Winter is coming and after a great summer of warm weather and FE well into the 40s, today (rather cool morning) by the time I got almost to work--stopped for breakfast, no clue how much more EV driving I could have pulled off to boost FE--I was still under 40 mpg for the first time in months!

Very sad to see. I knew the day was coming, but it's way too soon!! Waaah!

Hehe.

I'm still hoping I've improved my understanding and driving enough to do a fair bit better than last winter, but for all I know at this point it could be worse in the winter driving the way I got a lot better mileage in the summer. Guess we'll see how it goes....

 

I'm new to this website. What kind of mileage were you getting this morning? How much does your mpg drop in colder temperatures? Have you heard?

 

Here's my data for pretty much the life of my car, from mid-June 06 till now. Bottom tanks are the oldest. Started out with MFD showing upper 30s to 40 for my commutes, nominal tank FE upper 30s to a little over 40, but calculated out under 40 every time. Then winter hit, and MFD showed lowest tank at just over 30 mpg, during the coldest part of February, but calculated out under 30. Then come the 700 mile tanks, and solidly 40+ mpg FEs, for this summer (after learning more about the car's behavior, changing my commute to mostly off-highway, and some tips from here about going full-hybrid mode). And today's morning commute was showing maybe 38 when I stopped. Might have pushed it a bit higher for the last bit but not that much.

 

I seem to be in that fuel economy sweet spot right now in Maryland. The engine warms up quickly and I don't need heat or A/C. I topped off my tank on Sunday and had gotten 40.7 MPG (per the car's calculation) after around 300 miles. My normal driving usually yields closer to 39 MPG.

FWIW the car has 6800 miles on it. I haven't heard much about TCH engine break in but I imagine it's probably loosened up a little and helped the mileage.

 

Last winter my gas mileage was around 6 mpg less than it was through the summer. Not only are the batteries and the oil cold, but they oxygenate our gas for cleaner air in the winter. I know that drops mileage in some cars (my 96 chevy s-10 dropped a couple mpg).

I've also been seeing my mileage falling lately with the temperature. My last tank was my second best at 44.6 mpg (46.3 to the cars computer) with mild temperatures, lows in the 40's and 50's, highs in the 70's. During the last week our high temperatures have dropped into the 50's and it's rained a couple times. Now the car's computer says my average is 42.8 on this tank. I've probably done a couple more short drives on this tank, but some is definitely the cold.

 

Yeah--and there's also the undeniable cost of the additional gas burned just getting warmed up. I always view the rest of the drive (well to a large extent) as recovering from all the gas burned in the first minutes of my drive. When first thing I do is come to the end of my street, and if I can't make the turn because of traffic, I'm sitting there idling fast and wasting gas. And again at the next stop sign, and sometimes multiple cycles at the light that comes next. I can always--and sometimes do--turn the car off if it's still not ready to shut down the ICE at a stop, when I get to the light, but still, by that point odds are I've used a fair bit of gas regardless and there's no way of magically turning that into something other than 0 mpg for who knows how much fuel. And won't warm up enough to get to full-hybrid mode for significantly longer than during warm temps. My loss of FE dropped close to 10 mpg during the serious cold snap last winter. I really hope it'll be less severe this winter--like the lost gas while warming up just being a huge drag on your trip FE, low-FE tanks just drag down your lifetime FE. If not for those winter tanks, I'd be averaging around 40 mpg I'm sure, but instead I've been working to pull it up from maybe 35 after the winter. You burn through a lot more tanks at low FE than at high FE remember.

 

The mileage paranoia hybrid owners have seems to strike at the temperature extremes! Just remember back at the lousy mileage we all got (or maybe chose to ignore) with our conventional cars. I expect the worst tank I'll ever get with my TCH will be better than the best tank I've ever seen with my 150hp Ford Ranger with manual transmission!

Enjoy!

 

Wow! I'm amazed at the difference in FE from winter to summer
Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

 

I am sure a non-hybrid has the same problem (possibly to a lesser extreme). Just remember this, even when you drive it hard, you are getting far better mpg than when you would be driving a non-hybrid hard.

My 1997 Ford Ranger would go from about 20 mpg in the summer to 17 in the winter due to increased tire spinning and the heater. It did not have AC so the windows ere always open.

 

Well, down here is the sweat belt, our temps are still high, but starting to dip enough that I can run without a/c and get a little bit better mileage. This last tank is just over 40 MPG per the computer. Bring on the winter so i can get good mileage.

BTW, I find it funny that while in my TCH I try to get every mile I can out of a gallon, but when I drive my new Tundra, I just drive it and don't really obsess over the mileage. So far my wife has been driving the Tundra mostly for her commute to work and is averaging 13.5 MPG. (I do hope it gets a bit better when the engine breaks in, only has 1000 miles on it now.) Good thing she only has a 40 mile round trip to and from work where my drive is 120 miles round trip. The sad part is both our commutes take 1 hour. Mine at 60 MPH, hers at 20 MPH.