[Fat Charlie]

Ignore what the car tells you, with its Zone Of Stupidity.

Don't even watch the gauges too closely- you're not trying to hit a moving needle, you're trying to get to work. Take each acceleration event as a whole: I gave it this much gas, got to that speed, and it did this to my trip mpg. Instant mpg will be horrible while accelerating hard, but that's okay. What matters is what you do with it overall.