The Prius has an almost identical powertrain and if you look on their forums there are plenty of first hand reports on running out of gas. Apparently because the Prius uses a bladder instead of a tank the amount of fuel left once the gauge reads empty varies a lot. Combine that with some ad hoc contests over who can go the farthest on a tank and you can guess the results. I suspect this might be why the TCH has such a conservative fuel monitoring system.

 

This could be, but I suspect that the TCH has the same fuel tank sending unit and low fuel light indicator settings that are used in the whole Camry line, TCH, 2.4L (now 2.5L) gas and the 3.5 V6. The difference between the worst case on the V6, and the best case on the TCH and could be what? Let's use 16MPG vs 42MPG just as an example. If there are 3 gallons left when the light comes on, the difference is being able to go 48 miles or 126 miles... by this example.

 

For those of you that have been on this forum for a while, Bob in Huntsville was very fond of testing his Prius (first gen). He would often run his out of gas doing test runs on a known grade outside of Huntville doing testing on variuos brands and mixes of gas. He would then get to the side of the road, pull his one gallon "reserve" can out and put it in the tank.

He could go for a while without gasoline and running the electric only but said you would get a warning if the traction battery started getting low. You do not want to have that happen as the battery will lose capacity, not have enough energy to start the engine and either require a tow to the dealer or have the dealer come to you with a VERY fancy booster system.

As far as hurting the fuel pump. the pump is cooled by the volume of fuel that passes thru it. If the engine is not running but the computer is trying to start it, the pump will be running but under zero load as there is no fuel to provide resistance to the pump. I can't imagine that running the pump motor for the 1 or 2 miles you need to get to a gas station will hurt it.

 

Here ya go, from january 2008
https://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/...tta-gas-16942/

 

I recall someone doing this intentionally, too. They had a gas can in the trunk that they used when they ran the tank dry. Some diligent searching might turn up the previous thread...

 

Thanks to BiggieJohn posting in the PEHV thread, we have finally received the anwer to this question, i.e.: