Highlander Hybrid Impressions
 

I know the eco-conscious around here are going to groan ("hybrid tanks"), but that's what I'm looking at. It appears the car I really wanted (Ford Escape Hybrid) is already bought but still physically at the dealer. Mind, the guy said "There were two salesmen who were making a deal on this car but they're not here so I'll call you tomorrow and tell you whether the deal is actually going to go through."

Could be the dealer gaming me. If not, my first choice of ride is now out the window. Note: I have a string bass and a giant computer that need to fit in here. If I join a community orchestra, the bass will need to continue to fit. Towing requirements nixed the Prius I was looking at (zero LBS officially). I will not do "kits" to add towing when the automaker says "no tow."

Anyway, what is the general impression of the 2006 Highlander Hybrid? Edmunds suggests 25MPG, other sites say up to 30MPG is possible. There are horror stories about batteries failing, but I have a feeling this is the "people complain more than praise anything on the internet" principle kicking in...

Sheesh, I get 25 in an Element without trying that hard. You should definitely be able to do better than that in a Highlander.

How about a Ford Transit Connect? Plenty of room for the string bass, modular design, four cylinder.

21/26 mpg rated. No need to go hybrid, just drive it right.

2011 Ford Transit Connect Vehicle | The Right Commercial Van For All Kinds of Cargo | Ford.com

I volunteered in Bryce Canyon NP last Fall with another Bay Area couple who own a Highlander hybrid. They drove it very slowly - 45 mph to a dinner 75 miles away - but were short of 30 mpg for their trip to Utah.

Mike (the husband) and I took turns driving the park's Prius. I beat his mpg by about 10%. He'd get 55 mpg, I'd get 60. Or he'd get 60, I'd get 65 mpg. He wasn't doing anything wrong driving the Prius, so I conclude the Highlander is a FSP. Mike said its HSD worked just like the Prius.

I've heard of folks getting 60 mpg with the Escape hybrid. I'd hold out for that if I were you.

FSP means what?

Fuel sucking pig.

Haha. The Escape Hybrid is gone--still listed but a done deal as of last week.

So Highlanders it is. Call me shallow, but a Ford Transit Connect just doesn't appeal to me. Also, these Highlanders are being listed well below KBB/Edmunds, and are loaded to boot.

Sorry to threadbump: Got a 2006 Highlander Limited 4x4 w/43k miles. Managed 34.1MPG on a combined city/highway trip out to the dealer to deliver the credit union's check, 21MPG on "those crappy little trips" (four trips to the post office less than a mile away because I'm an idiot).

Learned coasting > braking in terms of regeneration. I mean, if you drain the battery all the way and the ICE has to recharge it, you're defeating the point, right?

First let me offer what seems to be missing:

CONGRATULATIONS!

I have only test driven the Ford Escape hybrid and probably one of a dozen, Saturn VUE two-mode, pre-production SUVs and they are very nice rides. Two of my highly respected hybrid friends, Patrick Wong and GeorgiaHybrid both have Highlander hybrids. IMHO, the FSP comment was made by . . . lets leave it at that.

Have you bought the Toyota shop manuals and electrical schematics from Toyota? I know they are expensive but worth it (well at least to me.)

Does your Highlander include a house power inverter?

The reason I ask is today I've been getting the "glue" to add a 1.5/3..0 kW inverter to my wife's 2010 Prius. In another day or so, I'll have the first version ready for testing.

What sort of OBD reader/reccorder do you have (or planed?) I've been using AutoEnginuity and ScanGauge II. Given it is a somewhat rare hybrid, the options are limited but the unanswered question is 'what are your goals and objects.'

Like I posted before, congratulations on a neat find and best of luck!

Bob Wilson

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.

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).

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>

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

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).

Hi,
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:
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/epa.jpg
(First chart, just the raw data looking for 'knee in the curve.' Notice the 42 mph, Prius hybrid speed.)

http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/ca..._MPG_Rev_B.jpg
(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

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.

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

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.

Hmmm...

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

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:
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/HH_010.jpg

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

I have figured out some things I'm not doing correctly (without even doing detailed tests, yet).

I think my "pulses" are both too aggressive and not taken high enough over the posted speed limit, so I spend 2/3 of my time pulsing and 1/3 gliding. That's probably not helping. Combined with the simple fact the HiHy is a bigger vehicle and cannot "glide" as far, P&G needs to be done much more carefully, if at all (see next paragraph).

My best MPG (34.1) made much heavier use of the traction battery than "P&G" does. Obviously, draining the TB means it has to be recharged, and while the ICE can do that, it defeats the point.

As a result, I will be testing the "Prius Method" but I doubt it will work best for the HiHy. So long as the TB isn't drained heavily and recharged by the ICE, I believe HiHy gets the best mileage when more electric power is used, but is regenerated. So, it looks more like "pulse, electric speed maintain, regenerate."

On the highway, I'm guessing P&G is my best bet though, because over 40MPH the engine insists on running.

Self-Bump
On a 34 mile trip (some of it caused by my poor sense of direction), I achieved the following.
http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/1353/30mpg.jpg
This was extremely mixed, but I'd say more of it was actually higher-speed (40MPH and up) than lower.

You've got your work cut out for you to top 30 mpg over a full tank of gas, but you're likely the first to try seriously hypermiling the Highlander hybrid. In order to maintain my average, I need many 55-60 mpg trips to offset the occasional 35 mpg trip. You'll need 40 mpg trips to offset the occasional low 20 mpg trip.

I doubt you'll see any measurable benefit to P&G until your glide times are twice as long as your pulse times.

Looks like you've achieved a best . . . no need to be subscribed to this thread.

GOOD LUCK!
Bob Wilson

Just drove out almost to Boston (Weymouth, MA). Screen said 25-26MPG. Hand-calc at the pump says 24.5-25.5. Speed was 65-70MPH, loaded to the brim with 3 passengers and cargo because I'm moving to start my new job. Add a small-ish cartop carrier which reduces efficiency further. To get an idea of the load: it is so heavy that the back shocks (or whatever those are, I'm not a car guy) have 1" of clearance before hitting the tires. Oh, the A/C was on too.

This is an efficient little SUV as I was honestly expecting 20MPG. EPA says 25. They're doing it wrong :P

I wonder what I could get if I didn't have hundreds of extra pounds and a cartop carrier?