Thursday, May 1, 2008

Hypermiling

Since I am a stay at home mom and can schedule most of my activities at my leisure I have started practicing hypermiling. A big part of this is driving slowly. Once I looked at this as a challenge it became easier. I really pay attention to how often I push the gas pedal and how far up my rpm goes (hopefully never over a 2). Also as soon as I park I turn the engine off and never start it before I am completely ready to go. But accelerating slowly and not using anymore gas at a red light or going 25 mph or slower down the hill to mom and dad's house (I can make it about a mile from either direction without gas to home) really makes people mad. I drive as far on the right as I can in case anyone wants to try and pass me. Anyway I read this article http://amasci.com/amateur/traffic/trafexp.html about driving in traffic. I do almost no highway driving so I don't know how well this works but I will try it next time. Also here is a website that give a basic understanding of hypermiling http://www.hypermiling.com/.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I did really well for the first week. I think I saved about 1/4 tank of gas, approximately 5 gallons or $17.50. After that I started returning to my old habits, but I'm getting better at reminding myself.

pappasan said...

I have found it easier to do with a manuel transmission, as in my truck. I have cut down on speed as well. I wish I had a tach so I could see my rpms, if I could keep my shifting down at low rpms, but not to low to stall out, I would save even more gas.