Barrelin' down the Boulevard...

I can't wait for the next time that I fill up my gas tank. Sean (my son) has motivated me to do some hypermiling, and I am eager to see the results. It all started when he sent me an email after my post about cars and my complaint that Honda seemed to be regressing in their fuel efficiency designs. Sean came to Honda's defense, "I was just scanning through your blog...You need to consider that an '08 Fit has all kinds of extra safety features like air bags, ABS brakes, power steering etc. that add weight to the vehicle. It probably also has A/C, power windows and locks, and more than an AM radio with two speakers. It might even have a digital clock which is well known to be an energy hog. Anyway, today's lower fuel economy ratings are not as bad as they seem. If Honda was to build the '85 Civic today it would get a horrible safety rating and no one would buy it. As it is, they make cars that are much safer and more comfortable without sacrificing much fuel economy."

Good points, all (nice to see Sean putting that engineering education to good use). I would still trade the power windows and the digital clock (why does that use so much energy?) for a Fit that got 10 more MPG, but I admit I'm not your typical car buyer. Sean went on to tell me about hypermiling, which is a combination of car modifications and driving techniques which enable one to get much better gas mileage than the certified MPG posted on the sticker. I visited a couple of hypermiling web sites, which are run by gas-sipping fanatics, to learn how I can "hypermile". They make some fairly ridiculous suggestions, such as to follow 1-2 car lengths behind a tractor-trailer, to benefit from the draft effect. Picturing this reminded me of that old joke, "Why do bulldogs have flat noses?" for which the answer is "From chasing parked cars.". I think I'd like a lot more than 1-2 car lengths between me and a speeding 18 wheeler. There are also suggestions to park in the highest spot in the parking lot, so as to be able to get off to a rolling start (which led me to imagine parking lots designed by M.C. Escher, which always lead down hill no matter where you park), and a suggestion to jettison all unnecessary weight (alas, no more driving around with a bull moose strapped to the hood), as more poundage means less mpg.

I took three tips to heart, and have implemented them this week. These are:
* coasting whenever possible,
* avoiding jack-rabbit starts & stops, and
* inflating tires well above the standard 32 PSI.

Coasting (taking my car out of gear and taking my foot off the gas) is a piece of cake for me, since I drive over Temple Mountain twice a day. The mountain provides me with two lengthy down-hill slopes to support my free-wheeling. If I ignore the speed limit I can coast a good 6-7 miles (fully one-third of my trip) on the way to work and 3-4 miles on the return home (because the east side of Temple is a bit less steeply inclined). The speed limit is a problem. If I hit the brakes to keep my speed close to the posted 50 MPH on the steeper stretches, then I lose too much momentum to make it over the one or two little rises that break the otherwise continuous 7 mile downhill run from Temple to Wilton. I'm thinking of suggesting that speed limit laws be modified for hypermilers, as it seems to me that conserving kinetic energy is more valuable than safety.

I'm having a harder time with not being a jack-rabbit. I can still hear my mother repeating (endlessly, it seemed, when I was young) "patience is a virtue". She did her best in a futile attempt to help me become more zen-like. I remain decidedly un-zen, especially when in my car. I view driving as a competitive event, the goal of which is to get somewhere faster than the other people with whom I am forced to share the road. I "game" stop-lights when there are two lanes, trying to guess which lane will move more quickly when the light turns green (a general rule of thumb is to pick the shorter line, unless there is a big truck in it). I hate passing someone slow and then ending up in the wrong lane and watching them pass me again. It's like I've gone backwards. In any case, I'm working on driving like the Dalai Lama (does he drive, or teleport?). It is not easy.

Lastly, I've inflated my tires, up to 40 PSI (the owner's manual suggests 30-32 PSI, for a soft, comfortable ride). From what I read on the hypermiling sites 40 PSI is a good place to start. The hypermiling web sites caution readers that higher tire pressures may result in a stiffer ride, but I didn't notice any difference. I am going to check the tire manufacturer's recommendations and maybe go up to 45 PSI, or even higher.

So here I am, impatient (I hear you, mom) to go to the gas station and fill 'er up. My tank holds a little more than 11 gallons, and I was getting 38-40 MPG before I tried a little hypermiling. The hypermiler web sites talk of gains of 10% to 50% (the higher numbers come from those tail-gating drivers with the flat noses). Right now the tank is about half -full (not half-empty) and I've gone 280 miles. I may not be able to wait until it's empty. Come to think of it, driving with a half-full gas tank all the time, because of its lower weight, might be another technique to achieve higher MPG. Or I could buy bigger tires for the rear wheels, so that I'd be going downhill all the time:) What other things should I try?