One of the best things about a hybrid is auto stop. Since there's no starter noise you just kinda don't notice but you'll never waste gas while parked in traffic or at red lights.
I don't know how to say this kindly so I'll just say it plainly: I don't believe you get 40 mpg city in a car rated at 23 unless you're driving like the world's biggest asshole, there's just no other way to do it and even then it's a massive stretch to believe this.If it drives you nuts that I start to slow down early, maybe you ought to consider what you're doing. I get 40mpg city in a car rated for 23/24/27 and I don't drive slow, I just don't waste gas accelerating toward red lights. Hypermiling is the art of slowing down intelligently, as that's where you lose the vast majority of your fuel economy.
I don't know how to say this kindly so I'll just say it plainly: I don't believe you get 40 mpg city in a car rated at 23 unless you're driving like the world's biggest asshole, there's just no other way to do it and even then it's a massive stretch to believe this.
I bought a computer that reads the injector pulses and vss signal and gives a readout of my instant and current average mileage (as well as other factors) and after spending a few months with it I've gradually identified where I lose most of my fuel economy. Surprisingly, I can accelerate as hard as I want (and I often do) and doing 50 doesn't really use any more fuel than doing 25 (at least in my car), it's when I take my foot off the gas and how I take my foot off the gas that saves me the fuel.
Redlights and stopsigns are what eat up fuel economy in the city, most cars purring along at 50mph seem to have 45-60mpg instantaneous fuel consumption but are still somehow rated in the 20's for city mileage. When there's nobody behind me and I see a stop sign in the distance, I put it in neutral and let the engine RPMs come down so I don't feed it gas all the way to the sign. Gas engines have what's called "pumping losses", which have to do with the energy needed to pump air through the combustion chamber and the lower the RPM and/or displacement, the lower the losses, and rolling in neutral toward a stop sign (when there's nobody behind me of course) can save a lot of gas that would otherwise be burnt as pumping losses by just taking my foot off the gas and engine braking, or gas that would be burned keeping my foot on the gas until right before the sign and then wearing my brakes down slowing down at the last second.
When a light turns red suddenly in front of me, I leave it in gear and take my foot off the gas to engine brake as this burns zero fuel and slows down the car (via pumping losses) - the computer stops the injectors from firing when engine braking. I do tend to slow down earlier than most people at lights, but I can't see how it makes me an asshole as we're all going to end up stopped at the light.
Watching the timing of traffic signals can help a lot. If I'm driving (and there's nobody riding my ass) toward a light and it's red, I'll estimate how long before it turns green and slow down so that I end up at the light right when it changes with more speed. I come up to lights as often as not doing 35 right when they turn green, whereas if I still drove like I did before, I'd have done 45 right up to the light, braked late to a complete stop only for the light to change as I come to a stop, and then had to accelerate back up to 45 (rather than just from 35 to 45).
The biggest factor of all is avoidance though, and I'll now take that backroute that has a 30mph speed limit and no traffic lights rather than the 45mph drag through the middle of town that has a light at every intersection.
Some other tricks - if you have an automatic and you're cruising down a road at 35mph and it's in 4th, and the transmission will kick it into 5th at 40mph, speed up to 40, let it downshift, and then come back down to 35mph and enjoy fuel savings from the higher gear. Basically, know your shift points and keep it in the highest gear possible when cruising. Accelerating, it doesn't really matter all that much.
The key point here is, I don't piss other drivers off by going slow or accelerating like a granny. That doesn't really save fuel and just makes everyone upset.
Continuously Variable Lockup torque converters make most of that throttle blipping unnecessary. As long as the car isn't in some kind of sport mode (civics need to be put into eco to do this) the vehicle will automatically blip itself into OD (or double OD for those 6 speeds) when you come off the accelerator and cruise. Even my 04 Expedition does this, and it's got a massive V8 and a heavy 4 speed.
As for braking there has to be a good medium. If you go too slow between lights you bunch up traffic behind you and they get caught in the other lights. Traffic in a city needs to flow, or else you end up with some lights where people are stuck out in the intersection while other lights only have a few cars in the line because a semi or something crawled up to it leaving everyone stranded behind it. While it saves wear and tear and gas to move up to it slowly, it compounds everyone sitting and idling between lights and just makes rush hour even more unpleasant.
Once upon a time, years ago, I was driving through a number of stop/go traffic waves on I-520 at rush hour in Seattle. I decided to try something. On a day when I immediately started hitting the usual "waves" of stopped cars, I decided to drive smoothly. Rather than repeatedly rushing ahead with everyone else, only to come to a halt, I decided to try to move at the average speed of the traffic. I let a huge gap open up ahead of me, and timed things so I was arriving at the next "stop-wave" just as the last red brakelights were turning off ahead of me. It certainly felt weird to have that huge empty space ahead of me, but I knew I was driving no slower than anyone else. Sometimes I hit it just right and never had to touch the brakes at all. Other times I was too fast or slow. There were many "waves" that evening, and this gave me many opportunities to improve my skill as I drove along.
kept this up for maybe half an hour while approaching the city. Finally I happened to glance at my rearview mirror. There was an interesting sight.
It was dusk, the headlights were on, and I was going down a long hill to the bridges. I had a view of miles of highway behind me. In the neighboring lane I could see maybe five of the traffic stop-waves. But in the lane behind me, for miles, TOTALLY UNIFORM DISTRIBUTION. I hadn't realized it, but by driving at the average speed of the traffic around me, my car had been "eating" the traffic waves. Everyone ahead of me was caught in the stop/go cycle, while everyone behind me was forced to go at a nice smooth 35MPH or so. My single tiny car had erased miles and miles of stop-and-go traffic. Just one single "lubricant atom" had a profound effect on the turbulent particle flow within the entire miles of "tube."
I don't know how to say this kindly so I'll just say it plainly: I don't believe you get 40 mpg city in a car rated at 23 unless you're driving like the world's biggest asshole, there's just no other way to do it and even then it's a massive stretch to believe this.
One of the best things about a hybrid is auto stop. Since there's no starter noise you just kinda don't notice but you'll never waste gas while parked in traffic or at red lights.
42 mpg in a cruze Eco if you do all highway and never speed or very damn little city and hyper mile. Regular joe driving that car is never getting 42 average no matter what, period.
Hybrids are great, highly recommend each family to have one. Even a large family has a lot of 1-2 person errands and commuting and they shine in this. The technology is thoroughly mature now and fantastic.
My Cruze Eco automatic has been averaging 36 MPG for the past year or so. I don't drive quite as much as my wife, but most of my driving is highway driving with moderate traffic.
I can hit the mythical 42 MPG highway rating that they show in the advertising, but I can only do it when:
It's a long trip, on a level highway
I keep it at the speed limit
And I draft behind tractor trailers whenever possible
My best 50 mile average was 45 MPG, where I did all of the above tricks plus most of the trip was downhill