I currently own a 2004 Mazda 3s with a 5-speed manual transmission. While it is a great car and somewhat sporty and fun to drive, it has two major downfalls. The first is that my mileage averages only in the low to mid-20's on a typical work week, and the second is that the 5-speed, while fun without traffic, has become a nuisance during my hellish commute to work.

The HCH II is very appealing as I won't have to fuss with the clutch anymore in traffic and I should get much better mileage, plus I'll certainly enjoy the techno factor. In fact, it should add some entertainment to my drive. But I'm concerned that the mileage improvement won't really be that significant because of the amount of stop-and-go traffic on commute. I have a 20 mile one-way commute, which consists of about 7 miles of medium speed city streets with lots of stoplights, a stretch of stop and go for 15+ minutes to wait to get on the freeway, 10 miles of slow to medium speed freeway with some stop and go, and 3 more miles of slow to medium city streets. The total commute takes 45-50 minutes, so that's an average speed of about 24 MPH.

Any advise would be a great help.

 

I would say YES

 

Will you get better mileage with the hybrid? Yes, of course. How much better? Depends on your driving style. The more 'hypermiling' techniques you use, the higher your mileage will be. If you drive carefully in stop and go traffic, you can still get good numbers. Perhaps you can arrange to test drive the car during your normal commute to see what kind of mileage numbers you would get going to work.

Whether it pays financially or not for you and many of us to get the hybrid is another story. For most it doesn't. You would do better by the numbers moving across the street from your job and walking to work.

But there is more to buying a car than just the dollars and cents. In your situation for example, assuming you would get 50mpg (on the high end - you would likely get less), double or more than what you are getting now with your Mazda, you would save about 1 gallon of gas per day, or 5 gallons per week. At $3 per gallon, your savings would be about $15 per week, or about $60 per month. Yet the HCHII will likely hold its value more compared to a regular Civic or other vehicles when it comes time to sell, which is also a factor to consider.

I don't do a lot of mileage but appreciate the small savings and the entire car package as a whole - safety (biggest factor for me), convenience, ecology (virtually pollution free)reliability and of course the 'techno' factor. I am thrilled with my car and glad I didn't buy the regular Civic. It is possibly one of the best values in the car market today.

Hope this helps.

 

I would look into the Prius as well, it is known for significantly better mileage in stop and go, city driving. The IMA of Honda achieves its best mileage at cruizing, as the electric motor is small and only used to 'assist' the ICE. Toyota's Synergy Drive uses an electric motor 3 times the power of the IMA and has the ability to power the car by itself on the slow creeping driving between stoplights or slowly starting from a stop. If you don't like the look of the Prius, go check out next years model, I happen to think it's pretty sexy

 

Yes.

 

To echo everyone else, an HCH II will do better, but it depends on how you drive. Without glancing in the database, members have gotten from 40 to 55mpg....I'm going to guess you would get about 45mpg.

I think you would find over the months, even when you drive somewhat aggressively, you can improve fuel economy over what it was when you first got it.

 

Mach 22,

You may want to try some of the tips/tricks for improving fuel economy of the car you own. I bet you could see some significant improvements if you are currently practicing some "bad" habits, like jack rabbit starts, hard braking at stoplights, cruising "too fast" on the freeway. The hybrid will help even more, and visiting the gas station half as often is nice.

 

I had some of the same concerns. My daily commute is 13 miles each way. I average 30-32 MPH. I have not done the 1st fill yet but I can report my impressions and measurements. This is with 2 weeks of owning my 07 HCH.

Trip A reports 39.5 MPG since purchase. I believe this is low of the actual. I started with 4 miles and 4 MPG when I picked it up. I forgot to reset the meters before I took off. I am using trip B for experiments. I have seen round trips to work 43-45 MPG. I have seen 53 MPG on my best trip to work. I think mid 40's MPG a reasonable target to start.

So I am still learning to work with the cars system. There is alot to learn.

My old car was a Maxima which was getting 18 MPG. Now 40 MPG. I think it is a great improvement. So maybe I will not set MPG records. But I am happy with the improvement.

As I told my wife the tech is great on the car. I told her it is causing a geek-gasm.

Jim

 

I believe Hoish's experience is very typical of a new HCH owner.

It certainly is similar to my experience.

 

Keep in mind that whatever techniques you learn on a hybrid (if you purchase) can also be applied on your existing car... which means that your mpg difference will not be as significant. Obviously if you are replacing an SUV with a hybrid you are going to see huge gains, and some people here have done just that.

I'm starting to believe it's more a mindset then anything else, I would bet money that if you were to take a non-hybrid car (one that does fairly good on FE) and place the label hybrid on it and give the car the feature of instant mpg feedback, an unsuspecting person will do very well with it. The reason being, your driving behaviour changes when you get into a hybrid. You tend to avoid rapid accelerations, you predict light patterns better, you feather the throttle, you carry momentum up and down hills, the list goes on. All of these techniques go to the improvement of mpg... and all apply to all cars.