Hypermileing-driving for maximum fuel economy

[n2doc]

How To Increase Your Gas Mileage
By Joshua Zumbrun
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 6, 2006; Page M05

There was good news and bad news, I learned. The good news: I got a promotion. The bad news: I landed in The Post's Howard County news bureau -- a wonderful spot, but about 35 miles from my front door. This was last summer. I didn't own a car, the job started in two weeks, gas prices were climbing, and a 70-mile commute (instead of 10 friendly minutes on the Circulator bus) was looking expensive. The Insight, Honda's two-seater hybrid with amazing gas mileage, sounded almost too good to be true. A lot of reports said it was -- real drivers don't get the numbers Honda touts. (The Department of Energy has a useful site explaining why this is at http://www.fueleconomy.gov./ ) The cars were scarce, so I flew to Wisconsin to become the proud owner of a 2001 Honda Insight, with an estimated 57 mpg in the city, 56 on the highway.

That's where I randomly met Bradlee Fons, an enthusiast of the cars who starts spouting hybrid statistics the moment he introduces himself. He and his son Justin are part of a rare fraternity: hypermilers, people who modify their driving to improve mileage and reduce emissions.

Fons explained that you need to "relearn how to drive" in order to appreciate a hybrid's benefits. After averaging around 48 mpg on my way home -- good, but not what was advertised -- I logged onto InsightCentral.net and GreenHybrid.com, two sites Fons had recommended to learn the ins and outs of hypermiling. The sites are full of people obsessed with their mileage gauges, people who log their mileage on each tank of gas, even people who photograph the odometer and post it online to show off particularly successful runs.

Fons also suggested I talk to someone he's dubbed "America's greatest hypermiler," Wayne Gerdes. The nuclear power plant operator in Illinois ("producing electricity with zero greenhouse gas emissions," Gerdes observed) averaged more than 90 mpg for more than a year driving a manual transmission Honda Insight. He was part of a team that drove a Toyota Prius for more than 1,200 miles, in two straight days of driving, on a single tank of gas, an effort that was featured in an HBO Earth Day Special "Too Hot Not to Handle."

link: (reg required) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/03/AR2006080301403.html

Sounds like a great sport for the new century

[madokie]

1. my dad was an 1897 model and grew up in the model t and model a

era and they used to have contest to see who could climb a hill the slowest, who could tune their fords to run the slowest. quite a change from todays quarter mile runsn I would say.
peace
:hi:

[unblock]

2. an interesting race would be to see how far you can go on one tank of gas

then the loser could slam into the crowd in a big fireball explosion just to keep ratings up.

[n2doc]

3. You mean like this?

From Wikipedia:
A tremendous global economic crash had occurred in 1979. The current (as of 2000) American President took control to repair America, and since then has ruled the country from abroad with an iron fist. He is simply known as Mr. President, and is rarely seen in American public.
One of Mr. President's most famous decrees has been that of the Transcontinental Road Race, a violent spectacle that takes a small set of racers from New York to New Los Angeles. The event depicted in the film is the 20th annual Road Race; therefore, Mr. President started the event during his second year in office.
Racers are scored in two ways. First, they are scored by time; all racers must stop at two checkpoints on their route to New L.A., and are scored based on their placement. (The 2000 road race has checkpoints in St. Louis and Albuquerque; it is not known whether these checkpoints change annually.) All racers must start simultaneously from the checkpoint after a day of rest.
It is the second scoring system that gives the film its title, however: as in the inspired video game, and further inspired games such as Carmageddon, points are scored for every person killed, with different point values depending on the age, gender and importance of the person killed. According to the movie, the point system appears to be as follows:

Male adult: 30
Male teenager: 40
Male infant/toddler: 70
Female (any age): +10 point bonus
Senior citizen (regardless of gender): 100

hmmm.kinda sounds plausible......