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Finally got a week's driving in a C. It's astounding what short trips can do.
My daughter goes to school just one and a half miles away. Unfortunately, it's across two national roads with heavy traffic and no place to walk or bike. So I have to drive her and fifteen pounds of book and bag over there.
Average economy is a measly 25-28 mpg. If I drive on a warm engine, flex my eco-muscles and get more aggressive on regen and EV use at both ends of the trip, I can just eke out 35 mpg. Best I can manage in a gasoline car on that route is around 23.5 mpg cold and 30 mpg warmed up. But that's a one-liter microcar. Our CR-V gets a nasty 13 mpg on e same route!
But on trips two to five miles long, 37+ mpg is easy. And once on the highway, I can build up enough charge to average 60-65 mpg, depending on city traffic at the end of my 10 mile highway trip.
But man, are these batteries small. After a few minutes of gas-only driving, the controller stops charging and starts recirculating power. The only way to get it to charge a little more is to use aggressive regen. After that, just five to six minutes in stop-and-go with the AC on drains them flat.
That said, kind of impressed that I was able to get over two miles out of EV mode. Useless as it is, overall.
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