Even in the cold winter, i brok 50mpg again.

Tom183, you should reverse upper & lower blocking for your gen3 versus the gen2 of some in this thread. The inverter is at the upper grill of gen3 instead of lower as in the gen2. Inverter needs to be cooled, and we have no way to measure its temperature at this point. There is a nice table in a recent 2010 blocking thread correlating blocking %'s upper/lower to ambient.

For a highway trip like that, leave upper grill open and block the lower. But you won't save anything except in the warmup phases because at highway speed, the ICE is wasting heat anyway, just to produce the required HP. With my short drives, I can block year round. When I do take a summer highway trip, must unblock. But for 3 seasons, the fan can take care of it without removing the blocking. So lower block in 20s will be fine, so long as the system is working (thermostat opens, e.g.). Much colder than 20s, and the upper blocking would not concern me either.

 

I'm not sure how true that is with the Gen III - and I wonder if the inverters actually might be happier with a little heat (relatively speaking).

I guess we have to wait for the codes...

 

I noticed a huge difference in the fuel consumption between setting the heating at 21°C/70°F and 23°C/73°F in cold (air temperature < -5°C/23°F) conditions. I feel this is related to the state of operation of the hybrid system that changes at a coolant temperature of 70°F. Higher than 70°F, the ICE is allowed to stop when the car is stopped. When 23°C/73°F are requested, the car has to keep the ICE running to reach a coolant temperature >73°F. However, when 21°C/70°F is requested, the car can stop the ICE as soon as the coolant temperature reaches 70°F.

Am I the only who have experienced this?

 

Tank before last, all very short cold start driving, 40 mpg.

Last tank, all freeway/backroads, 56.5 mpg.

Both of these are calculated, and roughly 5% worse than displayed.

Have not tallied all of my tanks yet, but it is pretty bad due to short short (1.5mi) commute and cold weather.

 

I'm at 52.4 MPG per MFD. Hand calc gives me 51.82 MPG. 56000 miles total over 2yrs 10months. ~70% highway.

 

Correct, I grill block in Winter as needed. Other factors effecting my lifetime MPG are I spent 7 months living in the CA bay area (~60 MPG avg), and I tow a trailer or jet ski (~1200 lbs) many miles in the summer (~44 MPG avg).

 

I managed to get 47 MPG (calculated) at 30% town 70% highway (68 MPH) below -10°C (14 F) with winter tires (40-38 psi) and 100% lower grill block, 0% higher grill block. Now, I have blocked 75% higher as well and I am at about 55 MPG (MFD, not yet calculated, but should be around 52). The temperature has risen though. About -5°C (23F). I don't have a Scangauge and I am too chicken to block 100% higher. If temperatures goes below -20°C, I will probably try it. But -5°C - -10°C is too warm to try it.

I have never used this car in summer conditions, and I have put the winter tires 10 km away from the dealer. I bought it late November. I am pretty curious to know what will be the FC during summer, with the low rolling resistance summer tires...