LONG POST...
I just completed a one week trip from Southern California up to Seattle and back, and figured I'd provide some feedback on our 2,000 mile adventure...

1) Mileage - we averaged 52. That's with two adults and a child, all of our stuff, and two road bicycles in the trunk! Temp was HOT in CA (95 to 100) so A/C was used. I'm pleased to report that my wife did a GREAT job on mileage, often exceeding my MPG totals! Our speeds were in the 57 to 63 range, except for one 250 mile stretch where we drafted off trucks and ran at 70 miles per hour with A/C and got a whopping 55 MPG!!! Overall, we're VERY pleased!

2) Comfort - our longest legs were 1st and last day... 850 miles each. That's 14 hours of drive time, and I never got uncomfortable in the seats. The back seat was a BIG surprise. The most comfortable I've ever been in the rear... and that includes all kinds of SUVs. Everyone fell asleep in the rear... must be the cushy seats and the silky smooth CVT shifting! Only down side was the radiant heat from the glass. I MUST get the windows tinted!

3) NAVI - You've gotta get this thing! I've never had a car with built-in navi, and it's WONDERFUL. So convenient on road trips. We needed a hotel and it quickly found one and gave us the phone number. "Judy" (my son's name for the Navi voice) always got us to the destination! Judy isn't without her faults, however. Quite often she would put waypoints in the incorrect order, and she would repeat stupid warnings (You're entering an unverified area...."). I wish there was a quick mute button to turn Judy off at times!

4) Function - The car performed flawlessly. Not so much as a hiccup or sputter. Road noise is a bit high on certain highways, but I do have my tires at 40psi, so that could be part of it. Tires were quiet on most of the roads, however. CVT sure revs up on the big hills. Amazing to watch your hard-earned MPG go down the drain on the steep climbs, but it does return on the downgrades, of course! I was amazed to see the battery drain as low as two bars... then charge up to all eight in just five minutes!

It was a great trip. Still can't believe we packed in so much gear and had plenty of room for us... and got 52 mpg, too!

ok, so this is really really of topic, but depending on where you were, i think i may have seen you driving around the seattle area. do you have the HOV stickers? anyhoo, congrats on the great gas milage.

wow 2000 miles and 52 average, that's pretty good man for a road trip. Did you put your bikes hitched behind the back? If so that's still pretty impressive, cheating areodynamics like that

i got around 20 km a liter when i drove a civic 5 spd using advanced hypermiler techniques
and now I drive a salvage nwh20 prius that gets almost to 25 km/l with 192,000 km to date.

That's wonderful mileage for a highway trip. We are heading from Central PA to Myrtle beach tonight for a week's vacation there. I'm hoping to get close to what you got - although with a young child (and associated crying during a 10 hr trip) I'm not sure I can keep the speed down that much. I suspect I might be in the 65-70 range! I'll let you know how I make out.

Eric

We have a silver HCH2 with the HOV stickers. We were up there from Thursday to Saturday for the STP (Seattle to Portland) bike ride. My wife drove the car on Saturday while my son and I rode the bikes.

We only saw a couple of other HCH's on the whole trip.

Actually, we had both road bikes in the trunk! I know... it sounds impossible... but it's true! You've got to remove that styrofoam disk where they mount the jack (just take the jack and tools out and put them in a small bag). Then you take both wheels off the bikes and carefully layer everything with moving blankets. It works, and there's plenty of space left over for helmets, shoes, water bottles, and even a few duffle bags. It's amazing what fits back there.

I posted some photos in an earlier thread:
http://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/d...highlight=bike

We loaded and removed the bikes three times during the trip. It takes about 20 minutes to break down the bikes and load them. It takes about 15 minutes to pull them and assemble them. Not exactly as convenient as a rack, but the bikes stay clean, our mileage stays high and I saved $300 on a hitch and rack!

did your wife go driving around the renton area? if so, then im positive that it was your car i saw on the road. I dont see to many other non prius hybrids out on the road, but i can spot a hybrid a mile away and to the annoyance of my bf, i point them all out.

YES!!! We stayed in Renton at a motel at Maple Valley and the 405. We did a lot of driving in Renton and in Bellevue. At one point, she was following us on our training route around the lower portion of Lake Washington.

It must have been us!