Happy Hypermiling
Well she got her daddy’s car
And she cruised through the hamburger stand now
Seems she forgot all about the library
Like she told her old man now
And with the radio blasting
Goes cruising just as fast as she can now
And she’ll have fun fun fun
’til her daddy takes the T-bird away
(fun fun fun ’til her daddy takes the T-bird away)
Brian Wilson and Mike Love penned that little ditty for a chick named Shirley England of Salt Lake City, Utah. Her daddy was the owner of a radio station there back in 1963. The story goes that the Beach Boys just happened to be at the station the day after Daddy took the T-bird away. They heard Shirley lamenting her misfortune, and voila! A top-five hit was born. Talk about your kismet. Fate. Fortuna! The boys recorded the song in January of 1964, in a time when drag racing was synonymous with being hip and cool; back in the day when petrol was 30 cents a gallon and only the most well-informed citizenry realized that automobile emissions were spewing the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming.
Fast forward 44 years. Petrol dances around $4 a gallon, and life is a drag race. If you really want to be a hip and cool, ditch your daily drag racing and consider hypermiling. Wayne Gerdes, the original hypermiler, coined the term for hyper-conscientious drivers who employ a variety of techniques to get more miles per gallon (mpg) of gas. Gerdes is legendary for the strategies he uses as well as the mileage he gets. While the average driver should not attempt Gerdes extreme techniques that gain him 59 mpg in a regular old gas-powered Honda Accord (drafting semis with his engine off, ridge riding and taking 25-miles-per-hour ((mph)) curves at 50), she can increase her fuel efficiency by employing some of these less radical techniques.
To really consider yourself a hypermiler, you must keep a log of your car’s mpg. Do this by recording the odometer readout each time you gas up, subtract the previous reading and divide the resulting number of miles by the amount of gasoline needed to fill tank. That number is your car’s mpg.
The next step on the road to becoming a hypermiler is assessing your own driving habits. Do you drive over the speed limit? Do you make jack rabbit starts as soon as the light turns green? Gerdes considers speed and unnecessary braking to be enemies of the hypermiler. Combat the enemy by steering clear of intersections with traffic signals to avoid idling away gas at red lights. Look for alternate routes with fewer or no traffic lights.
In-town driving is hard on fuel efficiency, but if you practice a few easy techniques, you can increase your mpg. Drive at or below the speed limit, leaving plenty of space between you and the car in front of you; then, coast to a stop. More experienced hypermilers practice what is known as “riding the waves and jams,” a technique that potentially eliminates the need to accelerate and break by leaving a large amount of space between you and the car directly in front of you while driving at a consistent speed. (It sounds good in Theoryland, where all of the cars behind you follow your example. In Practiceville, however, cars behind me seem to simply drive around my consistent-speed-driving self.)
Another interesting technique is called the “pulse and glide.” Simply put, if you are driving in a 60-mph zone, you accelerate to 70 mph, and then coast until you are traveling at 50 mph, at which time you again accelerate to 70, coast back down to 50, etc. This results in an average speed of 60 mph. (Frankly this would make me crazier than the cars who drive around me as I am trying to ride the wave and avoid the jam.)
One of the easiest ways to improve gas mileage is to lose the cargo — jettison anything that is not absolutely necessary to your survival. Gerdes even suggests losing the spare tire. The less weight your car has to carry, the better your mileage will be. (Perhaps this is the incentive I need to lose the spare tire around my middle.)
Extreme hypermilers roll up the car windows and turn off the AC. Open windows create drag, which reduces fuel efficiency, and air conditioning is a notorious fuel suck, especially in older models. Gerdes, who lives in Chicago, might get away with this. To all of you ladies who are either altruistic or insane enough to endure the sauna-like atmosphere that would result this time of year, I tip my hat. I will definitely be implementing this technique … sometime around Thanksgiving.
Additional tips include employing the use of solarshields, those shiny Mylar quilts that fit in the car’s windshield. When used properly, a solarshield can reduce the interior temperature of your car by 40 degrees, with the happy result of saving fuel by not overtaxing the car’s cooling system. Also, Gerdes recommends pulling through parking spaces to avoid having to back out. He further suggests pulling through on a decline whenever possible so that you can coast out of the space. (I was pulling through to avoid backing out long before it became chic, which can be attributed to my obsessive and irrational fear of backing over Verne Troyer.)
I’ve but touched upon some of the less radical techniques of the hypermiler. If you are interested in joining the ranks of the hip and cool (and why wouldn’t you be?), I suggest cruising the Internet, which will in no way affect your car’s fuel efficiency. The ’net is chock-full of sites devoted to hypermiling. People go to extremes to get the most bang for their bucks, and sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures. To Shirley England of Salt Lake City, if you are reading this, slow down, learn to ride the waves and avoid the jams. Do the pulse and glide, and perhaps you’ll get the T-bird back.
Who knew reducing your carbon footprint could be so much fun, fun, fun?
