Hypermiling: I'm a Believer

I recently wrote about hypermiling for a publication that you all are not allowed to read. In a nutshell, hypermiling is using driving techniques to increase your car's mileage without making any mechanical adjustments to the car.

After doing my research for the article, I realized that much of what hypermilers do is pretty simple. Some people go a little overboard, but just doing four things can significantly increase gas mileage:

* Drive the speed limit
* Accelerate slowly
* Use the cruise control whenever possible
* Coast to stop lights/signs

I concentrated on these four things over the last week, after filling up the Company Vehicle, and I employed a couple other advanced techniques (park in pull-through spots to avoid going into reverse, turn off engine at long stop lights) as well. The results:

Pre-hypermiling: 14.9 mpg
Post-hypermiling: 18.4 mpg

That's a 23.5% increase, or 63 more miles out of a tank of gas, without changing my driving habits that much (well, except for the no speeding thing, which is difficult). Just think how much gas I'd be saving if I weren't driving a giant truck!

Since my truck has instant MPG readings, it's like a videogame: "ooh, I'm up to 21 MPG! Ohhh, 15 minutes in stop-and-go traffic and I'm back down to 16." I had to think about for the first week but now the techniques are starting to come naturally. Give it a try for yourselves and see what you can do...

[UPDATE 6/4]: I actually ended up at 19.0 mpg for the full tank, thanks to a mostly-highway trip out to Lebanon. That's an increase of 27.5%, or 82 miles, out of the full tank.