xcel
04-20-2008, 06:31 PM
Hypermiling! (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/magazine/20Move-body-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/1_2L_per_100_Km_Segment.jpgDashka Slater - NY Times Magazine - April 20, 2008
First 196 + mpg RT segment in an Insight.
Hypermiling takes yet another step into the mainstream. -- Ed.
Steve Chafe’s interest in hypermiling started with a $150 speeding ticket. Determined to avoid another one, he became a different man behind the wheel - one who didn’t mind getting to his destination a few minutes later. Until then, his Honda Civic had been getting 22 miles per gallon. The next tank, it got 26. Now it gets as many as 37. “The changes in my gas mileage were 100 percent a result of my thinking,” says Chafe.
“Hypermiling” was coined by Wayne Gerdes, a former nuclear-power-plant worker from Chicago whose legendary feats include getting up to 200 miles per gallon in his hybrid Honda Insight. Any driver who manages to exceed a car’s E.P.A. mileage estimate can call himself a hypermiler, but it helps to have a hybrid, both because the car’s dashboard readout provides instant feedback about fuel usage and because it is capable of stratospheric gains. Gerdes’s Web site, CleanMPG.com (www.clenampg.com), is a mecca for mileage-obsessed drivers, littered with discussions of braking techniques and “brag posts” from drivers who log 100 miles per gallon. “A lot of hypermilers are guys who would consider themselves — in a fun, positive way — geeky,” says Eric Powers, who runs Hybridfest, an annual gathering of hybrid drivers in Madison, Wisc., that includes an annual “M.P.G. Challenge,” where hypermiling records are set… http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/magazine/20Move-body-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/1_2L_per_100_Km_Segment.jpgDashka Slater - NY Times Magazine - April 20, 2008
First 196 + mpg RT segment in an Insight.
Hypermiling takes yet another step into the mainstream. -- Ed.
Steve Chafe’s interest in hypermiling started with a $150 speeding ticket. Determined to avoid another one, he became a different man behind the wheel - one who didn’t mind getting to his destination a few minutes later. Until then, his Honda Civic had been getting 22 miles per gallon. The next tank, it got 26. Now it gets as many as 37. “The changes in my gas mileage were 100 percent a result of my thinking,” says Chafe.
“Hypermiling” was coined by Wayne Gerdes, a former nuclear-power-plant worker from Chicago whose legendary feats include getting up to 200 miles per gallon in his hybrid Honda Insight. Any driver who manages to exceed a car’s E.P.A. mileage estimate can call himself a hypermiler, but it helps to have a hybrid, both because the car’s dashboard readout provides instant feedback about fuel usage and because it is capable of stratospheric gains. Gerdes’s Web site, CleanMPG.com (www.clenampg.com), is a mecca for mileage-obsessed drivers, littered with discussions of braking techniques and “brag posts” from drivers who log 100 miles per gallon. “A lot of hypermilers are guys who would consider themselves — in a fun, positive way — geeky,” says Eric Powers, who runs Hybridfest, an annual gathering of hybrid drivers in Madison, Wisc., that includes an annual “M.P.G. Challenge,” where hypermiling records are set… http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/magazine/20Move-body-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin