The hypermilers' philosophy: squeeze every mile they can out of each drop of gas.
Some of their tips are a matter of common sense and could help any driver, especially now, with gas reaching $3.50 a gallon: avoid jackrabbit starts, use alternate routes to avoid stop-and-go traffic, anticipate lights and drive a bit slower.
But those are just a start. Hypermilers slightly overinflate their tires to cut rolling resistance, seize every chance to coast with their gasoline engines off and sometimes "draft" like race cars behind larger vehicles.
There's more...
- Park at the highest point of a lot, facing the exit, so gravity can help get the car moving.
- Draft off the right rear corner of a tractor-trailer to reduce wind resistance yet allow the rig's driver to see you. Gerdes recommends following the truck at a gap of about 1 second; drafting any closer yields eye-popping gas mileage but is too dangerous, he says.
- Use "pulse and glide": Accelerate to above the speed limit, then shut the gasoline engine down and glide to a speed below the limit. It is fairly easy to do in a hybrid, but in a gas-only vehicle it can be dangerous because power brakes might not work and some automatic transmissions won't re-engage at highway speeds. In a gas-only vehicle, without a lot of practice, "you can wind up killing somebody," Gerdes says. (It's also illegal in many places.)
Did you get that? They actually advocate shutting your engine off while driving at highway speeds... tailgating tractor trailers..voluntarily passing up a close parking space. All to save what? Less than $.02 per mile driven.
For my 17 mile commute I would save $.68 per day. What would it cost me? I'm guessing hypermiling would add about 5 minutes to my commute. So it would cost me 10 minutes a day. But it would also cost untold amounts in public humiliation (does anyone really like to be THAT person in the slow lane), uncertainty over whether my car will restart each time I shut the engine off, the risk of rear ending a tractor trailer and sheesh I might sweat having to walk uphill to my car everytime I leave someplace. All to save 68 cents a day. I can't even get a cup of coffeee for that.
