We've had our new hybrid vehicle for about a month now. We're still enjoying the car immensely, but we're still getting used to a few of the nuances of driving the vehicle. So far, our average mileage is around 28 mpg in mixed driving. Pretty good. The part that takes the most getting used to is that the hybrid system shuts the engine off when it's not needed, and can cruise around at speeds of up to 35 mph in all electric mode - running purely off the car's batteries. I call this "Electric Golf Cart Mode" when this happens - especially at the mall or in a parking lot.

The great benefit to Electric Golf Cart Mode is that you can cruise around the parking lot looking for a parking space and not be burning any gas. This is a tremendous gas savings and does a lot to boost mileage. It does have the side effect that people no longer get out of your way when going through the parking lot at Costco for example. I was quite frustrated yesterday about this lady who was walking along, apparently oblivious to the fact that I was driving very slowly behind her, unable to pass because she was in the middle of the road. It then dawned on us that she *was* oblivious - we were cruising around on the electric motors and I'm sure she *couldn't* hear us. You're kind of stuck in this case because I think beeping your horn in this case to be really a bit rude and unnecessarily annoying.

When I worked at Six Flags Magic Mountain many years back, they had little electric cars that went around a track as a ride. These cars were originally the gasoline lawn-mower-powered cars you still see in amusements parks outside of California, but were "upgraded" to be more "clean". The year they did that, we realized, the effect of the ride was no longer the same - the cars were totally silent except for the whir of the electric motors. The solution was to add an artificial noise maker to add a sound effect. Maybe I need one of those for our car now....

The other issue is that the display on the navigation system which shows battery drain/generation is really fun to watch. Too fun to watch though. It's distracting. But it's really helpful to know how you're doing in terms of driving. I'm hoping that this issue goes away with time.

Tags: Technology