Edmunds.com | Inside Line | Auto Observer Your Account | Help | Directory
You are here:
![[F]](http://a332.g.akamai.net/f/332/936/12h/www.edmunds.com/media/townhall/webxicons/site.gif){kind=small}
Forums
Hybrid Vehicles Toyota Camry Hybrid Toyota Camry Hybrid Driving Tips & Tricks
228 messages, Last post on Jul 20, 2009 at 9:37 AM
You are in the Toyota Camry Hybrid Forum. Your Host is pf_flyer
This is the place to share the things you're doing to get the most out of your TCH!
|
|
|
Replying to: pf_flyer (Aug 10, 2006 3:04 pm) Several of us have a lot of tips and I'll probably go to the trouble of adding them again, but for now: First, If you're new to the TCH experience and you're getting less than 30 mpg, you're not doing it right. Several have blamed their car wanting to take it back to the dealer only to get the hang of it later. Study, practice and don't worry about it for the first tank of learning. I'd also recommend going to the station and filling up so that you know for sure you have a "full" tank. Too many people are getting lousy first tank actuals that could be the result of a low fill from the dealer. If you're going to start tracking this the first place to start is with a full tank. If you want high FE you will have to drive this different than you past car. To maximize FE it takes understanding how to work the system. With a little practice it's second nature. However many posters have no intention of changing their driving habits and that's OK, they are still getting 34 to 35 mpg for the most part. I'm currently over 8400 miles and averaging 38.7mpg. I live in rural hilly central WV. I don't have heavy urban traffic as some but I don't have flat ground either. Unless you become compulsively obsessed with the stive for a high FE number (as many of us are) realize with such a high fuel effecient car as the TCH (and other high 30's cars) there is really very little savings working hard to get a 36 mpg average up to say 38. For you it just may not be worth the effort. Enjoy you car, save fuel, send less American dollars to the Persian Gulf Things to know: 1) The ICE is always on above 41 mph. 2) When you first start the car expect the ICE to kick on after about the first 7 seconds. If the car is warmed up already it will kick back off if you're sitting stil or pulling away slowly on level ground 3) It's better to mildly accelerate to speed and then let off the throttle and as the ICE either kicks off or drops to the 60 "instant" gage FE mark, gently apply pressure to maintain speed at a considerably higher FE 4) If there is a grade you may lose speed to max out FE, if that's acceptable every little bit contributes to a high FE number 5) This thing coasts very well. Many times before you crest a hill you can let off the throttle and drop the FE to 60 and as you top the hill on the cars momentum you will then gain speed downhill "gliding". 6)If you have a NAV system you have many extra screens available. Watching them as you learn will help with the understanding. The dash screens that all TCH's have are adequate but not as much details as the NAV (go to info, trip info and there is a Consumption and Energy screen. 7) ECO mode for A/C appears to provide adequate cooling for most all of the climates and assists with higher FE. 8) Before you ask, yes (on the NAV models) the battery will show a full charge and when it gets to the next to top bar they turn green. If you drop to the bottom bar it turns violet. 9) The bottom charge level and top charge level does not mean the battery is fully charged or depleted. The TCH computer in order to maximize the life of the batteries keeps the system charged between 60 to 80%. 10)If you drive for 200 miles and don't see a full charge and thus don't belive me (like several posters) find a very long down grade and watch the charge. Try to start with as full of a chage as you can and you should be able to "top off" the battery. Actually it's not all that important, but it will assure you that it does go the full range. This is a great forum as it has topical threads. I would add that at GreenHybrid.com there is database for showing your milage and seeing milages of other drivers and other hybrids. Got to go, More postings to come.
|
|
| www.hybridsynergydrive.com/en/regenerative_braking.html | |
| www.toyotaiguide.com | |
|
(You'll hear of this soon if you just got your hybrid. I copied this from another website) First, Pulse - Getting The Car Up To Speed When the car needs to get up to speed, gently accelerate. As much as possible, avoid using energy from the large hybrid battery while accelerating. Second, Glide - A Special Kind Of Coasting Once up to 40 mpg ease slightly back on the accelerator. Then ever so slightly press down the accelerator again and hold the pedal in that position. On the energy screen there should not be any arrows of energy going any direction. If you press to much, repeat the process of easing up and pressing down again until you get it in the right spot. You will notice that there is no energy flowing in any direction on the Prius’ energy screen and the “arrows” are black. In this state, the Prius is basically coasting, without any energy being drawn away to regenerate the battery. Then, Repeat The Process Once the car decelerates to the given bottom end of your Glide, usually 30 mph, start the whole process over again. Alternating between periods of Pulsing and periods of Gliding as long as the driving situation allows. The bottom end of the Glide can actually be any speed, but the record breaking drivers generally used 30 mph. Pulse And Glide For Everyday Driving? It is unlikely that you would be able to do like the record breakers did and Pulse and Glide for an entire tank of gas, but this technique can be implemented, when appropriate, in different parts of your normal driving routine. Every little bit helps when trying to squeeze extra miles out of a tank of gas. When employing this technique, of course, you should always drive safely and not impede other motorist. Pulse And Glide In Other Hybrid Cars And Hybrid SUVsThis technique can be implemented in any Toyota or Lexus hybrid car that has the “Hybrid Synergy Drive” (HSD) system. In fact, as a test, I once took a Toyota Highlander Hybrid on a 21 mile drive using this technique and achieved 47.1 miles per gallon. Try that in any other SUV! |
