I see a lot of discussions on various driving styles and how Hybrid owners are trying to maximize MPG. I think it is great the quest to get the best MPG has "turned Competitive", and many are sharing their secrets to great gas mileage but.....



I see altered driving styles (driving well below the speed limit, extra slow starts, increased coasting, etc) as skewing the MPG numbers used by those researching Hybrid ownership. Please don't get me wrong, I am by far not a speed demon, (in fact my kids tell me grandma drives faster then I do sometimes !) but I am confident I could get even better gas mileage if I tried hard enough. I consider myself an "average" driver (drive at or slightly over the posted speed limit, drive to stay with the normal traffic flow - not a lot of passing or being passed) and am trying to do an apples for apples comparison of what to expect.

Thanks to everyone for your help in my research quest !

 

I don't go extra slow, I try to stay at the speed limit.
I don't accelerate slowly, just smartly.
I coast only when I don't impede traffic.

My lmpg is 52+ my current string of tanks runs at about 60 mpg.

 

Well, here's some more truth:

If you drive a Hybrid "like a regular car" and DO NOT take any actions to try to maximize your MPG, you will not get EPA numbers, and you will not be pleased with the car's MPG performance.

The beauty of these cars is that they "give you the tools" to modify your driving habits in order to best take advantage of the technology.

If you are not interested in "playing the game" of trying to see how high you can keep your tanks on a consistent basis, then a hybrid is probably not for you.

Anyone can slow down, take a different route, accelerate more slowly, and all that stuff, in ANY vehicle, and their MPG will improve. But in a hybrid, you have instruments you can use as tools to help guide you to discovering the best MPG under certain circumstances.

And you can certainly drive the speed limit in a hybrid and get good MPG. Just this past Saturday, I was driving 40 MPH in a 40MPH zone and the realtime MPG meter was registering 80 MPG.

The thing that TOO MANY people do is "zoom zoom zoom" from traffic light to traffic light, in a hurryhurryhurrygottagettherefiveminutesago style, and that KILLS your MPG.

I love my new Hybrid driving style, and I am still learning my car after almost 15 months.

 

I'm not sure how you could envision that a website named GREENHYBRID would ever have a fully representative cross section of the population as a whole. Almost by definition, any sort of poll, sampling, or database sourced from web input is skewed; only those who 1) know about it, 2) have access to it, and 3)care enough in the 1st place would respond in the 1st place, automatically discounting the vast majority of a population.

Just knowing that your results are being compiled affects your behavior; there is almost no nonintrusive way to get the true results you seek.

The real numbers you seek lie somewhere between our database, the fueleconomy.gov database, Consumer reports, Road&Track, etc. Weight & average all those datasets and that's about as close as you'll get.

All in all, look at the meat of the distribution here for the vehicles you are interested in; that's probably near the truth. Remember, most posts here are by a few individuals; many more are contributing data.

 

My wife has been averaging 28mpg in her Hyundai Elantra GT. I borrowed it for the weekend and managed to hit 35mpg. *Patting myself on back* I didn't do anything out-of-the-ordinary, really, I just paid attention to jack rabbit starting and braking.

One of the advantages to her car is that it has a trip computer with your trip's average MPG displayed. Nowhere near as slick as a real-time monitor, but still pretty cool. It's amazing how I could adjust my driving habits/speed/etc based upon the readout going up and down.

I think that ALL new cars should come with a real-time MPG display.

 

My only modification to my driving style has been not using the A/C, but everything else has remained the same.

I drove 2-3 mph under the speed limit before I had a hybrid, with my '98 Dakota pickup. The largest difference is having an instantaneous MPG readout, I wish all vehicles had one.

And what does "skewing" the numbers really mean? Compared to EPA, Consumer Reports, or Edmunds? Or what the real world gets here at GreenHybrid?
Looking at the 5-speed Insight section of the database, I wonder how some people manage the lowest numbers. But each person has different driving conditions. That's what makes it real world.

Regards,

 

I would say what the database has is typical. Only a small minority are extreemists as far as MPG goes. Remember, reports such as consumer reports and edmunds are reporting just one tank from one driver probably in one location. How accurate do you think those numbers are?

I think the database here shows the whole spectrum and the average is probably right on. Now, if they ever do a sort by zipcode on the database you might be able to get a closer average to what you can expect in your area.

 

Driving my HAH "softly" I've been seeing about 27/37. On the current tank, I've been driving like I used to do (before the HAH) and so far I've seen 23/?. Haven't taken her on the highway yet.

 

Hi Lkewin:

___Let me add my own $0.015 … I am one of those that push and push hard for higher FE. That doesn’t mean I am going below the speed limits all the time either. Most of the time, I am at or slightly exceeding them!

___What I hope you find here is a core of individuals driving most every Hybrid available that can pass on a tip or trick or two to improve your own FE. Nobody here is saying you must use technique #1 in this circumstance, technique #2 in this circumstance, and technique #3 in this one. What most here will offer is the knowledge to use those techniques when and where appropriate and your FE will definitely improve over just driving as you may or may not be doing now. If you choose not to use the techniques, so be it. You will still receive 40 + vs. 20 + depending on the car(s)/truck(s) you are driving today.

___The first time you test drive a hybrid, you are going to see both an instantaneous and averaging display. Most of them anyways … After your drive, you are going to wonder why all cars do not have this instrumentation? Maybe your non-hybrid does today? When you come to a stop light or sign and your hybrid’s ICE shuts down, you are going to wonder why all cars do not shut down when slowing or at a stop? After some time of hybrid ownership, you may learn/test a few of the techniques we discuss here and you will wonder why a hybrid is not doing this natively? I hope you are starting to see a perspective you may have not thought about before given the 3 questions posed above.

___Many of us push tanks and we offer as much as we can to improve yours. It is the nature of the web site to be green and discuss Hybrid ownership in its many nuances. That does not mean you have to necessarily own a hybrid or be a “green” advocate but it sure can help

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Waynegerdes@earthlink.net

 

I have advocated in the past that the DB allow cross-sections of geography, route time, and climate, so that people wondering what they will get in a particular car can better match themselves to other's experience.

To a variable extent, I annotate my tanks with techniques I use, routes driven, and typical speeds compared to the limit. This is free text, and would have to be read rather than sorted, but if more of us do this consistently, then lookers with some motivation would be able to more closely match themselves to their own kind, or realize what is involved in better results.

Many hybrid drivers on this forum may drive differently than average Joe LeadFoot, but that does not make it any less. For all I know, as FE gauges become more common, coasting, anticipating, driving slower, gliding etc will become the norm rather than the exception.