While I don't live in the bay area, I'd like to share some of my observations.

With 9k miles my average is down to 32mpg since I bought the car. My best tank was 41mpg driving at or below the speed limit on our local interstates, during winter.

Now that the 100 degree weather is here, I've had 3 tanks average less than 30 mpg with the worst being 26.

I live way up on a mountainside, which negates some of the benefits of the hybrid IMO. Reasons being: It's downhill all the way to the grocery store, but in the winter the engine runs the entire way. On the way back, the batteries deplete quickly, so the car climbs back up the mountain with the gasoline doing most of the work.

Even so, I was averaging 37 mpg before the hot weather hit.

I've experimented with the "ECO" mode and found that it makes a significant difference. But when my magnetic gray car has been parked outside on a hot day, ECO mode isn't cool enough to suit me. I don't like the way ECO mode has to be reset each time the A/C setting has been turned all the way to "LO".

I'm getting 32/33 here in SoCal. But sometimes I drive to the Bay Area, near Oakland and Fremont, but on the 880 side which is a bit flatter than your neighborhood.

Still 32 to 33 mpg, same as you... 72-ish on the freeway is just barely enough not to draw hostile fire in the slow lanes.

I drive 30 miles to work taking I-580 over the Altamont pass, then 20 miles back home on a back road over the Livermore hills. I've been averaging over 36 mpg city and highway combined, at a highway speed of 70 miles per hour. A round trip to Stockton from Livermore, about 50 miles each way, averages about 45 mpg.

We have had our 2007 Camry Hybrid (loaded with all factory options) since July of 2006. In the first 7200 miles of mostly shorter trips around Sacramento with just a couple of weekend jaunts to SF and Reno, we averaged about 37-38 mpg. I am careful to observe speed limits, and our other car is a 2006 Prius, so we are somewhat experienced hybrid owners (50,000+ Prius miles since our first 2004 model).

We have just returned from a 3278 miles "road trip vacation" up the California-Oregon coast, then up the Columbia River gorge to Glacier National Park, down to Yellowstone Park then back across Idaho and Nevada to Sacramento. We were detoured off I-80 bya a fire and had to use Hiway 50 across most of Nevada with passing "surges" of up to almost 100mph. Our trip mileage was 39.45 mpg and for one tank fillup with slower driving around Yellowstone we averaged 45.5 mpg for over 500 miles.

You traded your wife for a RAV 4? Didn't she protest?

B. Goodman