diff --git a/vllm/envs.py b/vllm/envs.py
index 4c413006a6413..46c5b3a1dc5d0 100644
--- a/vllm/envs.py
+++ b/vllm/envs.py
@@ -99,7 +99,7 @@ if TYPE_CHECKING:
     VLLM_MARLIN_USE_ATOMIC_ADD: bool = False
     VLLM_V0_USE_OUTLINES_CACHE: bool = False
     VLLM_TPU_DISABLE_TOPK_TOPP_OPTIMIZATION: bool = False
-    VLLM_TPU_BUCKET_PADDING_GAP: int = 64
+    VLLM_TPU_BUCKET_PADDING_GAP: int = 0
 
 
 def get_default_cache_root():
@@ -648,7 +648,7 @@ environment_variables: dict[str, Callable[[], Any]] = {
     # 8, we will run forward pass with [16, 24, 32, ...].
     "VLLM_TPU_BUCKET_PADDING_GAP":
     lambda: int(os.environ["VLLM_TPU_BUCKET_PADDING_GAP"])
-    if "VLLM_TPU_BUCKET_PADDING_GAP" in os.environ else 64,
+    if "VLLM_TPU_BUCKET_PADDING_GAP" in os.environ else 0,
 }
 
 # end-env-vars-definition
diff --git a/vllm/v1/worker/tpu_model_runner.py b/vllm/v1/worker/tpu_model_runner.py
index edf859f0b9463..cf5c56b98beaa 100644
--- a/vllm/v1/worker/tpu_model_runner.py
+++ b/vllm/v1/worker/tpu_model_runner.py
@@ -944,18 +944,35 @@ def _get_paddings(min_token_size: int, max_token_size: int,
                   padding_gap: int) -> list[int]:
     """Generate a list of padding size, starting from min_token_size, 
     ending with a number that can cover max_token_size
-    first increase the size to twice, 
-    then increase the padding size by padding_gap.
+    
+    If padding_gap == 0 then:
+        increase 2X each time (exponential)
+    else:
+        first increase the size to twice, 
+        then increase the padding size by padding_gap.
     """
     paddings = []
     num = min_token_size
-    while num <= padding_gap:
-        paddings.append(num)
-        num *= 2
-    num //= 2
-    while num < max_token_size:
-        num += padding_gap
-        paddings.append(num)
+
+    if padding_gap == 0:
+        logger.info("Using exponential paddings:")
+        while num <= max_token_size:
+            logger.info("    %d", num)
+            paddings.append(num)
+            num *= 2
+
+    else:
+        logger.info("Using incremental paddings:")
+        while num <= padding_gap:
+            logger.info("    %d", num)
+            paddings.append(num)
+            num *= 2
+        num //= 2
+        while num < max_token_size:
+            num += padding_gap
+            logger.info("    %d", num)
+            paddings.append(num)
+
     return paddings