I think I'm getting the hang of it (60 mpg)

Well, I think I'm getting the hang of this car after 3 months. My mileage has been steadily increasing as the weather has gotten warmer and as I've adjusted my driving a bit. If I drive fairly normally i get about 55 mpg (HSI, ~52 mpg actual). If I'm more careful I get closer to 60 mpg HSI. If I'm really careful I get over 60. My last tank was 61.8 (HSI), and 59.6 mpg from the fillup (see attached). I put 10.13 gallons in the car for 604 miles. I call that 60 mpg, and I'm pretty pleased. This is for a week of normal commuting which includes lots of hills, about 1/3 surface streets, 1/3 state highway, and 1/3 interstates with occasional stop-and-go. It is pretty hot here these days so the AC runs constantly. I have only seen my mileage get better with time so I haven't seen it roll over as the weather has gotten really hot, but that may be that any affect is counteracted by my learning to drive this car.

The car has the larger mudflaps front and rear, AC always on, and it is quite hot and humid here. None of this seems to have much affect. If it does then it will take some very careful analysis to figure it out. Things that I've found that do make a big difference is accelerating hard, using the friction brakes (obviously), and short trips. That warm-up cycle is deadly and it really kills my mileage for the first couple of miles of a trip.

All of this is stuff you-all already know. I'm just pointing out that it is penetrating my thick head. Thanks all!

 

Well, it is hard to describe my typical commute, but I'll try. I commute from the western shore (of the Chesapeake) in rural Maryland to the DC suburbs and back. The trip is lots of small hills and is a mix of surface streets, rural state highways and interstates with occasional stop-and-go. I set out today to log it, and I've graphed some of the relevant parameters below.

A few observations on the following graph:

1. It is my "typical" one-way morning commute.
2. I made one crucial mistake at about 900 seconds. I dropped the kids off at daycare and thought I would be clever (big mistake) and left the car on (with AC on) since I was just going to run the kids in and run back out and the logger would just keep logging. I got stuck for 10 minutes and drained the traction battery down until the ICE kicked on. You can see that in the Batt Charge graph.
3. The total distance was 38.6 miles
4. The ICE torque is an interesting graph. The spikes to -100 ft/lbs are MC1 spinning up the ICE for ignition when coming out of stealth. Also if you are really gliding then the ICE torque is zero. However you have to apply a little accelerator to do this, as noted by many people. Otherwise with your foot off the petal the ICE torque is usually -10 ft/lbs, i.e. the spinning ICE without fuel does induce a small amount of drag (of course). If you are below the speed cutoff for stealth, then the ICE torque is, of course, zero since it isn't spinning.
5. The instantaneous fuel economy graph is always very busy. The integrated fuel economy was about 60 mpg on the HSI.
6. You can see the hills on the altitude graph. I've also included a graph of speed which was governed by traffic lights, and traffic.

Anyway, for what it is worth, here is my commute: