2011 Rx450h: P&g vs Cruise Ctll Road Trips

Last week I (D3) got to drive the Rx450h on several trips. The highways were I-79 and I-70 from Morgantown, WV via Washington, Pa to Cabela's East of Wheeling, WV (70 mi) and to Cambridge, Oh (129 mi). The terrain is rolling hills of a mix of long and short (steep) wave length with a few long descents and ascents at Washington and Wheeling in the Ohio river valley.

Pulse and Glide from Morgantown to Cabela's and back yielded 32mpg and 32.5 mpg. Climate was set to Auto @74f and A/C needed and on. Doing this was a real pain in the ***. Using the Cruise Control over the same route yielded 31.6 mpg and 31.3 mpg with an Auto setting of 72f. Extending to Cambridge only dropped the mpg to 30.5 mpg on average.
On these routes trying to P&G or Hypermile is more work than it's worth.

Pulse and Glide using the Cruise Control Stalk: Power management is really tight. Set the CC at any speed and it will stay there up or down any slope. The speedo barely moves and my GPS backs this up with a +/- of 0.8 mph max. Speedo was low by 0.6mph. To do this results in Regen on most of the downhills. By micro pulsing with the CC stalk to higher speeds I found I could offset this Regen and maybe get some Glide. I then micro pulsed back down to the desired speed at the bottom the the hill. This is probably a Gamer only joystick technique of unknown value.

The Power Meter and Energy Display of Pulse and Glide: Regen for this AWD model comes from both the front and back wheels. By pressing the pedal to bring the power meter to the first PIP above or out of Regen I could turn off the rear motor Regen. At the second PIP a red arrow would point from ICE to battery. I didn't hear or feel anything so this must have been the ICE released to free spin even at speeds below 62mph. Getting zero arrows to display is almost impossible. D2 (Owner) can do it for a few seconds on a flat road at 25 to 35 mph.