My wife swears that when she turns on the AC in her 2007 Camry Hybrid mileage per gallon goes down drastically. She claims that w/o AC her car does around 40 MPG and with AC around 34 or less. Please help
Sounds reasonable. With the AC engaged the engine has to run constantly to drive the compressor and it’ll get roughly the same mileage as a non-hybrid Camry.
Thanks! Now that I thought about it your comment makes a lot sense. Instead of coasting, say, down a hill, the engine is constantly running because of the AC compressor. I was thinking that with new technology the compressor would not put that much load on the engine. But I just remembered that the engine is a 4 banger…
Happy biking!
It’s more than that. Most hybrids shut down the engine when sitting at a red light if the A/C is off. If it is on, the engine continues to idle, getting 0 MPG.
One other thing to remember - 34 mpg is still good. MPGs can be misleading, going from 40 to 34 mpg is a much smaller drop in gas consumption than going from, say, 18 to 12 mpg.