Well, I just came back from my vacation. I drove to a lake about 105 miles away. I had to make a trip home, and then back again. During my trip home, about 80 miles away, I filled up with gas (Chevron). When I got home my average FE was listed as 54.9 mpg on the display. This is the highest I have ever seen on my car. I then drove back to the lake (105 miles). I was still at around 45 mpg. A day later, I drove home and was at around 46 mpg. These trips were all highway miles, driving 60 mph, in 76-90 degree temps. I didn't do any hypermiling techniques, other than keeping the accelerator steady at 60 mph. I had my wife, two kids, two dogs, and a trunk full of camping stuff. Don't ask me how I got it all in there, it wasn't fun.

I have 300 miles on this tank now, and my FE is still 42 mpg. It seems to be going down now that I am back home. My commute to work is 15 miles, but I am not getting the FE that I was getting while driving 105 miles. Also, city driving for me typically lowers my FE, since there seems to be a lot of starts and stops that require me to go 35 mph. Just when I get up to speed, I have to stop again. I could drive in E mode, but it would take too long to get up to speed.

Overall, I was able to get the best FE to date in this car while driving highway miles. I have read that hybrids do not do well on the highway. I would have to say it all depends on the car, driver and road. I only wish I could maintain the 54.9 mpg. On the mileage database listed in my sig, I am only averaging 35.4 mpg. I can now see how some people turn out really impressive numbers while driving a hybrid.

Anyhow, I just wanted to provide a bit more information for the TCH. I have about 3000 miles on my car now, and it has no mods other than the factory 50th Anniversary Edition.

 

I would guess a significant part of the difference is warm-up time. When you fill up and the car's already warm, you're pretty much guaranteed to see higher FE than you normally would for the trip ahead--you're not going to be running the ICE nearly as much, and it must burn a fair amount of gas during warmup (the rest of the trip always starts out with recovering from the gas burned in the beginning 10 minutes or so for me). And with each of the other long trips, you have one warmup period for ~100 miles. At home you have one warmup period every _15_ miles, which means you're burning a lot more gas per mile.

At least that's how I'd interpret it. That first couple of trips is still pretty impressive though no denying. I don't think I've ever had a trip that high! My current tank (the last 2 weeks) is still currently hovering in the 45 range, highest I've had to date. Sadly this week I have family coming into town and my driving patterns are likely to change--not sure if I need to refill early just to lock in my mileage (lol) or keep going and hope I can still make my first 700 mile tank!

 

I just drove from Houston to Little Rock, and my average there was 43.3 MPG, and the return trip was 45.2 MPG. I drove between 60 and 70 almost the entire time. (I did goose it a few times since my wife and I were playing the lisence plate game, how many states can you spot. We got 42, including Hawaii and Alaska.)

I get much better mileage on the highway than I do in the city, but I normally get around 36 - 40 MPG on the highway in my commute. I don't know why I got so much better mileage on this road trip. I did get my first 700+ mile tank though. I am currently at 450 miles, and my fuel gauge is just barely below half. If I am carefull I might hit 800 miles on this tank.

I also rolled 30,000 miles yesterday. Wahoo, 6,000 more miles on the bumper to bumper warranty!