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There’s a new trend taking the roadways by storm. It’s called “hypermiling,” the fine art of using all sorts of tips, tricks and driving techniques to squeeze every last drop of fuel economy out of your car. And with gas prices at an all time high, this trend is gaining traction. Hypermiling has been the subject of reports by major publications and news outlets from Forbes to NBC, and it's being talked about in car and driver forums all across the internet. But is all this talk about Hypermiling really wrapped around new ideas, or is it just a new retread put over the same old maxims for saving gas we’ve been hearing since World War Two? In the 1940’s and 50’s, when a world war was making gas rationing a matter of daily life for people all around the planet, getting good gas mileage was a major preoccupation for most drivers. And the techniques that were established during and just after the gas rationing back then turned into standards that have stood the test of time. I’ll bet you already know them all… Make sure your tires are properly inflated to the manufacturer’s suggested psi (pounds per square inch.) Under inflated tires can reduce your car’s fuel economy and, in addition, pose a safety hazard. Removing excess weight from your car can help you get better miles per gallon. The U.S. Department of Energy says that drivers can expect to save anywhere from 3 to 6 cents a gallon (assuming a per gallon price of $3.00) just by removing that bag of golf clubs and the 45 pounds of cat litter you’ve been carrying around in your trunk for the last three weeks. Drive the speed limit and drive sensibly. Rapid starting and stopping wastes fuel and turns mpg statistics on their head. Smooth breaking and acceleration, coupled with driving at the recommended speed can go a long way toward taking the pinch off your pocketbook. If your vehicle came equipped with cruise control, using it can help you get better gas mileage, especially on long trips. A 2005 study by the automotive website Edmunds dot com determined that using cruise control at highway speeds offered, on average, a fuel economy savings of 7%. Other ideas just seem like common sense: don’t let your car idle excessively. Don’t waste gas by accelerating up to red lights and stop signs, just so you can come to a screeching halt. Keep your vehicle well maintained. There are all ideas the hypermilers embrace, but a close look shows there’s more to hypermiling than just rehashing old maxims. The true hypermiler is obsessed with squeezing every last drop of energy out of each gallon of gas. And in pursuit of that goal, they relentless track down techniques and tactics, put them to the test, use technology to pinpoint what’s effective and what’s not and then work to refine the results. All that experimentation and documentation has produced a body of finely tuned techniques for improving on gas mileage to the point where many a hypermiler considers it mundane to get 30 to 50 miles to a gallon of gas. Generally this is done by minimizing acceleration and breaking. But least you think that hypermiling consists of nothing more than driving around like a 90-year old nun, consider this—some of hypermilings techniques are so dangerous that even avid hypermilers will tell you to go to a professional driving instructor to learn them. Skills like riding the draft of other vehicles are just too tricky to be considered learn-as-you-go projects. |
