Camry Hybrid MPG Question - Ask Rob About Cars

I was checking out the Camry Hybrid online. Gas prices here are spiking up a bit. It says mpg is 31/35, but someone said that in winter, when running the heater, the mpg goes down. Is this true?

Thanks,

Jeff
Chicago, IL
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Hello Jeff, yes that is true. In cold weather, batteries lose efficiency which means the gasoline engine will turn on sooner and for a longer period of time, increasing fuel consumption. A recent trend is to have heated seats work in conjunction with the heater to reduce the demand on battery power from blowing heated air.

In hot weather, the same may occur with the air conditioning being constantly on even though it's equipped with an electric compressor vs. the standard accessory belt driven unit to eliminate parasitic losses.

A word of advice regarding any car with a continuously variable transmission (CVT). Make sure you drive it as you drive your current car and make sure you don’t find the constant revving objectionable when accelerating.

If most of your driving is highway and you'd like some power too, the Hyundai Sonata Turbo is rated at 32mpg highway and produces 274 horsepower on regular octane gas. Very impressive numbers.

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