Hypermilers: Pushing cars to 70 mpg
Wired has an article about pushing your car to the limits of its fuel economy … to get 40, 50, 60, and perhaps 70 mpg from your car — even if its not a hybrid.
“Hypermilers Push the Limits of Fuel Efficiency” is filled with links to sites providing tips on how you might be able to see those levels from your existing car.
Tim Fulton, a 25-year-old designer from West Bend, Wisconsin … routinely gets 55 mpg from his 1997 Toyota Paseo, a car the EPA rates at 29 mpg.
Rick Harrell, a moderator at the website ecomodder.com … [is] driving a 1998 Acura Integra and getting as much as 40 mpg in a car the EPA rates at 24.
Wayne Gerdes, founder of cleanmpg.com … recently drove a Honda Civic hybrid 800 miles from Chicago to New York on a single tank of gas. That works out to 65 mpg.
Darin Cosgrove of Brockville, Ontario, co-founder of ecomodder.com averages 69 mpg in his 1998 Geo Metro, a car that got 40 mpg off the showroom floor. He’s gotten as many as 133 mpg on a long trip by going slowly and using pulse and glide. He’s also modified his car to make it more aerodynamic and tinkered with the drivetrain to improve efficiency.
I’ve used some of the techniques that these “hypermilers” are suggesting, just as a matter of good driving habits, and I’ve regularly gotten 32+ mpg “city miles” from my 1995 Honda Civic (rated 34 hwy/28 city), which I bought new in ‘95, and recently rolled over 180,000 miles.
Some of the tips that are suggested in the 100+ hypermiling / ecodriving tips to increase gas mileage are common sense, others are interesting, and a few (such as drafting or turning off your engine to coast downhill) can be dangerous.
I’ve easily saved by slowing down, coasting to stops, knowing the timing of the lights on my regular route to and from work, and not accelerating hard.
I haven’t checked my mileage in the last few months of fill-ups, but still see how many days I can go between visits to the gas station.
I have a budgeted dollar amount for gas every 2 weeks — $30. I usually don’t have a problem getting wherever I need to go in that two weeks on that amount. Often, I go beyond 14 days.
I’ll pay more attention to my mileage and number of days between fill-ups and report back.
Have you changed your driving habits now that gas has hit a national average of $4.00+ per gallon? What kind of mileage are you getting, from what type of vehicle, with what type of mileage rating? What tips do you have for increasing your fuel efficiency?
