I've been doing city stop n' go driving to/from work since I got my car last week. My MPG is less than 30 on most trips! What am I doing wrong?

Is the trick to slowly accelerate to 40 mph then take the foot off the accelerator and just glide for a while?

Or is the trick to avoid decelerating and accelerating as much as possible (that is, just try to keep at the same speed)?

Also, if you go to a non-Toyota dealer auto body shop, do they have the exact paint to match your Toyota's color?

 

I get my best results when driving at a nearly constant speed. View your brakes as something you use only in an emergency, try to anticipate when the lights will change to red to coast into them. I also use cruise control even in town.

This weekend I drove strickly on city streets, for 70 miles and got 43.7 mpg.

The other trick is to keep everything warm. I combine trips to do this. The longer the trip, the better the mileage.

 

Don't be afraid to accelerate briskly. That encourages the use of the traction battery to suppliment the ICE rather than just using the ICE alone. When you reach your target speed and it's under 42 mph let up on the accelerator momentarily and if things are right the car will go into EV mode. At that point use very gentle accelerator pressure to maintain speed.
Depending on the SOC of the traction battery this may not work every time but it will help.

 

MPG
The trick is to get the accelleration over with in a reasonable time. You can spend 30 seconds at 15mpg or 90 at twenty. Deceleration is the exact opposite. It's better to let it coast down as far as possible even before applying regenerative braking, much less the old fashioned brakes. Put them on gently.

PAINTING
They can match it to where you can't tell it's been touched. It all depends on the skill of the shop. The one I use can match black to where you have to know it's been hit to find it.

 

If you are above 40 MPH, the trick I have found is to not back of completely on the accelerator when you are up to speed and reducing power.

If you let it go all the way off, the computer will try to put you in EV mode, which will only be transient because you are above the maximum speed for MG1 with the ICE not turning. The result is that you are in fuel-cut (ICE turning but not burning with traction motor[MG2] on) until you put the accelerator back in sufficiently for the ICE to start, which in turn shuts down the traction motor at those speeds.

IF you back down the accelerator to less than a full off position, the computer sometimes thinks this is merely a power reduction and will set the MG1 to MG2 relationship for a very high ICE to axle gear ratio (a sort of overdrive). You can tell when this happens because the MPG will enter the 40-55 MPG range and you can "feel" the slowing of the ICE along with a feeling of the car going quieter. The speedo center display will show ICE running and also a "battery to wheels" indication which is a little misleading as it only shows that the MG1 to MG2 loop is operating in some mode other than open loop.

 

As I showed in another thread (I don't offhand remember which one it was), in order to maximize the overall FE you want to minimize the distance (not the time) spent travelling at poor FE gauge numbers. That is, accelerate briskly (but not excessively fast, so that the FE gauge reading is kept reasonably good) in order to get to the desired speed in as short a distance as possible.

Stan

 

I drive my TCH 160 miles day, ac on max, 70-80 mph and get 38 mpg!

 

The point about having it warm is critical. My mileage can be great on my commutes and such, then drop significantly over a weekend of neighborhood errands. Hypermilers say do errands from the longest distance in, so it has time to warm up for the furthest out, then it's warm when you do the rest of the shorter trips.

Some say they use cruise control pretty much all the time, even for city driving ~30-35 mph. I don't usually do this myself, though I tried it a bit the other day and it might work out (I find it hits the gas at points when I'd be pushing for EV mode myself, and sometimes it tries to accelerate up a hill when I'm going around a blind turn and that makes me a bit uncomfortable!).

My experience says if you can drive to the point when your battery's well-charged, it's great to try to use EV mode as much as you can, coasting, accelerating slowly, easing toward red lights, etc. If your car's warm and in the right state, it should easily flip between gas and EV when you accelerate or take your foot off. In-city it'll be harder to get it charged up.

Someone here advised me that you can kick it to "hybrid mode" (where it freely switches back and forth) by, _after_ the car's fully warm, having it idle at a stop for 5-8 seconds. It really does seem to work pretty reliably, too. That will make a big difference, because when you're burning gas while coasting you're dropping your fuel economy.

In general a very light touch on the pedals makes a big difference. The less you hit them the better, I think. And keep an eye on things like your battery charge, your fuel economy as you drive, and so on, to get a better idea of what works best for you. Don't let your battery run too low though! You do that and it'll start idling and burning gas while you're stopped, which is very inefficient! So when the battery starts getting low, shift a bit more to accelerating with gas and coasting (pulse & glide). When the battery's fully charged you can use electric mode to accelerate when reasonable too, but don't waste battery when it's low or it'll come back and bite you.

Those're my tips, I'm sure there are plenty more around.