The power required to overcome aerodynamic drag is proportional to the cube of the vehicle's speed. This means that increasing speed from 60 mph to 75 mph DOUBLES aero drag.

 

tim, your avg drive time, per database, is 60 min. mine is 15, which probably accounts for the bigger fe variance in my case.

 

Ouch! I reached 48.6 mpg on my 3rd tank (ending at 1,350 miles) and 1 week after owning the car. The 4th tank was 41.7 mpg (at 1,800 mi), the 5th was 47.0 (at 2,315 mi), the 6th was 51.5 mpg (at 2,835 mi) though temps were in the 60s back in August.

Two huge concerns here are your high speeds and your low tire pressures. Drop your speed to 60-65 mph and increase your tires to a cold pressure of 40-44 psi. I guarantee that will give you an instant 5 mpg increase. Don't use cruise and that adds another 5 mpg. Don't use the A/C and that adds still another 5 mpg. All those together get you an easy 5-10 mpg higher than now or 40-45 mpg and that is respectable. The last concern is the pulse-and-glide technique and that one will take weeks and months to perfect (I'm still perfecting it after 27,000 miles and almost 7 months).

 

Not bad, Tim. Here are my average numbers per month as comparison. I have a much higher tank count so that helps me sometimes (but hurts me at times also). What can ya do.

Date (# of tanks) -------- Miles -- $/gal --- Mpg --- Temp
----------------------------------------------------------
August '06 (7 tanks) ----- 3,378 -- $2.908 -- 45.8 -- ????
September '06 (7 tanks) -- 3,784 -- $2.475 -- 46.2 -- ????
October '06 (13 tanks) --- 7,255 -- $2.200 -- 50.4 -- 51.5
November '06 (5 tanks) --- 2,821 -- $2.193 -- 50.2 -- 48.0
December '06 (5 tanks) --- 2,718 -- $2.371 -- 48.9 -- 46.2
Jaunary '07 (8 tanks) ---- 4,230 -- $2.288 -- 49.4 -- 40.3
February '07 (5 tanks) --- 2,390 -- $2.247 -- 44.4 -- 25.8
----------------------------------------------------------
Total (7 mo. & 50 tanks)- 26,576 -- $2.373 -- 48.2 -- 44.0 (temps recorded since Oct)

 

Wow! You must live in your car! 900 miles / week - that's impressive.

You may be somewhat interested in this thread: https://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/...ad.php?t=12343

An 03 HCH owner had to have his pack replaced at 144K miles. Looks like he drives the same kind of miles as you. I don't think he was from CA so the warranty was out and the bill was ~$4,000 for the pack. Not sure there is much to do about it. Seems to be the first person (that I know of) that's reached that kind of mileage in a hybrid.

 

Yeah I responded to that thread when it was active and still don't know why the owner was mad about the pack going bad at 144k as the OE claims are only for 100k - it is like having tires that are claimed to last 30k miles but you drive them to 43k miles and wanting Dunlop to replace them for free - right? I do live in the car but such is the life of a computer consultant with 5 appointments per day. =)

My car is at the shop for its 3rd oil change and 1st tranny fluid change and I'm borrowing my old car from my parents (it is a '96 Accord EX with 158k on it). I owned that car from '99-'01 and bought it 3 yrs old with 70k on it and I sold it to my parents with 125k on it so I put 55k on it in 2 years and also put a transmission in it (nobody knows how it is possible to break a 4-yr old tranny in a 5-sp Honda but I did somehow). I'm interested to see what FE that I will get today in the ol' car but am confident I can beat the EPA numbers for it (its old EPA numbers were 25/31 and the new EPA numbers are 22/28). So I wonder if most of us can be labeled as a Hypermiler with the new numbers. It would be nice.

Edit: HAZAA!! I filled up my second-previous car (the '96 Accord cited earlier) at the gas station a mile up the road and after paying for my car after the A123 service I filled up the Accord at the same station and the same gas pump (to eliminate any variations on pumps). I drove 112.9 miles today and filled up with 3.254 gal for a calculated FE of 34.7 mpg! Woo-hoo. That is hypermiler status on even the old (higher) EPA numbers by about 12% and the new (lower) EPA numbers by 24% (I think those calcs are right). Nevertheless, it is 3.7 mpg higher than old and 6.7 mpg higher than the new numbers and with about 40% city driving I didn't feel like splitting hairs so chose the highest (highway) number and STILL beat it. Amazing how driving a Hybrid for a while really does make you a better-efficient driver in any other car ... and temps were at 33 F today even so imagine what I could have gotten in 65 F temps. =)