The beginning

I am starting this blog because this week, I committed myself to seeing how much I could improve my gas mileage. I saw a website over the Memorial day weekend showing a Honda Civic that had been altered to make it more aerodynamic and the owner was getting 90 mpg in a non-hybrid, non-electric car. http://blogs.edmunds.com/Straightline/3986 Way too cool. So as I am reading about it and thinking how I could do something similar, I found all these sites on hypermilers. Hypermilers are drivers who exceed - often dramatically - the EPA estimated mileage for their vehicle by modifying their driving habits and sometimes their vehicle as well. Some of the modifications are extreme, many are not. Well, this seemed a lot easier start than riveting sheetmetal to my car, so I did a lot more reading about the hypermiler techniques. No A/C, pulse and glide, drafting, driving without brakes, 55 mph, slow starts, avoiding stopping, using gravity, etc, etc. I decided to start incorporating some into my driving style to see what effect they would have.

Some background on my commute. 3-4 days out of the week I commute to Baltimore. 69.36 miles, one way according to MapQuest. 48.9 miles of this on Rt 70, a 6 lane East-West highway. 10 miles are rural backroads. 5 miles are around the Baltimore Beltway and up 95. Only about a mile or 2 are actually in downtown Baltimore. If you are familiar with Baltimore, I work in the Camden Yards area, next to both stadiums.

For the last year, I've been driving the Civic to work and tracking the mpg with the tripometer and gas pumps. I typically get between 36 and 42 mpg. Not bad. My speed tends to be between 68 and 78 miles per hour with the cruise control on. I toyed with 60 mph for a while but did not see much difference. So, if I drive 4 days to work, at 560 miles per week - then you figure I average 38 mpg (being conservative) - that's 14.74 gallons per week. Gas was 3.89 this morning, so it's 57.33 dollars per week. Ouch. If I was getting 45 mpg, I'd be saving about $9 a week, or $468 a year of gas stayed at 3.89. At $4.25 a gallon, that become $10 a week. $15.05 a week if I were getting 50 mpg. Ooooooo - lets see if I were getting the 90 mpg of the modified aero-civic. That would be 36.21 a week, or 1882.92 a year in savings.

Well, I don't see myself building an aero-civic just yet, so lets see what a few modifications in driving techniques do.

jim