Hillarating and Hypermiling: Mother Jones, January-February
by Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, St. Louis, MO on 01. 1.07
If you don't know either of the H-words in the title, don't worry: both are coinages introduced in the most recent issue of Mother Jones. "Hillarating" was created by writer Jack Hitt to describe the strong reactions (OK, the hatred) elicited by former First Lady, current Senator, and potential presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in his article on the subject. "Hypermiling" is an activity many treehuggers probably already engage in at some level: tailoring one's driving habits to increase fuel efficiency. Writer Dennis Gaffney reports on a few days he spent with the "King of the Hypermilers" Wayne Gerdes, and the techniques (not all of which we'd recommend) that he uses to achieve miles per gallon ratios that are regularly 50% above average.
Other feature in this issue of MoJo include a profile of "...cable's high priest of populism, Lou Dobbs," a look at highway privatization efforts by Indiana governor Mitch Daniels and financial powerhouse Goldman Sachs, and a breakdown of the financial considerations involved in installing a solar power array on a home. The January-February issue is available at bookstores and newsstands; a subscription costs $10. ::Mother Jones, January-February, 2007
Some of the practices described in the hypermiling article are worthwhile, but some of them are clearly unsafe, even dangerous, either to the hypermiler or to other drivers on the road. It would take only one accident to wipe much of the savings in energy and money from these extreme practices. And some are just ridiculous - pushing his car out of the driveway with the engine off to get it rolling downhill? Someday he'll slip and fall, not be able to get back into the car, and wind up having it hit something.
It also fosters the notion that you have to drive in such an extreme fashion to achieve appreciable savings. And that's not true. Pareto's Law probably holds here - you can achieve most of the benefits with only a small fraction of the efforts described.
I will never want to try some of Wayne's recommended techniques, no matter how much gas I need to save. Such practices may double your mileage, but they more than double (quintuple? dodecatuple?) your risk for getting killed on the highway. Is tailgating semis, taking exit ramps at 52 mph, and pissing off other drivers an example I want to show my kids? No thanks!
I'll stick to the conservative traditional methods: drive conservatively, at or below the speed limit, keep tires inflated, and so on. As Leszek notes, you'll still get plenty of benefits.
I still recommend reading the article, though, it's well-written and interesting. And once you're finished with it, find a few REALISTIC tips for cutting down on gas consumption :-)
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Writer's note: Exactly, Susan... It was a fascinating article, but Gerdes is a bit obsessive (ok, that's an understatement). Interestingly enough, he gives pretty practical suggestions in the sidebar he wrote (which I think appears only in the print version)...
Much of the stuff in the article strikes me as proof-of-concept, rather than eco-lifestyle choices.
Although the Prius marathon achieved impressive levels of fuel efficiency, we're still talking about a group of Priuses rolling back and forth on the same 15 miles of pavement for 2 days. That is 12.8 gallons of fuel per Prius burned for the sake of curiosity or breaking a record.
The article also describes Gerdes going on a "milk run." True efficiency is achieved by maximizing the utility of any trip that requires an ICE (and thereby minimizing trips) and by using a bicycle for small errands.
In a sense, eliminating the need for one "milk run" turns your 100mpg trip to the grocery into a 200mpg trip to the grocery.
As the editor of Mother Jones, first, thanks for reading. Second, our subscriptions actually only cost $10 a year. And finally, I think that Leszek gets it right, Wayne is an obsessive and I think the writer makes it clear that he takes hypermiling WAY into the danger zone. But if you read the piece you'll never approach driving the same way again (but your backseat driving will get a lot worse).