Choosing to get 70 mpg.
By Karina | August 15, 2007
This weekend I drove home from my parents house in Upstate NY. There was traffic - as there is always traffic on Sundays in the summer, as all the “downstaters” drive home from the Adirondacks and Catskills. And so faced with a beautiful afternoon, a good mix CD, and hours of sunlight, I made a tiny choice: I didn’t speed to get home.
Now, this is probably the most square tiny choice that I’ve made. To illustrate, here is a photo of me sitting in my car looking like a square.
So to preface the discussion of my square tiny choice with something reckless and punk rock, I’ll confess that for a long time I had a real lead foot. I am still well known amongst friends and families for driving faster than heck. And I love driving fast! For some reason (like youthful invincibility?), the safety issue just wasn’t a really big deal for me. What really made me change my driving habits was the instantaneous gas mileage indicator on my Insight. Suddenly, driving faster than everyone else wasn’t such a big deal - but beating my highest gas mileage, THAT was something to strive for!
Sunday afternoon I played it cool. I drove within 5 miles of the speed limit. I didn’t try to beat everyone. I stayed behind tractor-trailers because I knew they’d have the same slower acceleration up hills and faster acceleration down hills as I would with my very small engine, and I knew they’d block the wind from my car so resistance would be cut down.
And when I got home my mpg indicator for this tank of gas read over 70 mpg.
Which is awesome!
But you know, I could be doing better… and this is another tiny choice — I know I could be getting incredible gas mileage in my car. There are people out there who have clocked over 90 mpg over the lifetime of their vehicle in Insights. Right now I’m bouncing back and forth over the 60 mpg line for my lifetime mpg, and that’s after 1 1/2 years and almost 50,000 miles. But you know what? I also still really love to drive fast, so I choose to drive in a way that is enjoyable, but in a way that is mostly efficient. There’s a time and a place for fastness, and a time and a place for driving like a square who gets over 70 mpg.
Now, I’m getting ridiculous mileage because of the model of car I drive. But you don’t have to drive a hybrid to be efficient - here are some tips for getting the best mileage out of your car:
- Make sure your tires are inflated properly - this will reduce friction losses from contact with the road.
- Remove unnecessary weight and accoutrement’s from the car - including unused ski racks, bags of dog food or kitty litter, anvils, etc. Every ounce counts! My car is made of aluminum and plastic, and that’s one of the reasons it gets such good mileage.
- Don’t speed. Every time you accelerate suddenly you’re burning extra gasoline for nothing. Take your time on highway entrance ramps and think about if you really need to accelerate hard to the next stop light. Don’t get stressed out if someone behind you is in a big hurry. They can go around you.
- Leave room in front of you so instead of slamming on your brakes, you have the luxury to coast a little. Every time you use your brakes, you’re losing energy and if you can avoid using them you’re saving.
- Take it easy on hills. As safety and traffic permits, don’t stress if gravity slows you on the uphill and speeds you on the downhill. Learn to work with it to maintain a good coasting speed and to avoid using gas.
Related Reading
- Lots of driving tips and vehicle tweaks in the forums at insightcentral.net.
- Compare real life mileages for hybrids and other cars.
- Tips and history at wikipedia
- Article about the Daddy of all hypermilers: Wayne Gerdes
Topics: Transportation |
And for non-hybrid owners, here’s a way to monitor the fuel consumption of your standard-issue vehicle [via EcoGeek].
Here’s an easy one to do.
De-junk your car! Energy = Mass * Acceleration, which means, the more mass your car has, the more energy you have to create to get it from point A to point B. There was a time when I had a bundle of newspapers in the back of my card (that weighed about 25 pounds), and a couple of cases of soda. My MPG dropped by about 3 tank to tank (I drive a Scion xB), and I couldn’t figure out why.
I dropped the newspaper bundle at the nearest recycle bin, and stowed the soda pop in the garage, and I was back up to 28 Hwy.
[…] consciously. As Karina outlined in an earlier post, there are tiny choices you can make in order to up your gas mileage: drive slower; avoid sudden […]
[…] have talked about driving slower before, but this one deserves it’s own tip with statistics like this to back it up: With gas […]