My thoughts on the 2012 hihy after 4 days

My wife and I purchased a 2012 Highlander Hybrid on Saturday and I've taken a few trips with it and here are my initial thoughts for anyone who might care.

First, I really like the car. It rides well and while it doesn't compare to the fuel economy of my Prius it still does great considering it's a 7 passenger SUV. Most of the trips I've taken so far have been on the highway and like the Prius the hihy doesn't do as well on the highway, but even over several longer (60 miles or so) trips I can consistently get 29 or 30 MPG... and that's with long stretches at 70 MPH+ on the highway. Off the highways, though, it really seems to shine. Most of the surface streets around here are 40-45mph and keeping it on those roads I can get 35-40 MPG as long as the trip is long enough to average out the initial engine warm up, but the Prius has the same issue with really short trips.

This morning I finally had a chance to drive it to my office and that's a 21 mile trip with no highways. Most of the speed limits along the way are 40-45 MPH, but there are a few stretches at 30 and 50 MPH too. Obviously I'm very familiar with this route and my Prius loves it. In the Prius I can easily get 60-65 MPG over this route without even trying and if I start doing some pulse and glide I can get up into the mid 70's... once I even hit 80 MPG, but that takes a lot of effort and normally I don't drive that way. But this morning with the hihy I was at 40.3 MPG at the end of that route. I certainly tried to drive efficiently, but I didn't go to any extremes or do any pulse and glide. I imagine that once I get used to the car that I'll be able to do a bit better, but still, considering that it's a 7 passenger SUV I think 40 MPG is pretty impressive.

While the hybrid system works very similarly to the Prius there are definitely some differences too. The hihy seems to favor electric at lower speeds. There's one hill on the route I took this morning with a 30 MPH speed limit. With the Prius I find it's very difficult to keep the ICE from firing up as I ascend that hill at 30 MPH. On the other hand, the hihy went up the hill at 30 MPH under electric only without even trying. I was even able to accelerate a bit on the hill and it still didn't start the ICE... that just wouldn't happen in the Prius.

On the other hand, though, at higher speeds the hihy seems to favor the ICE. On flat roads with the Prius I have no trouble maintaining 40 or 42 MPH without engaging the ICE. I just couldn't seem to do that with the hihy this morning. Keeping light enough pressure on the accelerator just wasn't enough to maintain my speed and if I pressed any harder it would start up the ICE. Some of that may just be a matter of getting used to how the car behaves. Traveling at 42MPH in the Prius in electric only still needs a light touch on the throttle and after driving the Prius for a year and a half I'm very familiar with... I just don't have that familiarity with the hihy yet.

Additionally, the hihy has no screen similar to the "Hybrid System Indicator" in the Prius. I love that screen and how you can tell at a glance how much throttle you're giving it and how close you are to starting the ICE at lower speeds. I'm familiar enough with the Prius now that even without that screen up I can just feel it and I still know how to light the ICE when I want to and keep it off when I don't, but the hihy is different enough that I can't do it by feel yet and there is no cheat screen like the Prius has. I'm sure that familiarity will come as I spend more time behind the wheel of the hihy.

Actually, on that subject, there is far less info available on the hihy and I really kind of miss it. There's no way to show the instant fuel economy at the same time as the average economy... you only get one or the other. There is also only one average economy indicator. The Prius has two trip meters and each independently tracks the average fuel economy for that trip. The hihy has two trip meters for distance only that share the same space with the odometer and then on the information display in the center of the dash it's got one trip meter that shows average economy and distance in miles. However the hihy has an additional screen that shows the average economy since the last fillup, which I think is a great addition. Frankly, that's all I used the second trip odometer for in my Prius and the hihy tracks it and even resets it automatically whenever you fill up, so that's one plus. I'll probably move my scangauge over to the hihy so I can see the instant fuel economy all the time.

Overall I'm quite happy with the hihy and I'm looking forward to spending more time with it.

Brett

 

Thanks for the reply... and it looks like my results are similar to yours... 30-31 MPG on the highway and 35+ through town. Luckily I live in Florida, so I shouldn't have to worry about much of a drop during the winter. We usually get a few days in the 40's and 50's... maybe some nights in the mid 30's, but that's about as low as it goes here.

I've noticed the same thing. The HiHy has a bigger battery than the Prius, so I guess that makes sense, but I assumed that given the bigger size it would probably draw more power as well to even it out. But it definitely seems like I can go longer in electric only mode. As I said above, it also stays in electric only mode much more easily at lower speeds... certainly around 30 MPG and up to 40 MPH, but over 40 I still have a very hard time keeping it in electric only mode. With the Prius I can stay in electric only up to 43 MPH, but I'm thinking the HiHy is just programmed differently and starts up the ICE at 40 instead of 43.

I've noticed this as well. I assumed that as I got more used to the vehicle I'd be able to feel the engine starting and stopping more... as I recall with the Prius I had a hard time feeling it at first. But maybe the HiHy just has smoother transitions.

LOL... no... unfortunately it's the same way in 2012. My current (and first) tank is at 31.5MPG right now and it shows that I have about 70 miles left until empty, so I'm thinking I'm well on my way to a screen full of 30MPG bars. Not incredibly useful I'm afraid.

 

double post

 

and triple post

 

Just for fun I moved the scangauge over to the HiHy tonight to see how it would go. It certainly seems to work and I think it would work well on top of the steering column as you can see below. I didn't spend a lot of time playing with it, but it seemed like most of the gauges I use in the Prius also work in the HiHy.

Just from a quick drive around the block the instantaneous MPG number appeared to look good. The scangauge also does let you show accumulated MPG numbers, but it does it's own calculations rather then pulling the number from the car. I haven't really played with the scangauge's MPG tracking features, but from what I've seen online it looks like it's reasonably accurate. You could definitely show instant and tank average at once if you wanted to.

On a side note, I filled it for the first time tonight and fuelly came up with a calculated number of 30.3 MPG, which seems pretty accurate since the screen said 30.7 MPG. The first fuel up I listed in fuelly was the one the dealer did before they delivered the car, so I don't know exactly what the odometer said when they filled it, but I subtracted a couple of miles from what it was at when I picked up the car and it should be pretty close.

 

Yeah, I think that's generally the consensus. The nice thing about the highlander is that the middle seats can move back and forth, so you can pull the middle seats up to give the back seats a bit more legroom and that definitely helps. I've had adults back there for reasonably short trips (maybe 40 minutes or an hour max) and they've said it's OK. My wife actually spent about 7 or 8 hours (over several trips... the longest was maybe 3 or 4 hours) in the back seat of my brother's highlander when we were visiting them. His isn't a hybrid, but I believe the back seat is the same. She said it wasn't the most comfortable seat in the world, but it wasn't too bad either. The one downside that I do see is that if the back seats are up then there is just about no space for luggage. A trip with 7 people and luggage may be difficult or impossible without a rooftop or hitch carrier to put additional stuff in.

On a side note, we just filled it for the second time. Got just a hair under 30MPG calculated for the tank, but I think that's because this is technically my wife's car and she's the one that drives it most of the time. She's been trying to work on changing her driving habits to get better economy, but I'm not sure she puts as much effort into it as I do. But still, if she can get 30MPG regularly I'll be pretty happy.

I did drive it for a couple of trips over the weekend... we did one trip of just over 100 miles... about half highway and the other half surface streets at mostly 55-60MPH and I had it at 32.7 after that trip. Then we had another 19 mile trip on 40-45MPH roads and I was able to do 39.1MPG on that one. There is definitely a lot of potential for this car if you take the time to drive for efficiency.