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I finally got my HCH'06 (Sparkle Grey Pearl) yesterday. It was handed to me with 7 Miles on it and below 7.8 MPG (30 DIN). It has been a pleasure to see the MPG going up, right now it shows 39.9 MPG (5.9 DIN) with 60 Miles.
My wife and son had their car (White HCH'06) now for 6 weeks and they keep competing to keep it above 47 MPG (below 5 DIN) and with the nice weather they've been able to do it.

I have a couple of choices for my drive from/to work, one of them is a flat road where I would have to drive at around 70-75 MPH, the other route has some soft hills and speed changes but I am "allowed" to do 45-50 MPH. So the first question I am trying to answer is what route to take.

My second question is how fast should I reach my speed ? 0 to 45 MPH in 12 seconds or 30 seconds ?

Third question is should I keep the car in Metric or Imperial. The metric makes more sense because I am used to it and the Km been a larger number are more precise, but the DIN (lt/100kms) is less precise than MPG.

I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions.

Take the 45-50mph route. The hills may even help you.

Accelerate at the slowest speed you feel comfortable with. Look for the point where you can let up off the gas enough to get rid of assist and still gain speed and accelerate at that rate.

It probably won't make a difference which system you use. However, if one updates faster than the other then I would use it.

Take the 45-50mph route. The hills may even help you.

Accelerate at the slowest speed you feel comfortable with. Look for the point where you can let up off the gas enough to get rid of assist and still gain speed and accelerate at that rate.


Thanks Tom. I'll try your suggestions.


It probably won't make a difference which system you use. However, if one updates faster than the other then I would use it.

Once I get more used to the HCH It will be hard to switch. I like the Metric indicator because it shows how much gas I am using, in autostop I get no squares, stopped with the engine running it shows one square, accelerating hard it fills all the squares.
The MPG seems backwards, in auto-stop it doesn't make sense, filling all the squares when I am doing well (not using gas) is kind of wrong.
I'll be driving to Florida next month and I'll try MPG and Miles for a while longer to see.
Thanks again.

Katz

I dont own a hybrid. Have almost been a owner of one,,, but not yet.
.
I dont know where you live or the tudes of the folks on the road in your area or your threshold to these folks you drive with daily.

Here in Oklahoma on HWY's there are speed limits. They are posted as min. and max. speed. Ive spent many years way over max in cars and on motorcycles.

On the Hwy I and the wife use to get to work it 65 mph max and 40 mph min. I would never be in the hammer lane and driving 40 mph or coming off a good FAS. But in the right lane. I do as I please,,, period! If anybody hits me in the rear cause there not awake. I will own there childrens wages.

Take the shortis route and stay within the laws of your state. I know I wasnt put on this earth to please everybody. Beleive me if i want to hammer it. i will be in the left lanes.

I could take old 75 in for some of the way into Tulsa if I wanted. I wont do it. its 20 miles longer to do that road and I have to deal with two little towns, there cops and there drivers that are trying to get to the super slab. i could get better FE useing that road or have a great time on the twisties it has. All i see it doing for me is adding 20 mins to my already near 12 hour day. Better FE to drive father means nothing in my book.

So it goes.

i use to be a mpg junkie, but honestly i have rewritten myself to accept the "less is more" mentally so i'm back to L/100 km for me!

although honestly i wish my scangauge had km/L that would be so much better.

Is there an inherent advantage to using L/KM over MPG?

psychological.

L/km (or G/mi):
"I used X fuel to go Y distance today" Makes you take ownership and think about what you did with that gone-forever fuel.

MPG:
"The car gets Z mpg" Its the CAR's fault. A level of abstraction to distance the owner from taking responsibility.

Most other transportation methods also use consumption metrics. Aricraft and ship operators tabulate in gallons/hour or similar equivalents.

Thanks for your answers / suggestions.

I love the new Forum Style (colours, fonts, etc).

My new HCH is a lot of fun, I see now why my wife wasn't letting me drive hers (she got it 2 months ago).

I am taking the slow roads with all the stops to get better MPG and to vary speeds as recommended for the break-in period. To be honest I want to make my drives longer, I enjoy the car so much.

There is a lot to learn and the constant dash feedback keeps me busy. There is an optimal speed for every combination of slope and road conditions. In Ontario (Canada) there are no posted minimum speeds and most people are very polite and patient, with a few exceptions. So basically I can slow down or accelerate as I please.

I am finding that the only easy one is downhill, I basically let the car roll down with my foot off the gas. When getting to a stop I try to start slowing down, as early as possible to maximize my charge before the auto-stop kicks in. I am finding that I can actually roll a few yards in auto-stop and sometimes I can even let the car move forward with the AS remaining engaged.

Starting to move forward is easier in "metric" mode, I don't let the car go over 10 L/100km. The MPG display showing 0 or 100 MPG doesn't make any sense to me when starting from a stop.

Cruising makes more sense with the indicator in MPG. I am currently jumping from 5.3 to 5.2 L/100km, this is one jump in metric. In MPG it is 8 jumps: 44.4 44.5 44.6 ...to 45.2 MPG... a lot nicer to read.

I am a complete beginner, so please feel free to make any comments... no need to be nice. Thanks.;)

^ he took the words out of my mouth on why i can't just have one gauge but i need two.

BUt for L/km i find i can have the best of both worlds because in Canada Gallons is useless. I have the option of MILES per liter but then that number is a whole new ballpark for my mind.

^ he took the words out of my mouth on why i can't just have one gauge but i need two.

BUt for L/km i find i can have the best of both worlds because in Canada Gallons is useless. I have the option of MILES per liter but then that number is a whole new ballpark for my mind.

miles per liter. Is that Metglish? Does this system measure mass in kilogrounds?

It would be very cool if it converts neatly to MKS or CGS, or if Planck's constant turns out to be 1 here.

;)

psychological.
MPG:
"The car gets Z mpg" Its the CAR's fault. A level of abstraction to distance the owner from taking responsibility.


Interesting, never thought of it that way.

When talking about FE, I've always said something to the tune of "on my last tank, I got over 32 MPG." But that's just me. ;)

Conclusions:

Over the last couple of days I have been driving with the two options I have.

When I drive on the slow hilly route ( 45 MPH ) I make 4.1 L/100km (= 57 MPG), I have to make an effort not to accelerate too hard when going uphill and anticipate the traffic lights and stops. The same route on a rainy day gives me only 5.1 L/100km (= 46 MPG).

Driving the faster flat route ( 70+ MPH ) I get the same identical result on dry pavement, 4.1 L/100km (= 57 MPG), this is without a big effort, just keeping distance from the car in front and staying with the traffic. This route takes me half the time, 20 minutes instead of 40.

The faster route also seems safer to me because is a 6 lane divided highway, no chance for a head-on collision and since it has no stops there is also no chance of some distracted driver missing a stop.

I have concluded what everyone has been saying. The HCH seems to be equally effective in both city and highway traffic. The news here is that for MPG the HCH is a lot more forgiven on the highway, city driving requires a lot of careful driving.

I feel really good with the HCH gas/pollution economy. I feel bad that other people have to work so hard to get good economy, while the HCH makes it so easy. I worked very hard to improve my MPG in my BMW from 18 to 24 MPG and now I can easily get 57 MPG on the HCH's first tank of gas with little effort... when my HCH goes pass the break-in period and the nicer weather gets here what is my MPG going to be ?

BTW. I haven't checked/changed the air on the tires and I haven't tried P&G or any other special techniques yet.