With the hybrid, and fuel so cheap, I would imagine it would be difficult to recover your investment over the entire life of the car.

Yes, I am considering that, especially if I go with some of the more expensive options. I counter that with the idea the existing wheels/tires might sell for the entire cost of the new ones since both original wheels and tires are significantly more expensive. I figure at most it's maybe $100-200 difference. Still a lot to make up but not nearly as much as the entire cost.

Putting a skinnier tire on your car will save more fuel than having rims that are lighter. If you are getting lighter wheels and skinnier tires, then the increase in the fuel mileage will be even more.

Car And Driver did an article on the Mustang GT350R and when they installed the optional carbon fiber rims, the fuel mileage didn't improve much but the handling was a lot better.

This graph is a good representation of where all the forces go while driving, RR stands for rolling resistance for the tires.

I thought dropping from 225 to 205 would make a definite difference. It’s a smaller “wall” to push through the air. That’s an interesting chart. Thanks for sharing it.

I have done a bit of research on the tyres you mention and the Michelin gets great mileage and the Continental offers better grip. Unfortunately, fuel economy is usually traded off for grip.
In theory the lighter, skinnier wheel/tyre combination should improve mpg, if you were using the same tyre compound. Personally, I found a huge drop in mpg when I fitted two new tyres to the front of my Jazz, so choice of rubber can make a big difference.
It is a big investment you are making for what may turn out to offer little improvement in FE, and may even make it worse.
I would trust the Honda engineers to have made the best choice for a hybrid vehicle, which is, after all, designed for fuel economy.

The Michelin Energy Saver tires I have do semi poorly in the Tire Rack ratings actually. I’m debating between the Michelin Defender and Premiere and the Continental, if I even do anything.

88% is not too bad and it is let down by Winter/Snow performance. Houston will hardly be hard on these tyres. Your coldest month is the same as Scotland's warmest!

No, 88% isn’t bad. And while mpg should be the ultimate goal I think my priority list is sound comfort, ride comfort, mpg, everything else. Just to mix things up further I found this interesting article.

https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests...y.jsp?ttid=121

Brand new tires have a higher rolling resistance, and I suspect are a major reason for the "break in" period on a new car before the best fuel economy is achieved.
Car engineers are balancing their choices among multiple variables. An efficient tire that is noisy, might be acceptable on an economy car, but not one of the Accord's class.

Then it is an assumption that a hybrid is designed for efficiency. The top design goal of the Prius was low emissions. It would be even more efficient if it emitted as much as most other passenger cars.

A comment on the article. Many owners of the gen2 Prius they used for testing saw uneven tire wear(more on the outside of the tread) on the OEM tires when following Toyota's recommendation for tire pressure.

You could go with the 2002-2004 OEM 16" Acura RSX wheel, which weighs 16 pounds each. Should be cheap to buy and fairly easy to find. I bought 4 for $250 with tires, sold the tires for $60. Two of those wheels turned out to be bent, and I got another set for $150 with tires. Don't remember what the tires sold for, but the remaining two rims didn't sell until the price was dropped to $20!

I did a similar wheel swap on my accord, dropping the stock 23.5 pound 17" rims with 215/50/17 tires for the 16" 16 pound RSX rims with 205/60/16 Bridgestone Ecopia EP422+ tires. If I had to do it again, I would seriously consider getting 15" rims and 205/75/15 tires, extra tall! The RSX rims have a 45mm offset, which appears to match 2018 accord rims. My previous tires were two Yokohama YK580s and two Goodyear assurance fuel maxes. The new tire and rim setup rolls noticeably better at speeds below 40 mph, but above that seems to roll about the same. I can't really narrow down any gas mileage improvements for sure, but it certainly didn't drop! Acceleration is noticeably quicker, turning traction appears to be maintained with a lot more tire noise and squishiness, and straight line traction is slightly down, but still more than adequate.

Despite going to a taller section tire, at 51 PSI front and 47 PSI rear, I did not feel a comfort improvement.