Wow, great answers, thanks!

 

Larry,

As someone who frequently visits the great state of New Jersey, may I suggest that you not try too-too hard to attain these mileage stats.

Where I live is sort of like the west coast version of Newark. To simply keep up with traffic and not encourage other motorists to open fire on me the best I can hope for is 32 or 33 mpg.

There is this one guy in an HCH, (Mr. 'MPG SVR', I'm talking to you) who gets out on westbound I-10 every morning around 5.30 where he pulls this hyper-miling crap... One day I just know I'm going to find him at the center of a pile up on the back side of Kellogg Hill.

Seeing these remarkable mileage stats I had the same questions as you. Then I figured out how they are doing it and decided it's not worth the effort or the risk. 32mpg is still a whole lot better then my last car at 18mpg.

Happy Motoring!

 

The mileage number in my signature line is woefully out of date, as I stopped putting my data in the database, BUT...

I find it very easy to get high 30's overall without hypermiling tricks, at least in warmer weather. This involves no special acceleration, not trying hard for EV mode, not becoming a rolling roadblock. Warm weather average has been about 37-38 mpg.

Playing the max mpg game without getting crazy about it, it's pretty easy to get 39 to 41 on a tank in warm weather. The folks that have seen 42+ in a tank must have an extra frugal TCH and/or more extreme hypermiling techniques than I do.

Suburban driving is the best, with city close behind, and high speed highway is the worst for me, though if I keep it under 70 mph, I can still get about 40 on the highway in warm weather.

Lots of very short trips with long cooldowns in between will cut the mpg by quite a bit, into the low 30s or even less in colder weather.

In winter I average low 30s overall, again, without really trying hard. Temperature has a big effect, probably because of the drop in the battery efficiency.

So, the big picture is around 36 mpg. Not bad for the size and luxury of the Camry, and better than the new EPA estimates, which I think are too low.

 

100 mile one way I averaged around 43 mpg over Thanksgiving on the highway by the tank avg meter. Nothing special in driving habit. I set the cruise at 70 & left it there. I've found its acceptably accurate if most of your mileage is highway for the tank. I think part of the error in it is from where if I'm running on battery & it starts to shift to ICE & back off to keep it on battery. The spurt of gas when the ICE starts up isn't long enough to affect the mileage calculation but gets burned.

 

Should be no need to do any of the major 'hypermiler tricks' to get good mileage. First, it's going to vary. People, driving habits, road quality, temperature, weather, fuel quality, they're all going to affect your numbers.

But some of the main things to be aware of, that will make meaningful differences:

1) short trips, especially in the cold, will do bad things to your FE. If you just run out to the store (or my case the laundromat) a few times in a day, your car never gets warmed up and you never stop burning gas (and burning it a bit fast as it's trying to warm up the car still). So one hypermiler trick that isn't a bad thing to at least keep in mind, is "furthest errands first", so you get to warm up while hitting the furthest away stops, then (hopefully) keep it relatively warm as you return with the other stops on the way. Doesn't always help, isn't always practical, but still worth keeping in mind.

2) "full hybrid mode" is worth getting into. You've probably seen mention of it, maybe even guidance on how to switch into it, but if you're doing much driving at lower speeds, you really want to be in this mode. My morning commute I've actually started making a quick stop in one of two parking lots before I hit the interstate (for a few miles) because that's usually my only chance before I hit a stretch where I'm driving 30-40 mph and it's just wasting fuel if I can't pop into EV mode for the downhill stretches (and even some of the uphill ones!). Definitely make sure you get into full hybrid mode once you're warmed up, if you're not spending most of your drive on the highway. EV mode makes a huge difference, and the only other ways to get into it are "fuel cut mode" (coming down to 40- from higher speeds, which only lasts until you hit the gas and kick the ICE on) and starting up from a stop very slowly (which is tough, and becomes almost impossible in the cold).

3) honestly, one minor hypermiler trick I read about I do much more now--parking so you can just drive out. At home it's not much of an option mostly (street parking), but at work, in parking lots, if I can back into a spot while in EV mode, I'm using 0 fuel, while you're burning some but not getting any "miles" for the "miles per gallon" if you have to start up, back out, all that. And ideally I like to be moving forward before the ICE even starts up. Figure I'm giving myself a little boost.

4) I've changed my commute now to go mostly through some towns with just a brief highway run. It does eliminate the vagaries of unpredictable highway traffic (my original reason for doing it), but I've kept doing it because once I started driving that way my mileage just started to go up and up, even though I was halfway through a tank already. Every commute it went up some more, and when I tried it with a full tank I was solidly into the 40s. That route allows me much more driving at 30-40, so I can maximize my use of EV mode. Other people say they get great mileage driving most of the time at 70 on the highway in cruise mode, but my most consistent high mileage has been driving most of the trip at 40 or less.

And remember that unless the car's well warmed up already, somehow... most of any trip is often just compensating for the gas you burned while warming up. So it's true, an 8 mile commute is likely to give you less chance to recover.

I agree, I almost always drive with MFD on the battery, because running your battery down to where the ICE is forced on is bad--it runs fast, even if you're stopped, until the battery gets charged up sufficiently. So monitoring where you are, so you can goose the gas a bit more, maybe a bit more pulse & glide to build up some charge, is a good thing.

Also someone mentioned traffic--fairly heavy traffic can be great (I used to use mostly highway traffic), as long as it keeps your speed around.. 30-40, and you get to maintain speed enough to recharge ok. But when you hit serious stop and go traffic, you're just eating up battery charge with no stretches to drive full speed long enough to recharge, and it doesn't take long to drain the battery to where ICE comes on and eats gas.

Long-winded thoughts but hope they help.

 

Beware of falling into the "MPG is everything" trap. If you are concerned about MPG and adjust routes to get the highest, you might end up with a longer route and end up using more gas, even with higher MPG. The thing to do is to calculate the total gallons consumed over the different routes.

 

I don't understand, what are you doing in the parking lot? Revving the engine? What happens when you stop? What is the logic here?
How do you "switch into it"?
Backing up 20 feet makes a difference in mileage?
But if you aren't using the heater (or AC), this shouldn't matter, should it?
Not familiar with MFD, what is that?
Very helpful, thanks!

 

I'm happy my way. In fact I'm probably getting more mileage for less distance, as going off-highway means a more direct route. And MPG isn't everything, but mpg plus consistent drive time, plus fewer idiots around me, plus not worrying about either speeding (and losing FE) or going the speed limit (and dealing with idiots), I think sum total even if I'd added some distance to compensate for my route-change I'd have come out ahead. It's longer time-wise than a fast highway commute, but there are plenty of days with highway commutes being at least as long. Especially with snow, rain, anything in the air or on the ground.

 

As I mentioned, lots of info on "full hybrid" mode. I stop in the parking lot to allow the car the ~7-8 seconds fully warmed up for it to idle until it drops into full hybrid mode. It will only do this after fully warmed up (and possibly some distance driven), so all the lights up to the parking lot stop are too soon, at least in cold weather, for the car to be warmed up and cut over sooner. Some days even the parking lots are too soon and it's not fully ready to go full hybrid until I'm off the highway, which makes it a pain to finagle a 10 second stop. But until you take those seconds and it cuts off, the car will not freely go back and forth between ICE and EV, it will stay in ICE mode until you stop or drop down from above 40 mpg. (Yes, yes, unless the car's already well warmed up, been in full hybrid mode, and you only stopped for a minute..)

Any fuel you burn when you're not moving makes a difference in mileage. You can say I'm too worked up about it, perhaps, but when you turn the car on in 30 degree weather, you have a couple of seconds or less before it starts firing the ICE fast to try to get things warm. That's fuel burning fast, and my view is I don't want that much fuel burning unless I'm getting miles out of those gallons. Even fractional miles out of fractional gallons. Otherwise you're literally getting 0 mpg, and the longer you run 0 mpg the more difficult a time you're going to have compensating for it in your 8 mile commute. So bottom line, yes, any fuel burned while you're not moving is costing you FE.

It doesn't matter whether or not you're using AC/heat, the engine has to get to its preferred operating temperature as quickly as it reasonably can to achieve its ideal conditions for burning gasoline (and presumably, burning gasoline under conditions to minimize emissions). So it wants to warm up quickly just to run, regardless of your climate settings inside the cabin.

