2012 Toyota Camry Hybrid: Test Drive Review

Cars like the 2012 Toyota Camry Hybrid are not supposed to be liked by adrenaline-fueled auto writers, but after a week behind the wheel, I found myself pleasantly surprised. The ride is smooth and quiet, the interior is spartan but comfortable, and I had enough fun behind the wheel that the soft steering didn?t bother me at all. That was, until I reviewed my average fuel economy figures.

Besides a couple of subtle badges, there isn't much to visually differentiate the Camry Hybrid from the gasoline-powered Camry. That's a very good thing. The Camry has been the No. 1 selling car in America over the past decade because it's solidly built, extremely comfortable and quiet. Its suspension swallows up imperfections in the road without transmitting them to your butt, and wind and engine noise are basically nonexistent. Inside, Toyota uses quite a bit of plastic but does so tastefully, with interesting design and contrasting materials. I drove the Camry LE Hybrid, but you can also spring for the Camry XLE Hybrid with optional Navigation if you're looking for a little more jazz.

The 2012 Toyota Camry LE Hybrid is EPA rated at 41 MPG, or 43 city and 39 highway, which had me excited to analyze the car as a fuel-saving tool for the common commuter. More and more people are buying new cars based on fuel efficiency, and the trusty 2.5L four-cylinder hybrid from Toyota always promises some of the best returns around. But after 347 miles of combined city/highway driving, I had only managed 34.5 overall MPG. What gives?

Part of it may have been my driving style, I suppose. There are actually several different ways to drive the 2012 Camry Hybrid, and I tried messing around with all of them.

The most intriguing is EV Mode, which runs the car on pure electric power for up to 1.6 miles. I tried to use this as much as possible, but it proved to be difficult. Accelerate too quickly off the line? EV Mode deactivated. Exceed 25 miles per hour? EV Mode deactivated. The funny thing is that these are perfect conditions for bumper-to-bumper gridlock. It might actually make sense to purposefully get stuck in traffic if you own a Toyota Camry Hybrid.

My preferred method was to charge the regenerative brakes as much as possible, to build up juice for EV Mode. Simply braking will do the trick, but you can increase the force, and therefore the energy to recharge the EV battery, by switching to the B gear. This slows your car the instant you let off the accelerator, and makes braking extremely abrupt even under normal conditions. I only used it when slowing to a stop sign or red light (otherwise I was just wasting momentum) and it occurred to me that this may be the ?manual transmission? of the future; shifting between Drive and Regen Braking, and toggling from Eco Mode to EV Mode to save as much fuel as possible. Anyone who grew up with three pedals probably just threw their cup of yogurt at the computer monitor.

Anyway, after a few days of this, I felt that I had found a rhythm suitable for as much EV driving as possible. I could hardly believe that it had fallen nearly ten miles per gallon short. All kinds of factors could be blamed ? from the 50-degree Southern California temperatures and dense ocean air to my use of the defroster and spirited on-ramp acceleration tests ? but in the end I drove the car exactly as intended.

At a base price of $25,995 MSRP, the 2012 Toyota Camry Hybrid is a sizeable value for a comfortable mid-sized sedan with a truly smooth ride. It?ll even surge forward when you need, and steering is noticeably tighter than in past generations. Beware that those MPG ratings are highly dependent on how and where you drive, but in the end, the 2012 Toyota Camry LE Hybrid is a solid choice for those looking for a dependable car with more character than your standard egg-shaped eco-mobile.

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