mds2
06-04-2006, 06:49 PM
Hi, I just got home from another trip to Lompoc. Average for the roundtrip was 90.5mpg over 540 miles. I didn't do any local driving in Lompoc, I took my bicycle in the back of the car and also I walked some too. The town is small, I discovered there is really no need to drive for errands, walking and biking is fine. The biggest hit on my overall mpg was a headwind. Someday I'm going to get lucky with no headwind and really get a nice result.
One thing of note. I learned that the car will regen while coasting down a hill in neutral. This particular hill was not very steep. Fuel cut with regen seemed to slow the car too much, so I shifted to neutral and noticed that regen continued while the engine idled. I thought about FAS, but figured I'd get no regen in FAS which I decided I needed since I just had crested the steep 1500 foot hill out of San Luis Obispo on highway 101. I am not sure this neutral idle regen (might this be called NIR?) was the best thing to do from an FE point of view, but it seemed a reasonable compromise at the time.
Going up that 1500 foot hill I was able to drive in 2nd gear with no regen at times at about 28mph. But some parts of the hill were steeper and the car would loose too much speed in 2nd with no regen, even for driving with the blinkers on in the far right truck climbing lane. But all in all this was an improvement over my last trip, and I was back to full SOC pretty quickly.
Before leaving on my trip I installed the clutch switch mod from IC to disable assist and regen. Unfortunately it doesn't work on my car. It does disable regen but not assist. Maybe something is different in late model cars that prevents this function. So I removed the mod before leaving on my trip and decided that I will just have to live with assist as it is.
-Mike
One thing of note. I learned that the car will regen while coasting down a hill in neutral. This particular hill was not very steep. Fuel cut with regen seemed to slow the car too much, so I shifted to neutral and noticed that regen continued while the engine idled. I thought about FAS, but figured I'd get no regen in FAS which I decided I needed since I just had crested the steep 1500 foot hill out of San Luis Obispo on highway 101. I am not sure this neutral idle regen (might this be called NIR?) was the best thing to do from an FE point of view, but it seemed a reasonable compromise at the time.
Going up that 1500 foot hill I was able to drive in 2nd gear with no regen at times at about 28mph. But some parts of the hill were steeper and the car would loose too much speed in 2nd with no regen, even for driving with the blinkers on in the far right truck climbing lane. But all in all this was an improvement over my last trip, and I was back to full SOC pretty quickly.
Before leaving on my trip I installed the clutch switch mod from IC to disable assist and regen. Unfortunately it doesn't work on my car. It does disable regen but not assist. Maybe something is different in late model cars that prevents this function. So I removed the mod before leaving on my trip and decided that I will just have to live with assist as it is.
-Mike