Howcome nobody ever takes into account the fuel that you save when at a complete stop. In your calculations have you factored that in. Somehow if you could and if you did you would see that the numbers on the dashboard are quite right if not a little lower.

 

I think the logic here is off.
The numbers on the dash are "Miles Per Gallon" (MPG), that is, on average how many miles does the car travel on one gallon of gas.
At red lights, hybrids burn zero gallons of gas and travel zero miles, so that it a 'push' and shouldn't factor in to the calculations.
Non-hybrids suffer from a lower MPG because they waste fuel when at red lights. The longer they sit, the lower their MPG
IMHO, the hybrids stats accuratly reflect their efficiency. (within the +1 MPG variation that most observe).
Non-hybrids do not properly reflect their efficiency, since their stats would be skewed wildly based upon the percetage of travel time spent motionless.

 

Not only do gas powered cars use gas while sitting at a red light. Many do not know, just driving across a parking lot a car only gets about 4 mpg.

With the hybrid, the engine usually shuts off in a parking lot and then runs on batteries saving gas.

 

I filled up my TCH for the first and now second time just to see where my MPG is. Both times it was at 40 mpg. Now im not complaining but my avg mpg on my display never went above 35.8 mpg.

Is that normal to get better mpg than what the display is averaging?

 

No, the onboard meter is usually high by about 1-1.5 MPG

 

In the nine months I've owned my car, the average display mpg over actual mpg has been 1.43.

 

The computer continues to "average" even when stopped, assuming the engine is running. When you compute using fill-up gallons vs miles driven.....

 

Then that reading would be 4.2 mpg low. Mine usually reads about 1.5 mpg low after I fill my tank. Could be that the station driveway at the pump you use is unlevel.

 

Mine always reads 1-2 mpg higher than it really is.

 

I find it pretty accurate as a general 'gauge' of how the current tank is going.
Over the long run of several tank fills, the average mpg you get will be known if you drive the same route weekly.
Of course, when you have a low fill at the gas station, it will calculate to a higher mpg than the computer, a high fill the next fill-up will calculate to a lower mpg than the computer. Over 4-5 fill-ups, you'll get a good average mpg.