What’s a hypermiler?
Realizing that I’m probably the last person on the internet to see this, I just read a fascinating article about Hypermilers. According to Wikipedia, Hypermilers are “drivers who exceed the EPA estimated fuel efficiency on their vehicles by modifying their driving habits”.
An article posted at MotherJones.com talks about a man named Wayne Gerdes, the world’s greatest hypermiler. He has been known to squeeze 59 Miles Per Gallon out of a Honda Accord with no special fuels for technical gizmos - it’s all in the way he drives.
Here’s what I want to know…
In the early 1980’s, I knew some people who had a Ford Crown Victoria that featured a real-time mileage display. If that technology existed as an option a quarter century ago, why then, given the spiraling gas prices today, aren’t those things STANDARD EQUIPMENT on all cars today? I remember in about 1987 or so, some car manufacturer came out with a car that featured a third brake light as an option. The Powers That Be saw that and decided it was an incredible safety feature and made that third brake light mandatory. I sincerely believe that if people could see in real time what a small change in their driving habits could do to their gas mileage, then the amount of gas that Mr. Average American burns in the average week would go down drastically.
I’ll go you one better. People are competitive by nature. Everybody’s trying to either one-up the guy down the hall or at least beat their own personal best at something, right? Picture this: You’re cruising down the highway and your real-time MPG display says your car is getting 30.5 MPG. Suddenly, you come up behind a car whose MPG is shown on a display on the back of the car - maybe right next to that third brake light - and it says they’re getting 32 MPG. Be honest with yourself. That’s going to stick in your craw and something in you is going to HAVE to beat that 32 MPG, right?
Yup. I’m suggesting that not only should real-time MPG displays be mandatory, but they should display that information to OTHER DRIVERS as well. It would encourage people to improve their driving habits through friendly competition. In the example above, would YOU want to zip past those two cars displaying “18 MPG” for all the world to see?
I didn’t think so.
Technorati Tags: gas+prices, gripes, suggestions
Those are all excellent questions and lines of inquiry. Here’s some more to go on..I recently heard an ad on the radio that says CSX trains can move freight at a rate of 423 miles to one gallon of fuel. I checked out their website here:
http://www.csx.com/?fuseaction=general.csxo_env_fue
They restated that claim on their own website. So..if a freakin train that pulls freight cars can get 423 miles to one gallon of fuel..why the hell can we not modify our automobiles to be as efficient? They use diesel fuel. Nothing special!
WHOA! Four Hundred Twenty-Three Miles Per Gallon of diesel!?
I’ll tell you why they can’t build automobiles that can do that. Because the OIL COMPANIES don’t WANT them built. Why else do you think companies like Exxon are posting the HIGHEST PROFITS in HISTORY? Because they’re sticking it to Joe Consumer and paying Uncle Sam to look the other way!
I do this: I have a trip odometer and top my tank off each time I go into a gas station. Then it is a simple math task of dividing the miles on the trip-ometer by the number of gallons of gas needed to bring it back to full. In a 2000 Ford Escort ZX2 with over 90k miles on it (and a manual transmission) I average 30-31 mpg during the winter and up to 35 mpg during the summer … while delivering pizzas!
Let the mpg competition begin!