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Any winter advantage to newer FEH's vs pre-08's?

Created June 29, 2009, at 3:26 pm by ranger1

I'm wondering if programming, change in engine of other factors has made the FEH a better 'severe' winter hybrid. You see I live where winter temps can average -20 Deg C for weeks. Thus, as a new hybrid owner, having bought last summer, I was a little disappointed at how 'unhybrid' the FEH turned out to be in the winter. For example, at those low temps it would take a drive of, oh, say 40/45mins plus before the vehicle might consider going electric. Even then, I would notice that the head temps and cat temps, which seem to play a big part in going to electric would drop rapidly after the engine stopped, causing the engine to restart when it had barely been in electric. EG. Sitting at a light, if I didn't stick it in N I obs that the engine would restart in often less than 30secs! And yes, I winter fronted it.

So, any experience with newer FEH's in cold climes?

Bit of a rant:
Even during the warm times I have not been impressed at how you really have to work the vehicle to get it to go electric, eg. the double tap (when it seems it should have gone EI mode itself without such 'hinting'), and my such a light foot on the gas when in EI, but especially when starting off from a stop that one almost needs to drive barefoot!

Sure you don't have to do those things, however, If you drove it like a normal vehicle, well sometimes it would go electric and of course stop at lights, but I bet the hit would be 5 plus mpg or more.