What's the rating on the ICE?

Sometimes when my ICE is going I get 75 to 99.9 mpg.

 

This is the reason i prefer to drive at night. Like now 8:40pm. Traffic won't hold you back or speed you up, and you get better gas mileage. I can average around 60 or 70 if i try at this time of night. Later in the night, i can pull 75. If only the streats were this empty during the day. And, if only it was 60's 70's during the day. Can't wait for winter. (btw.. i have a 2.5 mile strip to the nearest light. So.. my ICE warms up quickly and i get an average bad mpg for only the first 5 mins. Around 35 or so. Besides that, i speed.. so it stays "low".. hehe.. 40 or so.

 

Acceleration is hell on mpg. It's a small car, but it's still a lot of metal. Don't even look at your mpg while accelerating. Nothing less that your average for a full commute should concern you; better yet your average for the month.

 

Another important issue is your speed. If you are going 20 mph and the ICE is on it will decrease your mpg much more than if you are going 60 mph. The reason is that the ICE requries a certain amount of fuel to operate, and if you aren't covering much ground, that amount of fuel is being consumed over a much shorter distance.

I start out each morning up a slight hill in a residential area. The ICE is always on, and I get about 15 mpg going up the hill at about 20 mph. When I turn on to a larger road and speed up to about 45 mph (still uphill), the mpg jumps to the 30's or low 40's. I think the only real difference is the speed I am travelling. The ICE is probably working about as hard under both scenario's, but since I am going more than twice as fast, the mpg is also more than double.

 

acceleration is tough on all engines, we just dont realize how bad it is because we normally dont have real time feedback.

but a good indication of the ICE mpgs can be had on long trips at near freeway speeds if there are minimal stops and according to my experience i get about

50-52@ 65-75 mph est EV time >5%
51-53@ 60 mph (+/- 5 mph) >5%
52-55@ 45-55 mph 5-10%
53-58@ 35-45 mph 15%

it has been my experience that at NO SPEED can you be 100% ICE for any extended period of time. even at 75+ mph i still the EV kicking in for even the slightest amount of demand. unless you are on perfectly level road with no wind or other outside factors, the EV will always be more than willing to help out under nearly all circumstances.

the numbers i have provided are accurate as i purposely only recorded results when i could drive at least 20 miles with minimal delays (well as minimal as is possible, after all, i do live in near proximity to a lot of people)

i need to say that at the lower speeds i had a few opportunities to experience much higher figures, but as i cannot faithfully reproduce the numbers, they were regretfully tossed out of my calculations. (but i am still PROUD of them !!)


the % of EV time was done with a stopwatch and keep in mind, i have only a few timings to go by...(timings could only be done when i had a willing passenger... now the passenger part was easy... the willing part was not even for people who know me and my desire to collect data of all types...after all, this is what i do for a living!) but the timings were all very consistant with each other across all parameters, so although the baseline is thin, i think it will do for this rather inaccurate observation. these numbers are provided for comparison purposes. for those of you that cant get 50 mpg under any circumstances, you will need to extrapolate the data.

 

King: if your slight hill comes within the first minute or two of your drive, the ICE may be still in Stage 1 and contributing very little to pushing the car. In Stage 1 the ICE runs to warm up, and if its power is not needed it may contribute little or no power to the wheels until it reaches Stage 2.