of short trips. In the hybrids the graphical report on a minute-by-minute or 5-minute segment makes a lot of these special variances readily apparent.

In the Fuel and Economy forum there was a list of these 'reducers'. Short trips, cold weather, rain/snow/ice and wind each can reduce FE by as much as 10-20% each! Now add several of them together.

Using 37 mpg as a good yardstick in mild weather and optimal conditions, if you have a 5 min or less commute you will lose about 20% off the EPA fuel economy value - this is true of any vehicle. If it's cold deduct another 10-20%. If it's raining, snowy or icy - deduct another 15-30%. Again true of all vehicles.

Take any 2 or these together and you can see why in winter driving one might very well get 25-27 mpg in a TCH or 35-40 mpg in a Prius.

But your options are 15-18 mpg in a normal ICE V6 or 20-22 mpg in a 4c ICE under the same conditions.

I would LOVE to have a commute where I could spend $0.50 a day getting to work. heck for that matter, I would probably walk to work if it was that close.

Maybe my recent driving experience will help you get some perspective on the TCH FE. My lifetime FE is over 40 mpg. My normal commute is 25 miles to work.

Last week, I filled up the car and did only local driving around town. I drove a total of 12 miles doing just short trips and had to use every trick I could think of to get 32 mpg.

Today, I drove to and from work, so my total miles on the tank went from 12 to 62. My mileage on the tank because of the longer drive at freeway speeds went from 32 mpg up to 43 mpg for the tank. Short trips mean low FE.

PLEASE ALLOW ME TO CLARIFY

my handle "TCH duped" does not come from the fact that I feel I got duped by buying a TCH. I love my TCH.
My handle came from the fact that I got "duped" into buying an extended warranty from the dealer when i bought the car (and of course overpaid). When I visited this forum, that's when I realized that I was duped by my dealer, at which point, I cancelled that extended warranty and got it for hundreds less through midwest toyota.

I do realize that short trips and cold weather kill my mileage.
I was content getting my 29 mpg considering my FE-killing commute... but was just surprised to see it drop by 3mpg when the cold hit.

Hope this clarifies things so that I don't get pounced on in this forum

Ah ha. that does clarify things. You could see how we thought this based on the thread.

jocular_chen — I must comment on your statements about how you "optimize" driving your TCH. You seem to be misinterpreting the fuel economy meter's readings. If the car is stationary, this meter must read infinity whenever the ICE is on. (It pegs its reading at 30 L/100 km which is marked as 0 mpg in the US version.) The fact that the meter reading drops as the car builds up speed indicates only that its speed is no longer zero, not that you're doing better! It would drop even if the engine's efficiency remained the same. The drop is not an indication that your scheme is sensible. I believe that you're actually doing worse than if you accelerated steadily and moderately. [By the way, you're giving your mpg's in imperial gallons. The US gallon is 5/6-ths of an imperial gallon, and that reduces all your mpg figures by a factor of 5/6 to make them comparable to the American figures being quoted in this Newsgroup.]

Stan

I already changed my number in the database according to my TCH performace 5.5l/100km. By the way, did you do the rustproof for your TCH? The dealer who I deal with told me he can ask his friend(the person work in Toyota)to do it in 250 CAD without lifetime warranty. is it a good deal?

You would be better off converting your money to loonies to use at your local spray wash.

Two climate control systems, one inside and the other at the tailpipe.

2007 Camry Hybrid (in service June 2006)
FE: 6.67L/100km or 35.3 mpg (6.11L/100km or 38.5 mpg in summer)