Important details:
I drive too fast to get hypermilage results, but the insight central forum members consistently get over 80 mpg in their insights. I get best mileage staying beteen 60 and 75 miles/hour, depending on terrain.
I have a 5-speed insight and a 60-mile round trip commute on the NJ Turnpike against traffic, generally flat but with one or two hills on the north-end of the trip.
Temperatures really started to warm up in the middle of March 2006 and my mileage jumped by 5 mpg without changing my driving habits. It’s amazing how a little warmth can affect your efficiency!
I haven’t super-inflated my tires yet, but plan to do so.
Note: FCD = fuel consumption display, the dynamically calculated MPG indicator on the dash. it matches closely with my calculated mpg, which is based entirely on how topped off the gas station attendent wants to leave the tank. hey – I’m in NJ, I’m not ALLOWED to pump my own gas!
Update: on sunday (4/9) matt and I super-inflated my tires on our way home from albany. we got roughly 53-55 mpg on the way up, and on the way back we got around 62-64 mpg! that’s a big difference. I also put tire minders on to the valve stems so I can tell at a glance if my pressure is lower than I want it to be. I bought 40 psi minders for the front, 38 for the back. I inflated to 44+ish on the front, 42-ish on the back. /edit.
Update (5/10): driving at the fast speeds that I do, I’m really noticing how the mileage is easily influenced. For example, I drove to Albany on 4/24 through heavy rains and my mileage dropped by 3 mpg, roughly. the drive TO albany is very hard on mileage (apparently it’s overall uphill), while the drive FROM is much easier. Also, with 2 people in the car to achieve mileage over 60 mpg you really do have to go the speed limit. which wouldn’t be a big deal, except I have a v. hard time doing that. [[sidenote: not sure what will come of it, but Gov. Corzine has proposed lowering the NJ speed limit to 55 mph in an effort to force people to drive more efficiently. Am not sure where that will go, but it’s a better solution to the “gas crisis” than handing out $100 refunds! while that will power ME for nearly 2,000 miles, it probably won’t be a big help for others.]]
Update (6/8): for some reason, the last couple of tanks have a different calculated mpg than the car determines. I think it’s b/c I’ll have a really efficient leg of a trip, and the rest of the trip not so efficient. The car might not be able to figure it out. Speaking of that, I had a trip home from Albany wherein I stayed on Rt 22 all the way south (couldn’t go over 55 mph) and got a personal best trip of 173.9 miles at 72.1 mpg. Not bad! And this morning, my trip to work after my fill-up has been in the low 70s so far. Also crazy great!
Something I think is really wild about the insight is that you can immediately see the difference driving styles and conditions make on the mileage. The self-reported mpg at green hybrid show the largest standard deviation amongst insight drivers – almost 2x larger than any other vehicles std. dev. I think that’s pretty awesome.
Update (6/19): I must have gotten used to people checking out the insight, but this weekend my sister Rachel and I drove around together and she kept commenting on all the looks we got. Of course, it could have been two fine looking young ladies, but it might have been the 60+ mpg bumpersticker and the wheel skirts (or pants, as I like to call them).
Update (9/8): my mileage has been going down over the last couple of tanks. I had a really brilliant month of july with the lifetime mpg going up up up! and then… I don’t know, I started to drive faster? the weather cooled off a little? I went on a camping trip with a very loaded down car? my current tank mileage is shot too, because I drove my car up and down the very hilly taconic parkway in remnant-of-ernesto winds. I need to cool it and get off of the gas pedal. Maybe what would make tracking this easier would be a calculated average speed as part of the FCD displays. I would LOVE to break a 70 mpg tank before the weather cools off and I’d really have to slow down to achieve it.
and can you believe that I’ve driven 20K in this wee little car? I’m so glad I got a hybrid, I am really packing on the miles.
Update (10/25): I broke the lifetime 60 mpg mark! yay! now I feel a lot happier about having my 60+ MPG bumpersticker. I had some really stellar tanks of gas, but I am still driving too fast to get past 70 mpg regularly. my current tank of gas is bouncing between 59.9 and 60.1 LMPG and I hope it hits the 60.1 when I refill.
