From my understanding, the way "Eco mode" operates is to make your car run more efficiently and burn less gas by restricting how quickly you can accelerate and regulating the transmission.
Just doing back of the envelope calculations and based on my anecdotal evidence, my car averages around 37 mpg highway in Eco mode and 33-34 without it. (All I have to do to engage it is press a little button next to the steering wheel and it switches to Eco mode). I have an 11 gallon tank, so pressing that button (and assuming I have it engaged every time I drive) saves me an extra gallon every time I fill up my car. I fill up about once a week so that adds up to $150 in annual savings based on $3.00 per gallon for gas.
Really the only times I have ever regretted using the Eco button were in situations when I needed to accelerate quickly. My car has the lowest horsepower of any car in its class (I am talking the absolute worst) and so deploying the Eco button takes me from pathetic acceleration to having the acceleration of a two speed bike.
Occasionally that will result in terrifying encounters with trucks, like once when I was pulling onto the freeway at an entrance with an extremely short distance within which traffic entering the highway had to merge. An eighteen wheeler was going way over the speed limit next to me and another car was rushing up behind me and cut in front of me to merge. I found myself standing up on the accelerator and screaming "come on come on" at my car at the top of my lungs and I somehow made it in front of the truck. I was almost toast and didn't use the eco setting for weeks afterwards.
On the whole, however, there are not that many times I really need the extra horsepower besides the occasional brush with death on the highway so I generally use the Eco mode to save a few bucks every time I am in the car.
Again, this is not a huge savings but enough that you should pay attention to it, in my opinion.
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