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The publicity people must have been *really* on the ball, because
the Ipswich festival, while smallish, appeared to draw a really
large crowd. I was busier at this one that I'd been at TdS or
Altwheels, from what I could determine ... flyers were, well,
flying off the back of the car. I guess I managed to make sort
of a celeb out of myself earlier in the day...
http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/pix/me-ips.jpg
Like I said, not 99.9 territory but better than I expected. Now,
here's the funny bit: I of course force-charged before I went
out, hoping all the other prius drivers also knew to do this...
ran the thing, was down around 84.something after the one big
hill on Rt. 1, and near the end found myself behind a slow
farm tractor. Okay, I figured, a nice slow EV-mode crawl back
to the school parking lot. Which I did. So after showing up
with 94.7 I sat right there and force-charged *again*, back up
to the level I had before leaving. The MPG average dropped down
to 84.something. Which just proves that even 24 miles is too
short, because the measly Prius SOC actually makes that much
difference. So as part of that building knowledge for how to
run MPG competitions, I would insist that all Prius folks go
out fully charged -- they'll be happier with their own numbers
even if the course is long enough to push that effect mostly
down into the noise.
.
Anyways, the show was good, I had the car in "freight-bed" mode
just to show capacity, the "driving green" handouts seemed well
received but of course at something like that we're preaching
to the choir, but I think I managed to impress one or two generic
lead-foots who are genuinely interested in better FE.
.
And the ICARE crew bought me dinner, so life is good. A little
sunburnt, but good. I definitely made some new friends.
I'll probably pop a few more tidbits into this thread as I
think of them, but I've got some braincells to find first..
.
_H*

Sounds like a fun time. Maybe next year I'll be living up there and be able to go.

I hope some of them are studying the handouts and looking to improve there FE. You did a good job on them.

nice picture man, very presentable and nice beard ;)

Hobbitt,
Congrats on your MPG challenge win. How did the other drivers fare?

WRT the force charge after the competition. My guess is that force charging is MUCH less efficient than driving. What I mean is that had you chosen to start a 6 bars and eventually return with 6 bars by accellerating with charge technique, your FE would have been better than 84.

Congratulations, Hobbit! Great job on the challenge and on the flyers. Thank you for helping get the message to the masses and trying to make a difference, one step at a time. Well done.

Hobbit,

You bring up a good point about these meetings: they are not just for people like us, but to win more over. I'm wondering if at HybridFest that maybe some of us might have taken visitors for a short spin just to increase their comfort zone on hybirds....what sold me back in Sept 2000 was the acceleration was good (one of those hybrid myths).

How many kinds of hybrids were there? Anything other than the usual Prius', HCHs, Insights, and FEHs?

Dealers had some of the usual stuff. One outfit had a hydrogen
Prius, retrofitted to burn H2 in the ICE via a different fuel
rail and injectors, and a pair of high-pressure tanks underneath
where the gas tank used to be. Got a couple of pix, which I'll
get together and post at some point. Mike D. was also there,
and another insight or two kicking around. Miscellaneous electric
bikes courtesy of Emerging Vehicles. Ken Olum with his Solectria
Force, whose show gimmick that day was "come sit inside! It's
air-conditioned!] except that he was running the a/c off building
power instead of the batteries [if he hadn't that blistering day,
he would have had a puzzler as to how to get home].
.
There was a fair showing of Priuses for the MPG run, and they
were coming in with fairly decent numbers in the high 70s and
low 80s. The Insights were also doing well, as usual. We've
got some fairly clueful hybrid owners out in these parts too.
.
The "green driving" panel had very few people in it, but I think
at least one woman took away some good advice. I think people
agreed that some means of having *classes* and on-the-road
instructional sessions would help people even more. I find this
interesting, because I'll bet a few people could get together
and charge some small nominal amount for tutoring time which
could hopefully pay for itself over the student's next five
tanks or so.
.
_H*

I'd guess that the Insights were not as well represented as they were at HybridFest since the 5-speed version is probably not sold in the five clean-states (four of them in New England). Last year in Northern California, I did not see a single Insight, but plenty of Prius' and some Civics....