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Their goal is simple: Squeeze every mile they can out of each drop of gas. (http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-38/1189924328180820.xml&coll=6&thispage=1)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Randall_Burkhalter_-_Honda_Insight_on_the_road.jpgKyla King – The Grand Rapids Press – September 16, 2007

With gas prices often climbing past $3 a gallon, nearly everyone is looking to save on fuel. But just how serious are you? Extremely dedicated drivers around the country are serious enough to call themselves "hypermilers," or at least identify with the term. Many almost exclusively drive hybrid vehicles or small motorbikes, and their goal is simple: Squeeze every mile they can out of each drop of gas.

Sean Wessell is one of them. Last year, the Comstock Park resident decided to fully commit. He gave up everyday use of his Subaru Forester and bought a Honda Rukus moped, which he milks for as many as 100 miles per gallon. It costs him $3.50 to fill the 1.3-gallon tank about once every two weeks.

Dorr resident Corky Overmeyer has been "hypermiling" ever since he bought his Toyota Prius hybrid four years ago. His tactics include setting the cruise control as soon as possible to optimize the time the gas and electric engines work together. And he always opts for country roads instead of expressways.

Since Standale resident Tom Newhouse and his wife traded a minivan and pickup for Toyota Prius and Ford Escape hybrids, he has been known to squeeze as many as 52 miles out of a gallon. Especially when driving at what he likes to call the 55 mph "sweet spot" and paying attention to real-time dashboard readouts of energy consumption. http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-38/1189924328180820.xml&coll=6&thispage=1

Some hypermilers have been known to overinflate their tires slightly to cut rolling resistance, seize every chance to coast with their gasoline engines off and sometimes "draft" like race cars behind larger vehicles.

On Web sites such as www.cleanmpg.com and www.greenhybrid.com, they list sometimes dangerous techniques and share tales of achievement, backed by photos of mileage displays.



how does this same crap end up in almost every single article about hyermiling. this is almost verbatim for all of them i have seen, including my interview..........:mad:

how does this same crap end up in almost every single article about hyermiling. this is almost verbatim for all of them i have seen, including my interview..........:mad:

-- The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Mainstream media: just doing our job, ma'am.

Dorr resident Corky Overmeyer has been "hypermiling" ever since he bought his Toyota Prius hybrid four years ago. His tactics include setting the cruise control as soon as possible to optimize the time the gas and electric engines work together.

...

Since Standale resident Tom Newhouse and his wife traded a minivan and pickup for Toyota Prius and Ford Escape hybrids, he has been known to squeeze as many as 52 miles out of a gallon. Especially when driving at what he likes to call the 55 mph "sweet spot" and paying attention to real-time dashboard readouts of energy consumption.

My guess is that these folks haven't read the articles at CleanMPG, or else the reporter grossly misquoted them. Sorry, kids, but 55mph ain't no "sweet spot" for a Prius. That speed is good for a very solid 60-65mpg but we all know you can do a whole lot better if you have the chance. But not likely if you set the cruise!

These two ought to sign up so we can show them how to squeeze those gallons right. :D

On Web sites such as www.cleanmpg.com (http://www.cleanmpg.com) and ************ (http://www.greenhybrid.com), they list sometimes dangerous techniques and share tales of achievement, backed by photos of mileage displays.Last I checked, "the other site" treats hypermilers with hostility, unlike www.cleanmpg.com (http://www.cleanmpg.com)

Hi Tarabell:

___Great story except for the race track crap. Maybe Honda reps needs to take my 4 hour and 45 minute commute home tonight ( @_&*$_)!+%&#% traffic!! :angry: )and they can tell me all about drafting racecars with a garbage 22 mph average in the Ranger P/U which offered 57.4 mpg into the drive.

___I am also getting real sick and tired of this kind of stuff including the commentary from the interviewees :( 52 in a Prius and not risking your life? They must be traveling 10 over the limit to get that poor of FE from a Prius? Fastest way to put your kids into the morgue is to take a head on at 70 + which is again the only way I can see a Prius getting such poor FE out on the highway?

___And then we have the mention of GH? Have they done anything for anybody lately?

___Good Luck

___Wayne

And you know we almost exclusively drive hybrids except for those who drive Yaris, Fits, Corollas, Accords, Hyundais, Focuses, etc etc etc etc.

--des

Some hypermilers have been known to overinflate their tires slightly to cut rolling resistance, seize every chance to coast with their gasoline engines off and sometimes "draft" like race cars behind larger vehicles.

On Web sites such as www.cleanmpg.com and www.greenhybrid.com, they list sometimes dangerous techniques and share tales of achievement, backed by photos of mileage displays.



sorry, i have to vent again.....this just bugs me in so many ways.........

first off, and i have asked this many times, including on a thread that eventually got locked on "another site." where do they get this drafting bs? have any of us really ever seen a hybrid following a semi up close and personal? yea, right, just try to keep up. but i sure have seen a lot of semis drafting off me. i hope i helped that guy last weekend.

and then the way that sentence is worded, it makes it sound like we are showing our mileage photos in conjunction with the dangerous techniques. yup, we all sit here and say "this photo shows how i got 52MPG tailing that UPS truck".....good grief.

hey, reporters, come on over here and REALLY read what we post, not something that keeps getting circulated like the proverbial fruitcake at christmas. sure, i post photos of 65MPG. what you don't see is that 90% off the time i am on a rural backroad doing about 45-50, not hugging the butt of a big rig.

