Hey New Member of the Fold! Welcome!!!

I must reiterate the comments about tire safety at 40psi. I run mine at 42 and that has been safe and good for FE. I say that in spite of having a puncture and having to replace a tire 2 days ago - but that was due to running over a small garden hoe in the middle of a curvy road. Woe is me.

But To Repeat: that tire pressure is perfectly safe and you needn't worry about blowouts and such. Provided your local landscapers don't go on too many hoe-tossing binges, naturally.

Further, as Kenny wrote, braking is inherently inefficient, so that downhill from your home, although it seems nice at 150mpg for 3 miles, is still not nearly as efficient as if there was a route in which you didn't need to brake. I understand that may be impossible for you, but it's worth taking note of that issue as a geographical limitations that keeps you a little under the car's full potential. We all have some of those.

Mostly, though, I hope you enjoy 'The Game', as I call it, as you challenge yourself in such a wonderful car.

 

The EV-glide in the HCH II is really not that useful from a fuel economy perspective. It is such a battery drainer and doesn't really propel the vehicle; it only minimizes drag. Worse, you take a big fuel economy hit when your battery charge drops to 4 bars and you start getting forced charging.

 

I just came back from inflating my tires to 44 psi. I did it in cool 60 degree weather so I am a little worried at over inflation on a hot day. The worst part of inflating the tires was finding out that I had been traveling hundreds of miles on 27 psi tires. I'm gonna take a test drive now and see the improvement.

 

I don't think you have anything to worry about. The 44 psi is for when the tires are cold. It is known that the pressure that the pressure will increase when driven. Your tires were probably warmed up to some extent anyway if you had to drive somewhere to put air in. I'm only willing to run my tires near max sidewall, but lots of people run their tires much higher than 44 psi cold with no ill effects.

Most aspects of performance and wear improve with the higher tire pressures. I believe the only negatives are a harsher ride overall and poorer handling in snowy/icy weather.

 

Welcome to the forum and congrats on the new HCH! It sounds like you've already given this a lot of thought, and you're going to do a great job learning the tricks of the trade. To echo a few things that have already been said:

Higher tire pressure actually improves wear... think about it. The shape of a tire is rounded at the bottom- if its underinflated, much more of the surface area of the tire makes contact with the road, and wear and tear increases.

Some people here preach to avoid braking, and I would agree, but I think there's another way to look at it that might help you. Drive like a big, heavy truck. It takes them longer to get going than most cars, and they start slowing well in advance of any stop, leaving a big gap in front of them, so that they can vary their speed safely.

Basically, they drive as if they are aware of their momentum. It's a more efficient way to drive- be aware of the forces you are fighting, the weight you are moving through space, and the accelerations and decelerations that come from changes in your momentum. Inertia is your friend- if you can keep moving smoothly, do, because it takes the least amount of energy, and the more abrupt your motions, the more energy you're throwing away. Conserve your momentum once it is built up, but be gentle and gradual to build your momentum, unless you can get that energy from your environment, like a slope.

Best of luck and keep us posted on how it goes!

 

You could always cut out the drivers side floor pan and yaba daba doo with the legs like the Kenny Flintstone does to improve your FE at low speeds.

 

Kenny Flinstone?

YABA DABA DOOOOOO!

 

leahbeatle's absolutely right -- drive like a concrete mixer. In fact, I'm generally happy when I can drive as much as possible of my 90-mile commute behind a heavy hauler, especially if it's not dropping gravel the whole way, because our acceleration and braking philosophies are the same. Keep a good distance from the vehicle in front of you, and try to mentally average the mile or so of traffic in front of them.

Braking -- especially the accelerate-then-brake cycle -- is not your friend. You're just turning gasoline into brakedust. Don't speed up just to slow down. Ignore the folks riding your bumper to get you to speed up to the stopped car 100m in front of you.

Don't worry about maintaining constant mph near the crest of a hill, let it dip a little and save some mpg (you can outperform cruise control this way). Feather the gas to zero out the charge/assist meter going downhill (if you have plenty of charge) and you'll retain momentum for more of the next climb. If you're having to charge there can be a noticeable "charge drag" of 1mph per second.

Don't use offbrand gas, and 87 octane is all you need.

I've never driven (forwards, anyway) in anything but D, and I keep my tires at 32. A/C almost never on. Lifetime mpg (behind by a few tanks in the DB -- where are those receipts?) is around 52. Current tank mpg at 400 miles is 53.2.

My experience with 65-plus driving is that if I take a moderate approach to acceleration on the way up to highway speed, I can get in the 60-70mpg range doing 60-70mph. If I couldn't do 65 for most of my commute (83, 95, the Baltimore and Washington beltways) I'd be a taupe smudge on the pavement.

If you can find a flat stretch on the Interstate, see how easy it is for you to maintain a constant highway speed (55-65) at 50-60mpg, zeroing out the charge/assist meter with very light foot pressure on the gas. If you can't, especially with a good initial charge state on your battery, you may want to have the shop look at your car.

 

MOMENTUM is your friend. Anytime you need to change speed, it's always a bad thing. So try to, at all times, get to your desired speed and stay there (which is really what you are doing when you don't touch your brakes and don't accelerate to the point of engaging the IMA- assit bars are bad in the end).
Just my thoughts

 

Thanks guys for all the advice. I drove around yesterday with my tires inflated at 44 psi. It felt a lot better than 27 psi and I also felt I could glide a little longer. It even felt like I had more control and I believe that my FE increased about 1 mpg.

Unfortunately I feel like I do accelerate just to brake soon after. I am careful to not go above 2,000 rpm when accelerating from a dead stop, but I feel like I am still using a lot of gas. After accelerating, there isn't enough road to make up for the FE. I will definitely have to improve using my momentum like leahbeatle says.

I also did some highway driving yesterday, but unable to figure it out. Traffic was calm on I-90 yesterday and drove at 60mph. the iFCD (is that what it's called?) Would not go above 30 even on flat ground. It felt like the EV assist was butting in too much, draining the battery incredibly fast. I lost 6 bars after accelerating from the on ramp to 60 mph.
The way home was a completely different story. I was only missing two bars in the battery meter, but I was able to get 60mpg on my iFCD and even EV-glided when traffic slowed down to 50mph. When I was missing two bars, I noticed that there was never EV-assist and the gasoline engine had everything under control. I am wondering if I am imagining all this stuff. Maybe what I perceive as flat could actually be uphill? I have tried techniques such as fake shifting but can only get it to work at 40 mph and never at highway speeds.

A question about gasoline. There were many warnings in the manual about using gasoline that contained MMT. Everything is secret and I don't know which gasoline station uses MMT and who doesn't. So far, the only gas station I go to is at Costco and I always fill up on regular. I assume that is 87 octane.

Thanks guys.