Yes, but nobody said that it wouldn't cost you a few minutes of time. In the grand scheme of things, you are really only going slower on whatever inclines you climb. We are talking maybe 10 extra seconds per hill? I mean, if you could increase your gas milage by 15% by arriving in 2:07 instead of 2:00, isn't it really worth it to have an overall average speed of 63.8 mph instead of 65mph?

 

[quote=Tim K;126684if you could increase your gas milage by 15% by arriving in 2:07 instead of 2:00, isn't it really worth it to have an overall average speed of 63.8 mph instead of 65mph?[/quote]

I'd make that trade any day. All I was saying is that you are now comparing the mileage for two different speeds.

But, if you were travelling in rolling hills, you could be spending close to half the time on hills and your average would be much lower than your "set" speed unless you compensated on the downhills by going that much faster.

Just a thought, that's all.

 

Well, at least for me, it wasn't two very different speeds. It was within just a couple of mph either way. So, I feel that the comparison of the 27-28 mpg trip to the 33-34 mpg trip was fair. I mean, the difference in mpg can't be explained, just on the slight difference in avg mph.

The difference, to me, is that the cruise control is dumb, and by that, I mean not hybrid smart. Matter of fact, it is quite dumb.

My point is that, the hybrid designers should not just take cruise control from a gas-only vehicle, and slap it onto a hybrid 'as is'. A cruise control for a hybrid needs to be adaptive, and the one on our FEH/MMH doesn't seem to be at all. Very simple little things like "pulsing" the gas pedal to produce a "down shift", seems to be beyond its capabilities. Also, maintaining an exact speed, at any cost, might be best for a gas-only vehicle, but completely wrong for a hybrid.

 

So for a hypothetical 200 miles traveled:

63.8 mph gets perhaps 32 mpg = 6.25 gallons
70 mph gets perhaps 26 mpg = 7.69 gallons

So you save 1.44 Gallons over 200 miles = $5.05 at $3.50 a gallon...
but you lose 16.66 minutes of time @ $18.18 hourly, you break even - $5.05

So as long as you make less than $18.18 it is cheaper to go slower.

 

If this is about my trip, it would be more like 63.8 mph vs. 65.0 mph. Like I said, not much of a speed difference.