I bought a Honda Jazz Hybrid about 4 months ago having owned a string of Jazz cars over the last 17 years. Even the standard Jazz was reasonably economical but I had the chance to buy a 2 years old Jazz Hybrid and was wondering what is the MPG for the Honda jazz Hybrid, as I was eagerly anticipating getting a good rate with the hybrid functionality.

When I first got it, it had done about 5,000 miles and from the dashboard stats it was doing around 55mpg. I thought this was a bit disappointing as it was only about 20% better then the standard Jazz.

I drove it like a normal car and I managed to edge up the mpg slightly to around 60mpg. This was leaving the stats showing from when I bought it.

Petrol prices continued to rise to record levels and I decided it was time to really try and maximise the electric component of the car. I paid more attention to when the car was using the electric motor and when the petrol motor was cutting in. Driving around town, it was often using the petrol motor when pulling away or accelerating. When driving on motorways it was using the petrol motor almost exclusively when driving over 60mph.

I read an interesting article in the Times about saving fuel (you can find it here but you do need a subscription to read it). It reminded me of a few points that I think I knew (plus a few other useful things) – including to drive slower on motorways.

So I set up an experiment for myself on a couple of long journeys that I had to make. The first was 100 miles from Ipswich to Crawley which involved driving the A12, M25 and M23 (plus a few minor roads at the beginning and end). I tried to drive at 58 mph most of the way but there were some quite long roadworks on the A12 set at 40mph (which actually helped!). Anyway, on the way there I managed to achieve 74mpg which I thought was very good.

I could see the electric motor cutting in a lot of the time when the car was on the flat or going downhill which really helped with the mpg. I had to speed up a few times when overtaking but overall I was going around 58mph or 40mph in the roadworks.

Obviously it takes a bit longer to get places when you are not driving as fast but it was only about an extra 10-15 minutes on the journey and I wasn’t in a rush so it didn’t matter.

On the way back, going in the opposite direction, I was in more of a hurry so I drove at the speed limit the whole way. This time the fuel efficiency came in at 62mpg, which was a significant decrease.

I had another journey – Ipswich to Southampton to make which was 176 miles. Again I wasn’t really in a rush so I tried for maximum fuel efficiency. There was also some traffic that slowed me down so that added to it and I ended that journey on 79.6mpg – very impressive!

There are obviously downsides to driving at 58 mph. You have to be quite chilled and not bothered about what other people are thinking – to be fair there seemed to be quite a few other people doing it on my journeys as the trend to save money has become a necessity. Of course the journey will take longer but if you have the time then it is worth doing.

So really the key to better mpg is simple – drive more evenly and slowly where possible and with less acceleration.