My vote would be for the BMW. That car will tool you along in plush comfort all day long without getting into the cut and paste problem below (not an isolated one it appears) of going UP the hills. I’ve been down I-80 a few times and much of it is not flat at all if you are under the perception that it is.
Even the rolling plains of NE have some pretty long uphills.
I’m trying to optimize my gas mileage in my 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid with CVT transmission. Going up the hills on country roads in Connecticut is the greatest drain.
I’m trying to determine the optimal speed for long hills that I can’t simply coast up with accumulated momentum. On flats and slight inclines there seems to be a “sweet spot” in the CVT gear range at about 42 to 45 mph when the tachometer reads about 1,800 rpm. I can sometimes sustain gas consumption as good as 80 mpg. (If the tachometer is reading higher, I take my foot off the accelerator until the gears shift into a higher gear range and the tachometer drops. With a very light touch on the gas I keep the tachometer around 1,800 and avoid a downshift of the gears and an increase in the rpm. There seems to be a relatively high torque available at this point for the fuel used.)
Long hills seem to be best also around 42 mph although obviously the gas consumption gets much worse as the engine labors even with the IMA boost (which eventually discharges to the 50% on the battery and then the engine even starts recharging the battery a little)…