Why is the Corolla hybrid's hwy mpg so high?

All those little twitches on the pedal that used to cause more gas to go down the hole are now just taking out brief loans from the battery, paid back almost immediately when your foot un-twitches.

Run that unhybrid Corolla on cruise control for a few hours and the effects of computer control (vs. twitchy foot) will let you blow past that 38mpg. That would be a fairer comparison to the hybrid version, since the fuel flow in a Toyota hybrid is always under computer control.

 

There is a module that plugs into the accelerator pedal that filters out those foot twitches.

 

Go for a drive on the highway, then check the % of EV (ie battery) use, and it'll be somewhere between 20 and 45%, depending on traffic and topography - and your speed.

There are a lot of other differences between Hybrid and Conventional (whether it be Camry, RAV4 or Corolla) - including tyres and engines. The engine has considerably higher efficiency (Atkinson cycle) due to a number of factors. On a run, my PRIUS has given these figures:
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My previous FOCUS Diesel would have averaged about 4.8 l/100km, for those trips - my wife's FOCUS Petrol more like 7.5-8 l/100km.

 

The statement about hybrids that “a hybrid is not as efficient on the highway” has been made as a blanket comment over all hybrids. The Toyota hybrid system is more efficient that other manufacturers at highway speeds. Honda’s system is a good example of that. Alex on Autos did a real time comparison between the CRV Hybrid and the RAV4 Hybrid and there was a significant loss for the CRV at highway speeds where it was falling short of the epa estimates while the RAV4 actually exceeded the higher epa mpg estimates. That has also been my experience in over 300,000 miles of driving 2 different Prius. I always think it is interesting when people look at epa mpg city and hybrid estimates and say well the corolla gas gets 38 mpg hwy......which is almost the same as the hybrid. While In real time the car gets on a daily basis numbers a lot closer to the 31 city mpg estimates. It has been my experience with regular cars (Non hybrid) that one rarely get the highway figures except on those few strictly highway runs on vacation. While my experience with the Toyota hybrids are getting the 50+ mpg continually city and highway.

 

Transport Canada info:

Fuel consumption ratings search tool

See that link requires you to reenter the vehicle data. Anyway, here's a screen grab of the result:

 

Many people feel the Toyota Corolla is one of the most utilitarian and best cars in the world. We owned a 1992 4 door regular Toyota Corolla for almost 10 years. One of the very best cars I ever owned. With the birth of our youngest we had to get a larger vehicle and I hated to let that vehicle go. Reliable, economically priced and good fuel economy it checked all the boxes for a small family.

 

Sedan? I'm hooked on hatchbacks now, more utility.

 

I agree 100%. I had never owned a hatchback until we bought our 2004 Sienna van and 2008 Prius. I have only owned hatchbacks since then.

 

Once you learn that "station wagon" and "hatchback" are equivalent but for scale, you begin to see it.

Honestly, moving from an old-generation smallbody Outback wagon to a Prius c was a cinch. Had a v been available we might not have even noticed the difference apart from the ground clearance.

 

That hasn't been my experience, even back in the late 20th Century when the same car would get even higher EPA numbers than now. EPA scale has shifted downwards multiple times.

Though numerous speed limits have risen significantly since then, reducing the MPGs people actually get on any given car. Those who tend to drive faster than 60-65 mph won't get my MPG numbers.

 

Yeah no kidding.

In keeping with recent examples, our other two recent family cars (Subaru Outback Turbo and Hyundai Accent) would both achieve somewhat better than EPA with the twitchy foot and both got >15% better than highway EPA when run with cruise control. Sometimes more.