Fuel Consumption Question

Short trips are the very worst gas mileage, the engine goes through a warmup cycle, so that one is no surprise.

 

i would think that Palm Beach Gardens in May is not that cold, but it will still take more than two miles to get the engine warmed up.

Also, May 26 was windy, and that can be hurtful to MPG. It also rained 4 inches, so that is no help.

 

better to track fuel comsumption at the pump by the tankful, than to try and wrap your brain around day to day activity

 

Trip by trip monitoring is maybe too close. I would take it tank by tank (aka fillup by fillup), do the best you can, and divide distance travelled (since last fillup) by gallons required to refill. Use the same fillup technique each time; safest is to just pump till it stops, call it done.

One thing you'll very likely notice, is that calculated is not as good as displayed. In my experience the difference is around 7~8%. Anyway, record the mpg for a tank, then a second tank, see if you can do better.

Some tips:

1. Stick to the speed limits. This takes some strategy: stay right when possible. If you're really enraging a speeder, maybe pull over when safe, do what you have to do. If there's two lanes but they're really not taking the hint, you might try a reverse pass. But that's a little tricky, sometimes they catch on and want to up the ante. Maybe just stay right and cool.

2. Keep a good following distance. This has a couple of advantages. First, if there's a momentary slowdown ahead, often you can just coast through some of that following distance. Second, aforementioned tailgater might decide getting into that space ahead of you is better than staying behiind you, get out of your hair.

3. Set the display to the Hybrid Synergy Indicator (bar graph), and (at least on level roads) try to keep acceleration somwhere between the median mark and 3/4's. If that's not practical (say aggressive tailgaters), then take it up to the threshold, where the "ECO" indicator goes off, but still try to avoid bumping into "PWR" zone.

Also, once engine is warmed up: lifting off the gas, then gently reapplying but keeping the bar to left of median, you'll almost always be electric-only. Don't go nuts with this though, especially once battery state-of charge fall to around 1/2. Then maybe pulse-and-glide more. You don't want extended electric-mode, especially near the median: it'll eat up the charge fast.

4. Anticipate slowdowns, and coast up to them, letting your speed fall off, as much as practical.

5. Minimize the use of AC. Or just don't use it.

 

In Florida, you won't have hills, but you WILL want A/C to keep the batteries cool.