I need to share this story, since I have seen numerous threads where the primary car owner, who works hard to get the milage up, watches it go south when their mate drives the car. I have had my HCH for 6 days now and have worked to maximize my mileage. This weekend 5 of us (13 year old son, 16 yr old son, 16 year old sons girlfriend, Wife and I) piled into the HCH and went to my sons musical concert. Despite all I had read, I thought it would be a nice thing to let my wife drive the new car. I took close note of the average mileage before turning over the keys to her. When we got home later in the afternoon, I took a look at the average MPG to see how much damage was done and... What is this...the milage had actually gone up ! Not only had it gone up, but it was higher then I had yet been able to get it !


If this was not humbling enough, my son drove us to church yesterday and kept the milage about where was, then I go out to pick up the pizza last night an come home with the milage 0.3 lower then when I left .

All Joking aside, I am really happy with the car and I think the moral of this story is it is not all that hard to get "consistant" milage from the HCH, without even trying.

 

I like your story, lkewin, and I wish the same thing would happen when my mother drives my hybrid!

Over the last few months, I have noticed that once in a while, I'll get better gas mileage in my HCH when I'm not paying much attention to FE than I do when I'm trying, and I think that's because other factors (hills, pavement surfaces, cold weather) have such a big impact on my FE, so if I'm on a good stretch in good conditions I hit my best FE without trying. In other situations, it pays to pay attention. Still, I agree with the poster who said it's a good idea to sometimes relax and realize that our 'bad' days are still about twice as good as the FE of the average American. Having a hybrid at all is the critical first step. If you can hypermile, then congratulations! But first, buy the hybrid.