MFD= multi-functional display, that's the display inside the console (in the speedometer?), which has, what 9 modes? Battery charge/energy flow is one (along with tank & trip FEs, outside temp, distance traveled this trip, cruising range, etc. etc.).

No problem. And again, there's plenty more info on fully hybrid mode out there in the forums. I didn't really do it justice. nash or someone has some good discussion of the modes, etc.

 

I am probably in the category that some would consider overboard as a hypermiler, but I do not tailgate or creep at highway blocking speeds. Both are at best impolite if not downright dangerous in highly populated areas.

Lots of little things do matter if you want to achieve a high FE. Here are some of the more common ones that are not discussed very much.

1. Watch tire inflation and set it at a high-end value or above (34-40 PSI) when the tires are cold. Check it often. A tire can lose 5 PSI in a week, and tire inflation is critical to FE. Do not rely on a quick-change oil place to do them because the tires will probably be hot or at lease warm. I set my tire pressures in my garage where I know the temperature will always be relatively constant compared to outside.

2. Anticipate, Anticipate and Anticipate. Anticipate everything -- Red lights, probable stops behind stopped vehicles, decelerating for slower vehicles, hills, downgrades, curves that require a speed change, and for that matter, all speed changes. Anyting you can do to aviod a complete stop will pay big FE dividends. If cars are stopped at a light ahead of you, try to anticipate not only the green light, but the time that it will take those cars to clear the intersection. Even if you creep into the queue coasting or under electrics, avoiding a complete stop avoids a standing start, and that is big. In general, everytime you need to make a large speed change you are giving away some FE. The one exception to this is hills and dips. It takes energy to climb a hill, so if you can get that energy for free from a downgrade -- do it. Let the car accelerate above your 'normal' speed and then accept the deceleration on the uphill back to your original speed or lower (within reason). Same thing in reverse for a small hill -- accept the speed change as the car slows while climbing the hill and reclaim the speed again on the downhill side.

3. Avoid the speed range from 40 to 52 unless you are in ECO or fuel cut within this speed range. In this range, a larger proportion of your ICE power generation is going to battery charge and FE suffers. Your TCH loves 58 miles per hour on level, smooth pavement and for all road conditions there will be a speed right around this area where the battery maintaining functions of the ECU performs charges and discharges (power assists that can be seen as short spurts of battery to PSD indications on the display) that are using the ICE most efficiently to supplement the ICE power being input to the planetary carrier. This speed range is optimal because the ICE has to run anyway to prevent MG1 overspeed, so using its excess power for batter recharge, (or if the battery is fully recharged the 'power assist' mode described above) is very efficient. Under almost all conditions on reasonably level terrain any speed above about 62 miles per hour will start to decrease FE and the higher the speed the lower the FE. (Becasue of this, two-lane, level highways where the traffic flow is from 55 to 65 miles per hour with only a few traffic lights or stops is the best possible operating condition for the TCH. Freeways are frequently too crowded and fast to run at this speeds for extended periods -- at least in Seattle they are.)

4. Use 0W-20 synthetic oil for oil changes, especially in cold climates. The ICE in a hybrid starts and stops much more often than the one in a conventional car. And when the engine is even a little cool (after a long downgrade in EC mode or after a city creep) the starting fricition due to viscosity will be higher enough with 5W-20 oil to make a difference after a tank full of starts.

5. Keep your car clean. Road grime -- even a very light film -- can significantly impact FE because it disturbs airflow, which in turn increases aerodynamic drag. Don't forget the fender wells, which are a major area of airflow disruption and turbulence.

6. New Jersey is cold. If you want to warm up the interior while the engine is coming up to temperature, by all means do so. The car will take a little longer to warm up, but not much. However, once the coolant is up to temperature, you should use the ECO button and accept some amount of cabin temperature drop when the car goes into EV or when coolant termperature would be adversely afftected by cabin demand. This is far more important that the starting periond warmup because in most cases you will probably be cruising for a much longer period.

There are lots of other small ways to improve FE without compromising saftey or good manners. Most have been discussed in depth on this website. There is not, however, a "magic bullet" technique that will provide a quantum leap in FE by any single action or accessory.