Hypermiling techniques

There’s a very thin line here between foolish and dangerous and really pushing the envelope. If Trowbridge is doing on empty country roads then chances are he’s not anybody’s problem but his own. If he’s trying in the city where I live, he’s an obstruction to traffic. I think hypermiling is awesome but like an extreme car driving, it has a time and place. When I was going through Driver’s Education in California thirty years ago I recall the number one phrase was “flow of traffic”. I don’t think “flow of traffic” is a good excuse to speed but I also don’t think hypermiling is a good excuse to be a moving roadblock.

Just my take, as they say, your mileage may vary.

Trading speed for savings
Hypermilers work to improve fuel efficiency

ADAM JACKSON
Tribune Staff Writer

As the black mailbox draws closer, Larry Trowbridge’s gaze flicks from it to the digital speed readout in front of him.

The numbers climb agonizingly slowly. 20…25…28… Then, suddenly, his hand taps the stubby gearshift of his 2007 Toyota Prius into neutral. The car begins to coast, the numbers start to drop again, and Trowbridge smiles the smile of a man who can eke 100 miles or more from a single gallon of gas.

“I know that I have to be going around 30 when I pass that mailbox to have enough momentum to coast to the top of the hill,” he says. “The point is to have just enough to make it without having to apply the throttle again.”

Trowbridge, 45, is an adherent of a driving discipline called hypermiling, loosely defined as driving a vehicle in a manner that increases fuel economy far above and beyond the EPA estimated numbers you see on the window stickers at the car lots.

And as gas prices soar across the country, more and more people are flocking to Internet sites devoted to the practice, trading tips and anecdotes in online forums. It is postmodern hot rodding for the green, the frugal, and the mildly obsessive.

Or sometimes, a bit of all three.

“I’ll admit, I am one of those people who is always pushing it a little farther, trying to see better numbers,” said Trowbridge, who lives near Wakarusa. “It is a challenge.”

A challenge, really, that is open to any driver. Trowbridge said one of best things about hypermiling is the fact that anyone, in any car, can try some of the techniques of the craft and realize some real gains in fuel economy, whether they are driving a Prius or a Hummer.

“I used to drive a Durango,” he said. “You can do as much or a little as you want, and no matter what, you are going to get some results.”

Trowbridge is one of those guys who does a lot when it comes to saving gas. A welder for an Elkhart RV company, he said he first became interested in maximizing his mileage when he started having to pay for his own fill-ups.

“When I was a teenager, my parents would pay for the gas I needed to go to places like school or church,” he laughed. “Anywhere else, and I was on my own.”

At first, he fooled around with devices that promised great gains and delivered very few. Gimmicks, really, and it didn’t take Trowbridge long to realize that he was headed down the wrong path.

Beyond simple solutions like keeping the car well maintained, the answer to the fuel mileage question lies with the car’s most important component — the one behind the wheel.

“The only real way to do this is to modify your driving,” he said. “And whether you can do that depends on their patience.”

Hypermiling, as it turns out, is a lot like learning to drive all over again. And for many people, it takes plenty of effort to overcome bad habits learned from years of regular driving, such as rapid acceleration, or setting the cruise control at 5 mph over the speed limit.

Also, it helps to have a sense of humor. With some of the slow-speed driving necessitated by hard-core hypermiling, it is a necessity.

“I take some flack from my friends and family,” Trowbridge admitted. “We were out once and my wife saw a horse and buggy.

“She said I had better be careful or it would pass me,” he laughed. “I joked back that she had better be careful or that buggy would be her ride home.”

Tools of the trade

Joking aside, hypermiling is not a discipline for the impatient. It requires a clear head, good situational awareness, and, most of all, a Zen-like ability to concentrate on the act of driving. And ignoring the fact that, sometimes, you are going less than 20 mph on a clear stretch of road.

The first rule, Trowbridge said, is that old chestnut: Drive like there is an egg under your right foot. The less you hit the gas, the less gas you burn.

After that, it gets a bit more complicated. At it’s simplest form, hypermiling is all about conserving momentum, while expending the least amount of fuel possible to gain that momentum. And there are a lot of different ways to do that.

One of the most common is the “pulse and glide,” where the car is driven to a set speed and put into neutral to coast. Trowbridge uses this technique in conjunction with hills to maintain his momentum along rolling stretches of roads in rural Elkhart County.

It’s a tool that can return awesome miles-per-gallon numbers. But it also requires vast reserves of attention in order to avoid inconveniencing other road users, who might not understand why a car would be coasting uphill toward a stop sign at 12 mph.

“You always have to keep other drivers in mind,” Trowbridge said. “Some people aren’t going to understand why you are driving this way.”

That alertness is also key to the hypermiling goal of maintaining momentum. By studying the road as far ahead as possible, drivers can react to possible obstructions earlier, allowing them to avoid one of the hypermiler’s worst annoyances — being stopped in traffic.

