Electric Vehicle Forums - Poor gas mileage... :(

Quote:

One of the best tips I read in a thread (it may not listed in the above link but works great on both of my cars and should on yours) was to accelerate to a few mph above the desired speed, then release the gas pedal until the MPG readings goes to 100, and then slightly depress the gas pedal until you have 2-3 bars of 'boost'. The car 'coasts' for a good distance, slowing down very, very slowly. I usually do this well before I reach a traffic light or stop sign. It really helps keep the MPG up.

This tip will only work on the '06 model as far as I know, as it's related to the new valves-off "extended coast" mode. However, even on the '03 there is a lot you can do when going over gradual hills by feathering the gas pedal up and down and watching the instantaneous display, this basically "tells" the CVT computer you want to upshift or downshift at that moment, keeping in a taller ratio while climbing will use more electric assist, so feathering the pedal quickly will usually cause assist to stop kicking in if the hill is fairly gradual.

In either case though, these pedal fluctuations are simply quirks of the CVT transmission.

32mpg sounds extremely low for an '03 driving 60-65 on flat highways. even with lots of hills, at those speeds I'll typically get mid to high 40s running AC, slightly higher when I was running the stock tire/wheel setup.

Even when I have let one of the must uneconomical drivers out there to drive the car, just for the sake of seeing how bad it could be, the car still averaged about 37mpg.