Man, I am pretty slow to pick up on things. I have been averaging 34 - 35 MPG since I bought the car (last week) and since that has been city driving in Ohio, I guess I'll take it, but the star would be cool....

 

Congrats!!! Depending on where you live (weather conditions, etc.), it's real easy to lose it again. My mileage has gone in the dumper since the cold weather hit and a couple heavy snow storms. Our oxygenated fuel also drops mileage by about 10%.

 

Untill the 90 degree summer hits that lasts about 8 months. Then I am sure the a/c will kill my average.

 

My morning temps have been around 35-40 degrees, and the best I can now do on the way to work is 40 MPG, but there is an elevation increase going to work. On the ride home, the temps are usually in the 50-65 range, and I can get about 43-44 MPG. This last tank has a bunch of Christmas related driving on it and most of it was in cold rainy weather, so my displayed tank average is only 40.1 MPG with about 180 miles left on this tank. I am guessing that will translate into about a true 38 - 38.5 MPG tank when I fill up, unless I can get the average up on the way home.

I did finally move some of the boxes around in the garage (we just moved, so we have boxes everywhere) so I could get the car in there, and it shortened my warmup time by about 1 mile this morning. The engine auto-stopped at the first stop sign, which has not been happening when it was parked outside. I hope this will help the mileage some.

Man this is sad, I am worring about my mileage being under 40 MPG, when I just wanted 35 when I bought the car!

 

So true. When I ordered the TCH in March and saw the EPA numbers I was hoping for 36 and was extremely happy with the 39 I was getting until the cold weather hit. Still it is much better than the 22 mpg I was getting with my 97 Mercury Sable (220K miles). I wonder if I can get the battery pack to last 200K miles. (Or if not, I wonder if some sort of Lithium replacement will be available by then)

 

Yup, better than the 14 I was getting in the Land rover Discovery we traded that burned premium, and better than the 15 I was getting in the truck that my wife is now driving which burns diesel. Just the switch from premium to regular has saved us a bunc, and the increase in mileage has saved even more. I went from spending about $125 per week for fuel to get to and from work to about $25 a week. $400 a month in gas savings adds up fast.

I will be at the estimated battery life mark of 150,000 miles in about 4 years, so I would hope there would be a good battery alternative by then. I will probably trade it in on a PHEV Camry if they have them out by then though. Cost wise though, even if the pack costs $5,000, I feel the $6,000 I will have saved compared to a ICE Camry more than makes up for it. But my biggest reason for the hybrid was vote with my pocketbook. I wanted to let the manufacturers know I want cars/trucks that get better fuel economy.

 

Amen to that. Some day I will have a pure sports car for summer weekend fun, and I won't care about its mileage or emissions for that application. However, there is no sense in having an everyday vehicle that gets bad mileage and pollutes unnecessarily.

 

After 8-9 months and 10K miles, I finally got mine today... whew! Of course, using display readings vs. manual calcs could've gotten me there MUCH faster -- but that would've been cheatin'.

OK, and now what?!? Maybe I should just stop making my family -- and myself -- go nuts by driving it more 'normally' like hardchemist apparently started doing not too long ago (read the "Strategy" comments on his last 2 tanks around early April, they're quite hilarious).

 

That is great.

I lost my start a few tanks ago.

Unfortunatly my commute west in the morning has been with very little wind, but my commute east in the evening has been with considerable cross wind, and it has really killed my mileage recently.

All those days with 10+ MPH wind coming from the south-east has been the worst thing for my mileage, even worse than driving in the rain. The worst part is trying to draft a semi does not help because the wind is coming from the side, and not from the front.

Now it will take about 6,000 miles of reasonable tanks to get me back to star status. I don't think I will get a star again for quite a while if my tanks stay around 35 - 38 averages like they have recently.

 

This does make one wonder it the EPA's new ratings are just not right, since a lot of us meet or exceed the old ratings.

To me, the old ratings are just about spot on. I can see maybe lowering them 1 or 2 MPG at most.