I totally understand why they build in the reserve. Can you imagine the lawsuits in this day and age if people ran out of fuel in the "bad part of town" or on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere in a blizzard. Unfortunately, the manufacturers have to factor this in to this basic part of driving.
That being said, we went to leave for a trip a couple days ago and I found that my wife had not only ran her 2014 down to E, but the range said 0. She said the light had been on "for a little while". While I've driven with the light on for a bit in our other Toyotas, not having prior experience with this situation in this particular vehicle, I was worried whether we'd make it to the gas station. Imagine my surprise when even topping it off, I only could get 13.06 gallons back in. I think that a 3 gallon reserve left when the range says 0 is a little bit too conservative on Toyota's part especially when the owner's manual says the light comes on at 2.4 gallons or less (which is certainly not true on ours).
