Growing Trend: Hypermiling

With oil prices skyrocketing a new trend has been growing in popularity: hypermiling. The object is basically to go the farthest on the least amount of gas, which involves altering vehicles and driving habits in some obvious and not so obvious ways. Kind of like swimmers wearing Aquablade swimsuits and shaving all their body hair.

While most do it to save money, some hypermilers do it for sport, like Dan Kroushl, Wayne Gerdes, Rick Reece and Bob Barlow who drove 47 hours and 1,397 miles on 12.87 gallons of gasoline in an unmodified Toyota Prius. Although that seems like it defeats the purpose, it actually shows what cars are capable of with a little creativity. They used a "pulse and glide" technique and kept the car in electric mode as long as possible. I don't think they traversed any hills either.

Some basic techniques for hypermiling include pumping the tires to their maximum rating to reduce rolling resistance and using low viscosity engine oil. Drafting, which involves driving closely behind another vehicle to reduce wind resistance is another technique that is both dangerous and illegal. Coasting to slow down rather than braking also saves a small amount of gas. You can also remove objects such as ski racks to cut down on wind resistance. Accelerating gently rather than flooring it also helps.

Hypermiling can nearly double gas mileage, something to keep in mind as we race toward $4.00 a gallon.

[via treehugger]