I am my second tank and still learning. Here's what I learned yesterday on a long highway drive to and fro the airport. Started with tank average just over 39, ended up at 42.0 through the hills of the Ohio River Valley in Cincinnati down 75 and back. The pulse and glide technique does seem to be the way to go, except it seems a modified glide technique is better than truly coasting. By pulsing up to ~65 MPH and then lifting the throttle 1/2 way instead of all the way, the glides last much much longer, and the MPG needle still generally sits near the 60 mark. I let the car slow to about 61-62 mph and go again. Lifting entirely seems to employ regenerative breaking to some extent, which slows the car down faster. Since I don't have Nav, the car doesn't tell me my trip average other than the dumb ECO-drive thing. Since I was well over 40, that didn't do me a whole lot of good. I know I was over 40 because I had 100 miles on the tank when I started the trip at 39.x MPG tank average. Several short trips today and I'm alsmost down to 41 again :^( Oh well, get to go back and forth from the airport again tomorrow. Temperature in the 50's here all week for those who are interested.

 

In the Prius I tend to glide down hills by using the battery to keep the engine spinning while the car coasts free. (The engine can't stop completely above 41mph due to the way HSD is set up so it's the only way to keep from burning fuel or dragging down the car. The way to get into that mode is to release the accelerator for a moment and then just barely depress it again to kill regen and get electricity flowing forward again. I know it's tough to tell without NAV, but do you have that option in a Camry? The seat-of-the-pants indicator is that the car slows down due to regen but "lets go" when the accelerator is depressed.

 

On my '04 Prius that is 100% correct. It would slow down @ 1mph/sec whether on level pavement or even moderate down hill grades.
Not so with my TCH. If I don't apply some braking force to the brake pedal I don't think there is really much regeneration going on. The NAV screen shows a turquoise(?) arrow going to the battery but I've coasted down hills for minutes at a time, the car accelerates to near 80 mph and the energy screen on the NAV shows NO (zero, nada) regen automobile icons. I have to actually press the brake pedal to get any regen icons to appear.
J

 

Maybe I'm getting old. I've had the TCH for over six months and found the novelty of squeezing the last mpg out of the car has worn off. When I get on the highway I just accelerate to several mph over the limit, set the cruise and go. I find that doing that I average over 40 mpg, with the instantaneous gauge fluctuating between 40 and 55 mpg.

Most of the highway speed limits in this area are 55. If I lived in an area with 65 or 70 mph limits I probably would not be doing as well.

 

I'm with you if the terrain is flat (as it mostly is here).
In hilly terrain I find it's better to turn off the cruise control and "fly by hand".
J

 

Your speed limits put you right in the sweet spot for the TCH. I would stick with that method in your area. Where I am, the speed limits range from 60 to 70 on the highway. I tend to drive between 60 and 65, varrying my speed depending on the terrain. I slow slightly up hills and speed up on the other side. I find that depending on conditions, anything over 65 MPH starts to kill MPG. There are some rare occasions though, that 70 MPH produces the best FE. I did a short bit of my commute today with an 18 wheeler that had just passed me and pulled in front of me and a second 18 wheelr was passing me. I almost released the gas pedel completly, and they still managed to suck me from 60 MPH to 70 MPH while the whole time the FE needle was pegged at 60. After that I was still able to maintain 50 MPG at 70 MPH even after the trucks were gone and I was not in their slip stream anymore.

 

To the previous two posters. The highway portion of my commute to work is 55 speed limit. If it weren't for two overpasses the terrain would be totally flat (how boring). So setting the cruise control is definitely efficient for me. However, I know from a couple of tall bridges over the intracoastal waterway that just leaving the cruise on uphill definitely swings the mpg gauge high up.

One interesting note is that although hills kill mileage the gauge is still reading 15 - 20 mpg. Low for sure, but I've owned cars that would be hardpressed to maintain that on a level grade.

 

Well put! ag4ever and I deal with the same conditions (suburban flat Houston land, +/- same highways and road conditions), yet his mileage averages ~2mph higher than mine based on the GH Mileage DB (both manual calcs, BTW). Diff'ce is I drive between 65-70 whenever possible, vs. his 60-65.

The novelty of trying to obtain a higher FE everytime is slowly wearing off, I'm quite content with what I'm achieving w/o sacrificing too much and have already learned to be a much better "FE conscious" driver in the process.

 

A real test would be for two forum members to get together and follow each other on an identical route, at the same speed, etc. It would be interesting to see how close the two cars would be in mileage.

 

BY MFD, NAV, or calc? IMHO, the former two are unreliable (give or take 1-3mpg on average)... The latter can't be done so easily, unless you wanted those two forum members to stick to a loooooong time together. Impossible, unless it's a good road trip & not your typical day-to-day & weekend commutes.