|
|
Hard to remember all the tips and to find them later??? You need to study the posts here and on other forums. An easy way to do this is to open up a blank word file and with every post or suggestion you see that you like just copy and paste over to the word file and save it, then you can have a fairly lengthy document with a lot of useful information to review at your leisure. |
|
|
Think about it. Just after you fill up you either see "0" because you're burning gas and not moving, or you'll see "99.9" because you started moving witout applying the throttle and possibly are moving on battery alone, thus the high milage mark. As soon as you pull out onto the highway you're probably going to see 10 then 15 mpg as you give it gas to get that mass moving, then as you get to speed and are say instant averaging 40 mpg the overall tank average will start rising. The NAV consumption gage can be a little deceptive as it shows consumption per minute not per mile, and since in the US we measure MILES per gallon the bars don't simply balance out. For example you drive 30 mph for 2 minutes averaging 20 mpg and then you drive 60 mph for 2 minutes while achieving 60 mpg. Is the average 40 mpg? Looking at the bars it looks like it would balance out. But actually you covered 1 mile in the 2 minutes at 20 mpg and 2 miles at 60 mpg so you go twice the distance at the 60 mpg level and thus your overall would be 46.67 mpg. So you're cruising through town at stop lights for 2 miles getting 25 mpg and complaining and then you hit the freeway or better yet a rural road where you can freely practice good hybrid driving. Within two miles of filling up and seeing 25mpg, within 1 minute you've doubled your milage and within 2 minutes you have twice as many miles at high FE as you do at low FE and the number climbs dramatically. many posters get upset on test drives when what they are doing is driving a "cold" car and seeing the worse driving conditions for FE during that drive. That is pulling out of the dealer lot, probably not taking any chances and pushing it some so as to not hamper traffic (and possibly wreck a car that is not yours). You probably want to goose it at least once to prove you could be happy with it. All in all it's a good test drive but in no way does it really reflect the way you would drive it everyday. Some people are lucky and get to test the new car and take it home and drive it on their commute route. Few got to do that with the TCH. The less miles on the "new" tank the more variance you'll see because a good mile or a bad mile can overly influence the overall average. BUT once you have say 300 miles on a tank and you're averaging 40 mpg then what happens when you drive a mile at 20 mpg? Not much. I don't have my calculator but it's probably only a drop in overall of less than 0.1 mpg. I live on a steep hill and I typically lose 0.1 every time I drive up the hill to my house. I seldom gain it all back gliding my cold car down the hill when I leave as my ICE is running warming up the converter and even though I'm going downhill it appears that I'm getting in the 20's for that short time.. |
|
|
I have "reverse" calculated that my "indicated" lifetime tank average would be 39.54 mpg. My current measured actual is 38.69. This is after 21 tanks (and about 8400 miles), each time I filled up by letting the pump kick off then squeezing two times to try to assure I topped off at as close to the same level as possible. (I don't top all the way off, that's not good for the environment or your FE) These numbers are actually fairly close. HOWEVER, if you click on my milage link on GreenHybrid,com and then hold your mouse over "more" on my tank information I have listed the indicated tank reading with each tank. As you can see several are very close and a few are as much as 2 mpg different, and not always on the same side of error. I wish I could figure out why it varies. I can't explain it but I know that last week I was disappointed with my 39.8 mpg performance on my trip but only because the TCH gage was indicating 42 mpg. Just thought I'd pass this info along as it's a question that's came up several times and because 1) I've got so many tank readings to show the effect over time, 2) I've tried to be consistant in the filling procedure, and 3) because I've kept track of all my indicated readings and was able to "reverse" calculate what my overall indicated would have been had I measured it from the start of ownership. |
|
|
If you're new and notice your trip computer shows that you have a range of say 550 to 570 miles on your tank (rather than the 600+ you thought you should get), be aware that there is about a 3 gallon reserve. If you have the NAV system and you get your tank to "E" mark on the gas gage and "0" cruising range on the NAV screen, several posters, myself included have only been able to get 14.5 to 15 gallons in the tank at this point. At least two posters have run their tanks to where the car was actually empty (no actual gas). Don't do that, it's not recommended by Toyota and it's not good for your car (the system should shut down soon after the gas tank is empty_you can't run this on electric alone). Others have tested this and you don't need to chance being stranded or screwing up your car to find this out. I would recommend just once for you to take your tank to the "0" mark (don't do this in the desert) and fill it up so that you will have the knowledge and confidence as to what reserve you have. Most all of us will be able to drive 90 to 120 miles once the tank shows empty.
|
|
|
Replying to: wvgasguy (Aug 10, 2006 5:58 pm) Lots of reading ahead! |
|
You are here:
Forums
Hybrid Vehicles Toyota Camry Hybrid Toyota Camry Hybrid Driving Tips & Tricks
New? Join Now!
Forum Tools
Search Forums
Browse by Vehicle
2010 Toyota Camry Hybrid
Browse by Board
Browse by Topic
Today's Chats
