Driving to save money and gas

This morning I was driving back from my morning swim and I hit a red light. When it turned green, I did what I usually do - I gradually pulled away from the light until I finally hit the speed limit (45) when I was about 1/2 mile from the light. The person behind me responded typically - he sped up, pulled around me, and then pulled in front of me, prevented from further movement by the person in front of him. I'm always amazed at this. Perhaps they don't trust that I will eventually hit the 45 mph if I don't make a jack-rabbit start. I sometimes watch to see just where these people end up, and it is usually not much further than me. So what gives? What's the big hurry?

I can understand if this behavior comes predominately from teenagers, but that doesn't appear to be the case. I have a theory about this: I don't think people have any idea that what they are doing is costing them money, and that if they drove a bit differently they would save both money and fuel. I have a car (Prius) with a display screen that shows me in real time what my mileage is. It is shown below. Because my car was parked when I took this picture (always recommended), you can't see that the bar graph on the right varies between 0 and 100, depending on what my current mpg ratio is is. When I started driving this car, I learned that if I took my foot off the pedal and glided a bit my mileage would improve. I also found that paying attention to how I started and stopped at lights helped. Yesterday my mileage read at about 53 mpg.



So here's the idea for the day: How about just taking your time at lights? If you are approaching a red light, take your foot off the pedal and glide in. Accelerate slowly when leaving a light. You don't need to own a hybrid car to see mileage improvement. Remember, this is saving money and it's saving gas. I keep thinking about the millions of barrels of oil that are spilling into the Gulf right now, in part because our lifestyles require it. None of us know what to do about it. I say let's focus on what we can do. If something as simple as slower starts and stops from traffic lights can improve mileage, require less gasoline/oil, AND save money...well, seems like a slam dunk to me.

Hypermiling Challenge

OK, at today's Tuesday meeting we talked about an article Mitzi brought in on hypermiling, which is a technique for improving gas mileage utilizing specific driving techniques. Hypermilers are people who exceed EPA fuel efficiency standards with their cars by using these techniques. Here are some:
* Do not use quick accelerations or brake heavily
* Do not idle excessively
* Do not drive at higher speeds
* Cold weather and frequent short trips reduce fuel economy, since your engine doesn't operate efficiently until it is warmed up. Drive to your furthest destination first and then as you are heading home, stop at the closer destinations in order from furthest to closest as the car is warmed up for longer portions of your drive.
* Remove Cargo or cargo racks
* Minimize running mechanical and electrical accessories (source: Beating the EPA: The Whys and How to Hypermile])

We own a Prius with a screen that gives us real-time fuel efficiency, so we have automatically adopted some of these techniques because we can see the results on the screen. But the interesting thing about hypermiling is that it applies to ALL cars, not just hybrids. All of us can see significant mileage increases if we adopt a few of these guidelines.


So here's the challenge our group will be taking on this weekend. Some of us will be driving up north to work on the Michigania Bulb Project, and some will be driving to Illinois. We have all agreed to drive 60 MPH on the way there and 70 MPH on the way back and compare mileage. We're going to relax and take our time, and see what we come up with.