“I’ve discovered that you can look at a stoplight and get an idea of whether or not it is going to change,” Trowbridge said. “If it has been green for awhile, that’s what you call a stale green — it usually means you can start coasting because it is going to be red by the time you get there.”

On the road

Being on the road with Trowbridge is watching a skilled technician at work. He’s relaxed behind the wheel, but his eyes and hands are always moving, tapping the gearshift lever from neutral to drive, watching the Prius’s digital information display, and checking those numbers with a piece of hardware that plugs into the car’s on-board diagnostic port, allowing real-time display of fuel consumption.

The numbers that come up on the display are like something out of a science-fiction novel. Even considering the Prius’s already-good EPA estimated mileage of 48 city/45 highway.

“See that? From Wakarusa to here we averaged 91 miles per gallon,” he said, as the car coasted toward a stop sign along a deserted county road. “I think we can do a little better on the rest of the trip.”

Run what you brung

Proponents of hypermiling argue that using some of the techniques will allow anyone to do better, whether they drive a Prius or a Ford F-250. Wayne Gerdes of Chicago is one of the pioneers of hypermiling and the operator of one of the pastime’s more active Web sites, CleanMPG.com. He takes the craft seriously no matter what he is driving.

“If you do it right, you can be getting 50 miles per gallon in your (Honda) Accord or (Toyota) Camry,” he said. “You can do a lot better in any car. It is up to you.”

Gerdes should know. In the fuel-economy tags that he and other hypermilers list below their posts on the clean MPG Forums, he’s showing an average of nearly 50 miles per gallon from his 2005 Honda Accord … and nearly 40 miles per gallon from his 2003 Ford Ranger pickup.

For Gerdes, that’s a triumph not only for his wallet, but also a battle won in the war to wean America off of foreign oil.

“We are in a world of hurt when it comes to our dependence on oil, and hypermiling is just a way to help ease us into whatever energy source is in the future,” he said. “I would really rather see people walking or biking or using public transportation, but that’s not always an option.”

Is it legal or unsafe?

Some critics of hypermiling contend that some aspects of the practice constitute a traffic hazard. Indeed, some states prohibit practices that some hypermilers use. In Indiana, it is a Class C traffic infraction to coast in a car with the transmission in neutral. And in just about every state, impeding the flow of traffic by driving too slowly can earn a motorist an unwanted meeting with a traffic cop.

The concern, Lt. Michael Brown of the Michigan State Police post in Niles said, is that a slow-moving vehicle in fast moving traffic is unexpected by other drivers.

“It’s that closing speed we worry about,” he said. “If we have one driver going 50 and the guy behind him going 70, that can be a recipe for an accident.”

Sgt. Tony Slocum of the Indiana State Police post in Peru said that he hasn’t yet heard of any problems being caused by hypermilers, although he noted that the state reckless driving statute has a section prohibiting driving to block the flow of traffic.

“Sometimes we get a driver — usually an elderly person — who is holding up the traffic just because they aren’t aware,” he said. “But that’s pretty rare. Usually, we are worried about the ones who are going too fast.”

Gerdes said that hypermilers always strive to be visible to other road users and work consciously to avoid blocking other traffic by being aware of the unfolding situation on the roads around them.

He admits, however, that driving hypermiling speeds on a freeway can sometimes draw the attention of patrol officers.

“I have been in cars that have been pulled over for going too slow,” Gerdes laughed. “I think mostly, they are just checking to make sure the driver is OK.”

No gas price relief

There is a satisfaction in hypermiling that drivers can take to the bank. And if gas prices are any indication, the practice is only likely to increase in popularity. Beth Mosher, a spokeswoman for AAA Chicago, said regular unleaded was at $3.26 on average in South Bend last week, and it is likely going nowhere but up.

“Right now, we are in a low demand period,” she said “That’s going to change as we head into late spring and early summer, and more people start driving more.

“As far as the summer goes, we don’t see any relief,” she said.

But will that economic impetus drive consumers to change their motoring habits? A good person to ask in that situation is the guy filling up the biggest SUV at the neighborhood gas station. And at the Marathon Station at Grape Road and McKinley Boulevard Monday, Chris Taylor was that guy.

With his 1998 Chevy Tahoe sucking down unleaded, he considered the question. Would he be willing to drive below the speed limit, coast down hills, and employ other hypermilers’ tricks to coax more mileage out of his truck?

“I don’t know, sounds like a lot of work,” he laughed. “I guess maybe if I didn’t have anywhere to get to quick.”

Maybe it’s not so much the destination for the hypermiling crowd, though. Maybe it’s the act of getting there.

And maybe, for guys like Trowbridge, it’s that magic time, when you pull in the driveway, shut down the engine, and look at the screen to get that mileage number.

That three-digit mileage number.

“There. 5.2 miles and about 107 miles per gallon,” he said shutting down the Prius and glancing at the readout. “That was a pretty good one.”Staff writer Adam Jackson ajackson@sbtinfo.com (574) 235-6163