I cannot get into "GLIDE" mode even with the slightest touch of the gas paddle, i.e. no "ARROWS". It will go into "EV" mode instead at below 40 mph.

Are you sure you are in GLIDE mode?

 

Well if you feather touch the accelerator you will still see arrows from battery to wheels, but it is reasonable to believe that this does not significantly drain the traction battery. To test this, keep watch of the battery charge level, I bet that you will have to pulse again long before there is meaningful drain on your battery. During the pulse, your ICE will engage and accelerate you and charge your battery at the same time.

But I agree that pulse and glide is far more helpful on a conventional car, where the hard core riders kill their engine on the glide and start it back up for the pulse (without having to charge a battery). I bet a hard core pulse & glider could squeeze better millage out of a Corolla than a TCH.

However, in city driving, where I do most of my driving, it is hard to compete with a hybrid.

 

I don't pulse but do slip the lever to neutral for a no arrows coasting mode. Do remember any neutral coasting, your on your regular brakes which are not that good on the TCH. It's designed to work with the generator and regular brakes combined to slow the car down. That's only when it's in drive.

I go to neutral on some long coast to a red light, then I put it in drive to do any slowing down. I guess i'm really lucky to live here in a small town that don't have that much traffic. The main drag in town has a 45 miles per hour speed limit and drops to 35 in the thick part of town. It's 4 lanes wide so I drive 37 to 40 using the cruise and let them all pass me up if they want.

Caution, when in neutral your generator will not recharge the batteries. Don't try coasting like this if the batteries are near or down to 40%.

You can coast with the engine running or with it in the EV mode. Sometimes I put it in drive slowing at 40 miles per hour for it to shut down then back to neutral for more coasting.

Any neutral coasting will shut off the EV mode and generator, till you go back to drive.

 

From the Prius gurus, the definition of Glide is no arrows. There is one called Neutral Glide. This is what rburt07 does.

When power flows to the motor and no ICE running, it is in EV mode.

It is known that TCH is very difficult to go into GILDE mode except when it going down hills.

 

The Mythbusters (on Discovery Channel) tested this out recently, and it's totally true. If you're uptight/stressed/angry your FE drops!

 

I can believe it. I have found that when I'm a bit anxious about getting somewhere, even when I'm not necessarily driving fast, FE suffers very notably. What I've noticed is that when I'm a bit on edge for whatever reason I tend to want to go faster than what I am, and even if I try to maintain speed I find I get into a gentle acceleration creep. Take a deep breath and let the car drop back just 1 or 2mph and maintain speed and the FE guage shows a significant improvement even for such a modest speed change.

You simply do not want to be spending most of your driving time accelerating, even if it's almost imperceptable. Find your speed in a reasonable time, then coast/maintain, make sure you are really coasting / maintaining, and oh ya, Chill out!

 

I'll also echo something.. someone said, heh. If you run too much in EV mode you will run your battery low and then the engine kicks in to recharge. Which means you end up burning gas even while sitting still and fully warmed up--aka 0 mpg! I pretty much always keep the display on the battery view to keep constant awareness of the state of charge--if it starts getting pretty low, I make sure to put in a little more foot to the gas to pick up a little speed to coast on some, to help recharge. One of the worst conditions is being in heavy traffic, like full stop and go, so you can only ever inch forward--all your movement is using battery, and you have no possible way to recharge, until eventually battery drops and you start burning gas like there's no tomorrow. (Well that's what it feels like! hehe.) I've had a great FE commute turn into a crappy FE commute because I got stuck in baseball traffic just before I got to my destination.

But in general, you just have to give it a little time and get the experience. Track your behavior, look at alternate routes (my mostly off-highway commute now allows much better FE than my old highway commute, as well as being fewer miles--I just can't make the trip in 30 mins the way I used to if all the right traffic conditions went my way), pick up tips in here... Learn how to get into "full hybrid" mode.... And if your usual routes are pretty short trips, expect that you're just not likely to get the great mileage. Car burns gas while warming up at the beginning, you need to get some distance with high FE for it to compensate and get a good final number.

But my first 6 months or so weren't nearly as good as later on, and I've improved over time. A little patience and observation will help a lot.

 

Make sure you request 0W-20 at the dealership - especially in the winter!
If you are interested in a fully-synthetic, consider ENEOS 0W-20: www.eneos.us

 

I buy my 0W-20 oil at walmart. I can only find it made by mobil 1. So far I have to buy it in single quarts. I used the toyota brand 0W-20 on my first oil change I bought from the dealer. It also stated it was full synthetic. I have used mobil 1 on the next two oil changes.

ENEOS by also be a toyota dealer oil, I don't really know.

 

Yes. The dealerships should have 0W-20 in quarts. And some are now carrying it in BULK.

My local Toyota dealership charges $44 for a 0W-20 oil change - quart bottles.

Hopefully, that will come down if they start bringing in 0W-20 in BULK.
So, please request & verify 0W-20 at your dealership!