P&G vs cruise and other observations....

I've had my '09 Touring #6 for about about 6 weeks now. It has 3300 miles on it so far. it is certainly the coolest car I've ever owned. It does seem to have more dash rattles than anything else I've bought new. I plan to give Toyota first crack at it before I fix them myself.

I've occasionally experimented with P&G on back roads for 20 miles at a time. The best I've been able to manage is 80 MPG between 32 and 42 MPH. No arrows anywhere in glide and no arrows in or out of the battery during pulse. Given the record is 109 MPG, it seems like I should be able to do better assuming everything is optimal(temperature, tire pressure, etc).

I'm running 41/39 PSI since day one.

For my regular commuting, I've been driving about 75 MPH as I have a 2 hour commute each way(I only do it once a week though). At this speed, I've been averaging about 48 MPG. Today on my way to work, I decided to experiment and drive 60 MPH in the slow lane. I used cruise control. Actual speed varied between 57 and 63 depending on traffic. Breaks were never used the entire time.

At 60 MPH using cruise, I average about 65 MPG(see photo below). At 55 MPH, that jumped to 75 MPG. The last segment in the photo was the first of 4 segments (20 minutes) of going 55 MPH which averaged about 73 MPG the entire time.

What is odd is this isn't much worse than the P&G between 32 and 42 MPH netting 80 MPG.

What am I doing wrong with P&G????

 

I'm certainly not unhappy with the economy using cruise. It's much better than I expected. I don't know how we get so many complaining that they're only getting in the low 40's. I can't imagine what I'd have to do to get fuel economy that bad except short trips of 10 minutes or less when the car is cold.

Maybe there's a big difference out the outer fringes of P&G when comparing the touring to the non touring. Or perhaps there's a lot more to it than simply not having any arrows going in or out of the battery. I suppose, now that I think about it, if it were that simple, everyone would be getting 100 MPG if they were in situations where they could stay less than 42 MPH and never waste any energy breaking or putting energy in or out of the battery. i.e. the only means of slowing down being rolling and air resistance.