Highlander Hybrid Impressions

[bwilson4web]

Originally Posted by Sovereign

So far, I just bought a car :P I don't have shop manuals or electrical diagrams either. My current goal is to get as much out of it as possible without modding it (yet) since I don't have the money to spend on those types of things (yet). I'm just going off the base Toyota instrumentation. I'd hope that's more accurate than my father's "40MPG = 25MPG" Chevy Impala's fuel monitor.

No problem, you are in good hands!

A trick I used when we got our first Prius, 2003 model, was to fill-up twice a week, Friday evening and Sunday evening. This let me separate the daily work commute mileage from the longer, weekend drives. It let me find the vast majority of mileage tricks without confusing what works on longer drives with what we have to do to earn a living. <grins>

Originally Posted by Sovereign

It has two cigarette style power outlets up front but I haven't really read the owner's manual enough to know whether the second one is special (I did see something about household current style inverters in HHs somewhere).

My first Prius modification added a 1kW modified sine-wave inverter, originally used with my wife's 2001 Echo. In the Prius, we had some tornadoes in North Alabama and had:

• 112 hours - four days, six hours of Prius power
• two gallons per day - total of 8 gallons for the power outage
• no engine noise and 1% of carbon monoxide

Heck I ran an extension cord to my neighbor so they had lights, TV and cell phone charger.

A lot of folks don't realize what a sweet solution hbrids are for emergency power. Something to consider.

Bob Wilson

[Sovereign]

I'm guessing I'm not quite doing it right--my FE for the past few trips has been in the 23-ish range. Using pulse-and-glide as outlined for Priuses (get up to speed, get off gas so that Energy display shows NOTHING, then pulse again).

[bwilson4web]

Hi,

Originally Posted by Sovereign

I'm guessing I'm not quite doing it right--my FE for the past few trips has been in the 23-ish range. Using pulse-and-glide as outlined for Priuses (get up to speed, get off gas so that Energy display shows NOTHING, then pulse again).

Let me suggest first map out your basic performance by charting mph vs MPG:

• Find relatively, flat, no-stop route(s) ~10 miles long.
• Warm-up car by driving for ~15-20 minutes.
• Set car to a given cruise control set speed.
• Enter ~10 mile segment and reset trip meter.
• Avoid high wind days, night around midnight often works best.
• Record a pair of ~10 mile, opposite direction runs and average.
• Speeds: ~25, ~35, ~45, ~55, ~65, ~75 mph.

Consistency on speeds is more important than exact values. The chart will even everything out. This gives a baseline so you can tell if any particular change has an effect on the mileage and the most critical, HOW MUCH!

Here are two of my charts:

(First chart, just the raw data looking for 'knee in the curve.' Notice the 42 mph, Prius hybrid speed.)


(Second chart, added engine and drag model along with other Prius data.)

Once you have your basic performance chart, change one item at a time and repeat a benchmark to find out if it helps or hurts. This is not something that happens instantly but over a period of weeks and months. Accuracy is more important as you don't want to 'fool yourself' and adopt something that doesn't really work.

Now there is one speed you need to identify ... the maximum hybrid speed. This is the speed above which the engine always has to run. Below this speed, the car can alternate between engine and electric mode. You also need to map out the slowest cruise control speed.

A while back, I did some NHW11 and ZVW30 pulse and glide experiments to compare it versus the equivalent, constant speed:

• Set cruise control speed to hybrid speed + 2 mph.
• Shift into "N" for glide to minimum cruise control speed + 2-3 mph.
• Shift into "D" and hit resume on cruise control.
• Repeat for 5-10 miles and record trip meter at end.
• Perform a second pass in opposite direction.
• Using equivalent average speed, repeat route at cruise control set equivalent.

This protocol avoids any 'pedal' dance since it uses just the cruise control for the pulse and "N" for the glide. It is a way to measure the vehicle performance so you can compare it to the constant speed performance. If you still want to practice "pulse and glide," you'll have to find some mentors.

Now I notice you live in the Chicago area and if I remember correctly there is a Chicago Prius Group in the area. I don't know the details but you might see if you can visit one of their meetings and ask for help.

There is another meeting, GreenDriveExpo, in Madison WI, July 23-24 and they have a program that includes lectures and talks about hybrid vehicles and driving. I've been to one but I had booth duty and didn't get participate in the program. Plus, I had to drive 750 miles from Hunstville AL and that was a long, long day. Eric Powers organizes it and he is a good character to meet ... along with the usual suspects. <GRINS>

Bob Wilson

[SentraSE-R]

At the end of the day (or tank), I'll be surprised if the OP can achieve 30 mpg. My friends couldn't do it with their Highlander Hybrid, driving 45 mph.

[Bill in Houston]

I would have thought that a non-hybrid Highlander could have easily gotten 30 mpg at 45mph. Wonder why the hybrid is so bad.

[SentraSE-R]

A Highlander probably gets 35 mpg at 45. It suffers getting up to speed, and elsewhere. My friends were hauling five people in theirs. But I had four people in my xB on the same drive, and got >50 mpg that tank.

[Bill in Houston]

Hmmm...

[bwilson4web]

It is easy to find others who report better or worse or equal milage but such reports don't give us anything useful. For example, Fuel Economy

• 2006 Highlander, front wheel drive
• 29 vehicles
• 25.2 Avg, 21 - 30 MPG range

Not posted are any four wheel drive Highlanders and we don't know what kind this one is. There are other sources. But we still don't know this Highlander hybrid performance characteristics.

Bob Wilson

[Sovereign]

This one's a 4x4 (4WD-i).

[bwilson4web]

Originally Posted by Sovereign

This one's a 4x4 (4WD-i).

From Fuel Economy :

• 43 vehicles, 2006
• 24.7 MPG average
• 21-31 MPG

For managing user expectations, this is a start.

BTW, this is how the user mileage records look:


My observation is we don't know enough about the normal performance of the Highlander Hybrid to speculate about how to efficiently maintain and drive it. In short, you're at the beginning of a marathon and the trick is methodically map it out ... experiment ... and monitor the results.

GOOD LUCK!
Bob Wilson