:mad::mad::mad:

Hi Laurie:

___That actually came about from me :( While heading up to HF2006 last year, Terry and his wife Cathy were in their HCH-II, Hobbit and Chuck were in his Prius-II (both in chase) and I was in Chuck’s Insight with a journalist. Terry called me via cel a few times that he wanted to get to Madison in a heck of a hurry so he wouldn’t miss the Ice Cream social. I should have let them fly by but instead, pulled into a fast close-in for a few minutes. Even so, Chuck’s Insight only pulled a 93 mpg run on the way there when it was easily worth 105 mpg in summer temps like we were driving in. I do not remember a time when the Insight did not offer 100 + on that route and that was not reported unfortunately :( I was already up in mid to high 90’s when this “event occurred” and saw it fall back into the 80’s from Chuck’s Insight because someone was in to *&$ **** much of a @#$#^)@ hurry!

___So there it is. This crap is my fault for all of 10 - 20 minutes of a 2 hour drive but like you said, it keeps coming up again and again to the point of being stupid from those that cannot drive themselves out of a wet paper bag let alone beat the EPA :ccry:

___Good Luck

___Wayne

If drafting is not the key, (which I do not do) What is the key to increasing the mileage? I P&G coast the last mile home.... What else is there? My tires are +10 already. Any more suggestions.?
Thanks in advance.
Phil

Wayne, don't beat yourself up over it -- that could have been any of us and it could have been some other technique. There will always be those who will abuse whatever they can to make something sensational.

If drafting is not the key, (which I do not do) What is the key to increasing the mileage? I P&G coast the last mile home.... What else is there? My tires are +10 already. Any more suggestions.?
Thanks in advance.
Phil

Phil, it is a whole range of techniques all geared at conserving hard won momentum and using the least fuel to achieve that end. Light timing, driving with load, driving without brakes, lower speeds (which take wind resistance out of the picture), and P&G are all key to this effort. It takes extreme familiarity with the vehicle and route, as well as a keen sense of changes to the environment and how to deal with them to squeeze the maximum efficiency out of a trip.

By the way, if you are only using P&G for the last mile home I'll bet you aren't using it enough. I use it pretty much my entire 22 mile trip each way to and from work and I'm hitting at around 170-180% EPA.

Phil, it is a whole range of techniques all geared at conserving hard won momentum and using the least fuel to achieve that end. Light timing, driving with load, driving without brakes, lower speeds (which take wind resistance out of the picture), and P&G are all key to this effort. It takes extreme familiarity with the vehicle and route, as well as a keen sense of changes to the environment and how to deal with them to squeeze the maximum efficiency out of a trip.

By the way, if you are only using P&G for the last mile home I'll bet you aren't using it enough. I use it pretty much my entire 22 mile trip each way to and from work and I'm hitting at around 170-180% EPA.
Amen! There is no single key, there are many. Think of it as a big keyring with lots of keys on it which you use as appropriate. Commuting over the same route every day is like going to school: you test different methods under different weather and traffic conditions and find out what works when. Then when you are on an unfamiliar route you can use those tried methods as appropriate. And learn new stuff.

Wayne, don't beat yourself up over it -- that could have been any of us and it could have been some other technique. There will always be those who will abuse whatever they can to make something sensational.

Wayne, I have to agree with Sean here. From reading the article, it seems that they would be picking on coasting with the engine off if they weren't attacking close-in drafting. This article sounds like it was about people who don't have the cajones to do the advanced stuff and are jealous of the mpg numbers of those who do and therefore call those techniques "dangerous" and "life-threatening." Sorry about the rant but it's Saturday morning and I haven't had any coffee.:confused::D
Edit: For the record, I don't do close-ins either.

Hi Laurie:

___That actually came about from me :( !

___So there it is. This crap is my fault for all of 10 - 20 minutes of a 2 hour drive but like you said, it keeps coming up again and again to the point of being stupid from those that cannot drive themselves out of a wet paper bag let alone beat the EPA :ccry:

___Good Luck

___Wayne

wayne, my friend, i am certainly NOT dumping any of this on you. it's the press, who, after having read about this one time, keep using it as fact over and over, ad nauseum. seems to me that a careful reporter (what an oxymoron) would check his/her facts before going to press, and report only what they were told. the statements in this article were not attributed to any of the people who were interviewed, but just popped up somehow after a list of the generic basics of improving mileage. the wording was so identical to what we have seen before, i have to think they googled hypermiler and just copied what they found.

so i am ranting in general, and it's not aimed at you or anyone on here. it's part of the general frustration i feel about how little anyone else seems to care, i guess.

Wayne,

I concurr about not beating yourself over the trip from your house to HF2006.

To err is human
To forgive is divine
To harp on a fault is of The Devil. (I added that)

I'm refering to the media and hypermiling detractors....a lot of this is just politics...find something detremential that's the proverbial needle in the haystack and blow it out of proportion - never mind the truth.

If it was not this, they probably would have dug up something else...if not you, another hypermiler. There is also this cut and paste tendancy of writers that just borrow previous material.