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Old 08-21-2012, 03:17 PM   #3 (permalink)
Maury Markowitz
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Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Canada
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White Whale - '06 Honda Civic Hybrid DX
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MetroMPG View Post
Having said all this, I think people worry far, far, far too much about accleration technique. Much more fuel savings are to be had by most drivers by focusing on the brake pedal. (Minimizing its use.)
That's what I like the most about driving a hybrid - the high amount of "engine braking" from the generator. After a few weeks I got really good at estimating the deceleration at various speeds and the amount of time my brake pads actually grip metal are probably reduced by 100 times.

Quote:
Originally Posted by MetroMPG View Post
But operating an engine close to its best BSFC point on the "curve" (map) does not equal lowest overall fuel consumption. Some people will tell you that it's always best to accelerate briskly for overall best fuel economy, but it's not as simple as that, as your dash display shows. A lot depends on "what happens next" (after accelerating) in your particular driving scenario.
Well that's just it, if my meter is at all accurate, it's the exact opposite. For example; there's an onramp I use every morning to get onto Highway 401. If I goose it right up to 105 km/h (I rarely go over that :-) and then settle into cruise, my milage will go down 0.2 or 0.3 over that few hundred meters. If I accelerate more slowly and use up the entire ramp lane plus a little of the slow lane before getting to 105, I can keep this down to 0.1.

Now mathematically, the two should be *very* close to equal, but they are not even remotely close in practice. Which is why I think I'm missing some obvious factor... or not so obvious maybe!
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