Zen and the Art of Hypermiling
Hypermiling isn't for wimpsI don't drive much thanks to the Goldline and the rest of LA's light rail and subway system. When I do drive it's mostly through dense urban traffic, so hypermiling is an art I find little time to practice and experiment.
OK, that's not totally true since I've been hypermiling through LA traffic long before hybrid cars first hit the road. In my old manual Nissan Sentra from my old Pasadena neighborhood, I would try to coast through Arroyo Parkway traffic touching the breaks as little as possible.
Thus, when I became a hybrid driver, my city driving changed little. In fact, either in a Toyota Prius or a Camry hybrid, I can coast in EV mode through much of LA's commuting congestion achieving unbelievable - at least to non-hybrid drivers - fuel economy.
Highway hypermiling, however, is a whole different story. Finish: Zen and the Art of Hypermiling
Labels: Hybrid Vehicles, hypermiling, toyota camry hybrid, toyota prius
posted by Dahcredyns at
8:34 AM
7 Comments:
Full story
I don't drive much thanks to the Goldline and the rest of LA's light rail and subway system. When I do drive it's mostly through dense urban traffic, so hypermiling is an art I find little time to practice and experiment.
OK, that's not totally true since I've been hypermiling through LA traffic long before hybrid cars first hit the road. In my old manual Nissan Sentra from my old Pasadena neighborhood, I would try to coast through Arroyo Parkway traffic touching the breaks as little as possible.
Thus, when I became a hybrid driver, my city driving changed little. In fact, either in a Toyota Prius or a Camry hybrid, I can coast in EV mode through much of LA's commuting congestion achieving unbelievable - at least to non-hybrid drivers - fuel economy.
Highway hypermiling, however, is a whole different story. Open highway driving is just something I seldom do, and when I do drive on the open road, I've found a total focus on hypermiling to be a difficult experience. Nonetheless, as I needed to cover a couple thousand miles this weekend, I thought I'd give it a try.
And what I learned was a zen-like lesson in patience, but back to the art of hypermiling.
I experimented with various speeds on flat land, on hills. I tested multiple ways of pulse-driving, with semi-drafting and much, much more. If I learned one thing, night time is the best for serious long-distance hypermiling. The night brings cool temperatures - no need for AC - and, most important, little traffic. Thus, when you coast down a long hill for example and coast into your cruise-controlled standard speed, you can experiment with multiple speeds. At night, therefore, even when the speed limit was 80, I might coast to 55 mph and then stay at that speed for several miles, eventually, slowly pulsating my speed back up to 80.
During the day, experimenting with such techniques is not often possible and sometimes dangerous, so the night is perfect.
Still, the most interesting revelation that I had regarding my hypermiling experiments was the incredible amount of cognitive endurance required to achieve optimal performance. While some will surely mock this revelation, rather than finding this mental requirement to be stressful, I found it to be more like some form of zen, and a very addictive form.
And, even when the Interstates were too full of traffic to optimize my hypermiling, sitting in cruise-control at, or even a little below the speed limit, is so much less stressful than trying to go 10 miles over the speed limit. Instead of getting angry at the drivers that refuse to yield the left lane to faster drivers, or the semi's that cut you off at the last minute, I marveled at how simple and stress-free driving becomes when you remove yourself from the rat race mentality that big city living often breeds, especially on the open roads of the US interstate system.
According to my almost two years experience, 50-60mph is the optimal speed. Then you can achieve 40-44mpg, if you drive 75mph, you usually obtain less than 40mpg.
My father was a hypermiler by temperament and thriftiness since I was a little boy. We would regularly drive from LA to Sacramento and it was the slow lane the whole way and using neutral on the downhills. LA Freeway traffic driving was the same, especially the art of minimizing your braking.
So I grew up never feeling inclined to join the traffic rat race, and knowing a lot of these tricks as standard driving practice. Of course, when I drove a Mustang GT for a few months as a twenty-three year old I gleefully joined the rat race; but then again, that was fun, not stressful.
On the other hand, this story reminds me of the that old episode from Married with Children where Al and his neighbors are watching the high school football game. They had voice overs with the secret thoughts of all the characters, and while the neighbor's wife, Darcy, was fantasizing about the high school studs on the field, the husband was planning to excite his wife by explaining to her his plan to save 2 MPG by shifting into 4th gear 5 MPH sooner. :)
Cheers to all the MPG geeks out there!
I have also found it much less stressful to drive at or just under the speed limit on the Interstate. In Arizona and California, the speed limit is 70-75, which is more than fast enough for a long trip.
If you go 5 miles over the speed limit, like the average driver, you are always having to fight for position, bobbing and weaving around the traffic. If you drive the speed limit you can sit in the right lane on cruise control and relax.
In the left lane I see wave after wave of cars, bunched up in groups 5 or 10, all riding the bumper of the car in front of them. That is no way to drive for 8-10 hours.
The worst of these are the big truck and SUV drivers, who feel every other car should move over and let them pass because they have a big truck. These vehicles use up the most gas and cause the most accidents of any class of vehicle on the road.
If more peole drove the speed limit, the roads would be safer and we would save millions of gallons of gas.......
The lack of stress when slowing down a bit and just cruising is arguably worth more than the savings in gas!
I totally agree. I've been doing it for years and only recently learned that it had a name. I thought I was the only one doing it. Glad I'm not.
This is also a new term for me. I've been doing it for as long as I can remember. I've even gone as far as launching a grass roots movement called drive60. See my Euro style oval decal at www.drive60.com
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