With regard to inching along the Prius has a huge advange being able to inch in EV mode. During the Rita evacuation of Houston, with 100 mile long traffic jams inching along at 1-5 mph, the ICE cars were all running out of gas. A friend of mine in a Prius burned 3 gallons over the same span of time.

An HCH would not fare as well as the ICE would either be running the whole time or constantly restarting.

 

If I was inching along in a 100 mile traffic jam I probably would have got out and pushed the darned thing with no ICE on. I have quite a bit of reserve fuel around the mid section... But then again, where are you going to push to when all the regular vehicles are out of gas and blocking the road anyway????

 

You are pretty much on track. The car can not take off from full EV mode. Everytime you start the car the ICE begins running. The ICE continutes to run getting you up to speed with just the ICE and if needed the IMA. Once at speed the IMA can take over on fairly level ground, maintain speed or slightly speeding up going down a hill. The valves close and fuel consumption ceases but the cranksaft contiunes to rotate, the engine is shut down but not completly like in auto stop mode. Speeds higher than 35 MPH can be acheived in EV mode but it is hard to do and you must be soft on the accelerator and hold it in the same place. The EV mode is def. much differnet on the Prius. I have been able however to re-engage the auto stop mode after stopping in order to creep up at light. It takes practice but you kinda have to fool the car in thinking that you have driven over 8MPH. Otherwise, auto stop will not re-engage. It have not been able to get it to re-engage more than once without going over 8 MPH.

 

I've found that the technique is exactly the same regardless of speed; there's nothing magical about 35 MPH (despite Honda's marketing using that number). The only difference is that you will decelerate faster in the coast at higher speeds for a given amount of assist.

This is by design, I think. The manual states that you get 2 chances at autostop before you have to go over 8 MPH to get it to engage again.

 

Your right I forgot about reading that. However, mine doesn't seem to re-engage very time and it seems as if I have to fool the car.

 

Knowing that it won't do full EV from a stop before I get the car won't disappoint me, but thinking it would and picking it up and it not would have been. I still prefer the HCH to a Prius anyday for many reasons, not to take away from that car . Honda is just my preference for many reasons.

 

Not in the HCH. Occasional, brisk acceleration (I mean IMA engaged at one half strength) has a far lower impact on mpg than idling.

While you might only be getting 20 mpg during acceleration, you are getting 0mpg during a stop.

My lowest tanks have always been during periods of extensive idling.

Which strategy do you use in your hybrid?