Micro-Hypermiling: Saving Gas Where You Drive the Most
by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 08.14.08
Bringing Better Fuel Economy Closer to Home
The following post may classify as stating the obvious for some, in which case I apologize, but as it’s helped me to save some gas – I thought I’d share. Let’s start from the beginning…
When I wrote about hypermiling community site CleanMPG, an anonymous commenter confessed that they could never quite get comfortable with the term hypermiling. At the risk of worsening this commenter’s jargon-overload, I’d like to propose a new term that’s been playing on my mind recently – micro-hypermiling. The idea came to me as I was driving home recently – I’ve been trying to learn the art of squeezing the most mileage out of my fuel, using the usual techniques of curbing my acceleration, keeping an eye out ahead for obstructions etc (as well as avoiding unnecessary trips of course!). However, I noticed that it’s much harder to follow these rules on unfamiliar roads, where you are a) distracted by having to learn your surroundings, and b) less able to anticipate stop signs, lights, sharp turns, hills etc. So while I continue to try and drive as efficiently as possible elsewhere, I thought it might make sense to really concentrate my efforts on the route I take most regularly – my route home.
So I’ve started memorizing the cycle at the two stop lights between my house and town, figuring out how long it takes for a red to turn green – that way I’m able to judge better when to lift the foot off the pedal when I see a red up ahead, and when to keep motoring in the anticipation that it’ll soon be green again. I’ve also learned just how far from the turn off for my house I can lift my foot off the gas, to decelerate to an appropriate speed to take the corner without using the brakes (I only do this when nobody is behind me!). On hot days I’ve started turning the AC off a few miles from home, so the remains of my journey are still cool, but I don’t crank out the cold air till the last minute.
I’ve yet to figure out just how much these small moves are saving me, but I’ve certainly noticed that by increasing my awareness of how I drive on this route, I’ve also ingrained the habit of conservation-minded driving on longer trips too. Of course the cleanest mile is going to be the mile not driven – but when I do need to leave the house, I’m confident I can do it just that little bit greener with a little forethought. Whether my newly coined term is useful or not, we’d love to hear your own tips for more efficient driving in the comments below.
More on TreeHugger about Hypermiling and Fuel Efficiency
CleanMPG: Better Fuel Economy For All
66 Ways to Save Money on Gasoline
Hypermiler Gets 124mpg in Honda Insight
Hypermiling Becoming More Popular as Gas Prices Increase
Nascar Driver Uses Hypermiling Techniques to Win Race
Hypermiling Couple Gets Two Entries in Guiness Book of Records
Learn Why Maintaining a Constant Speed Saves Gas
Team Achieves 110mpg in Prius
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I got a set of the LED tire caps that alert me when my tires are low. I also have a 1 mile section as I approach my house that's a gentle downhill of decreasing speed limits. In light traffic, I kill my engine and coast to the corner where I turn. The big one is driving just under the speed limit instead of 5 miles over. I get an extra mile or two from every gallon this way and arrive more relaxed than I used to.
This reminds me of this story on NPR.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93408952
If you're timing the cycle at the red lights, are you turning the engine off if there's enough of a wait? The rule of thumb I hear is that it's worth turning it off if you're stopped for more than 15 seconds - so if you time it well enough, you should always know whether you can avoid a few extra seconds of idling.
I think every little bit adds up. I often have to drive a ninety mile route on a freeway that has many curves. Traffic permitting, I always drive the inside line of each curve saving both fuel and tire wear.
I think it's funny you show a full fuel gauge when talking about hypermiling. If you want to get the best mileage, I wouldn't haul around an extra 100-200 lbs of fuel, especially in town.
Just avoiding one complete stop & go will save you more in gas.
FYI, a Prius uses an Atkinson gas motor setup versus the Otto - used in nearly all cars.
Otto's are designed for power. So you need to control the acceleration to short powerful bursts - not long drawn out slow acceleration.
Get into a coasting phase as soon as possible, where the engine will idle.
So you can essentially micro-hypermile in between two red lights or two stops, even if in traffic.
Let the car ahead of you do the 'slow' acceleration, then quickly catch-up.
If you drive a manual transmission, press the clutch down as soon as possible to coast to the next stop - akin to putting an automatic in Neutral - which is a dangerous thing to do.
On a Prius you can put the CVT transmission into neutral just by letting go of the gas for 1 sec, then press the gas very lightly.
With my Prius, from a red light, I accelerate quickly to the posted limit (or traffic speed), then coast with the gas pedal - to either kick in EV mode or neutral mode (no regen).
Should I need more power to keep up w/o being a traffic burden - I'll just press the gas down an inch, get the ICE to push me, then let go of the gas, glide (coast) again.
Say between two red lights (designed to always be red when you get to them), I'll only use 1 second of gas, coast the rest of the trip.
If I'm first at a red light, it means I jump ahead of the pack quickly, then as I am coasting, the pack catches up the me.
The "pack" uses gas then entire 10 second trip, even if they "coast".
Nothing fancy to do with a Prius to accomplish, just very simple footwork.
Similar to riding a bicycle. You don't pedal more than you have to, to get to the next stop. You stop pedaling and coast every now & then.
FWIW, many people have tried putting Automatics in Neutral to glide / coast. Dangerous and will provide you with a tiny fraction (possibly) of economy.
Cut your max speed to 55mph & avoid using the brakes or stopping completely. 20% easy economy.
Prius owners do this to jump for 45 MPG to 55+ in mixed driving. At low speeds a Prius can accomplish 100+mpg.
I fortunately live a mile and one half from my job. My van is scorching hot when I start up and rarely cools off before I get to work at 4p.m. The engine temp guage barely moves in the same time span. I wonder, if I had an electric ac and also a block heater that I could turn on 15 minutes before leaving the house and could simply be plugged into an extension cord, would my daily mileage actually improve?
If you really want to make an impact, use common sense.
Why are you using a 1000kg vehicle for commuting? That vehicle is used to transport you (70kg). Look at that ratio! It is 14 times heavier than you are. Absolutely daft!
Do yourself a favour, and get a motorcycle. That vehicle merely weighs twice the useful cargo. Believe me, your milage will be better than you can ever achieve with hypermiling. And you do not need aircon, and are less affected by jams and parking.
Bottom line: if you are hypermiling in a car and not on a moped/motorcycle, you are not very bright.