Most of the time I only drive on Saturday and Sunday, and then only 10-20 miles per day. Will the battery lose it's charge between Monday to Friday so I don't benefit from it on Saturday?

Thanks,
Ken

 

Only if your battery is suffering from excessive self-discharge. You're only putting ~2100 miles/year on the car. This is definitely on the low side. 10-20 miles, 2 days/week is potentially not enough to maintain a healthy battery. You might want to throw in a Wednesday outing.

With such low miles drive, you should ensure all drives get the car up to full operating temp with the hybrid system working as expected.

 

Thanks S Keith.

I underestimated for purposes of understanding the risk involved. In reality I log more like 4000-5000 miles per year, but there are weeks when I drive very little.

Based on your reply, I think a Camry Hybrid would still be a good choice for me.

 

That is still very low mileage. Personally, I would avoid letting it is more than 3-4 days between full cycle driving (where the car reaches full operating temp and full hybrid function).

 

[QUOTE=kenxu;258215]Thanks S Keith.

I underestimated for purposes of understanding the risk involved. In reality I log more like 4000-5000 miles per year, but there are weeks when I drive very little.

Based on your reply, I think a Camry Hybrid would still be a good choice for me.[/QUOTE]

No. it will not. You will have practically no benefit from hybrid drive.

http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/10...cyl-camry.html

 

Ken,

To give you some good advice, we would need to know the average temps where you live (cold weather will kill any advantage a hybrid will have on short trips), the type of "short trips" you take on the weekend (several short 2 or 3 miles trips where the engine cools off between or one trip where the car can get up to temp), your average speed, are your trips at highway speeds or in town, your driving habits (spirited or sedate).

If you have the right answers to those questions, a hybrid might benefit you if you can buy it at a reasonable price. In general, I would agree with ukrkoz that a hybrid would not be your best option given your driving requirements however. As much as I like to promote hybrid cars, they are not for everyone in every driving situation.

 

Yep. Short trips - manual transmission diesel engine. Long trips at speeds below 50mph on back-roads, not hills, straight level roads, more than 20 miles one way - perfect for hybrids.