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Adventures in Hypermiling
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And that makes me a good hypermiler. Hypermilers advocate going at or below the speed limit. Johnson and a few other hypermilers I talked to also avoid braking heavily and idling excessively. When they get into their cars, they put on their seat belts and adjust their mirrors before turning on the engine. If they know they're going to be at a red light for a long time, they turn off their engines. When they're going downhill, they put their cars in neutral or simply glide down.
Critics say some hypermilers take these practices to the extreme. They say that driving too slowly on, say, the Capital Beltway, is dangerous. Driving too slowly on a one-lane road, they say, is simply rude. There are other controversial hypermiling techniques, such as drafting, which involves closely following a tractor-trailer to reduce wind resistance.
"Many of the techniques that the hypermilers use can prove rather effective in cutting gas consumption, but you have to think about not only your safety but the safety of others first," said John Townsend, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic. "Some of the things they do can be rather dangerous."
When asked about such criticisms, Wayne Gerdes, the owner of CleanMPG.com, gets emotional. "I get e-mails, just hate mail, you wouldn't believe it," he said.
What's wrong with driving at the speed limit? he asked me.
Back in my Bug, I could see why Gerdes gets so worked up. As I drove 40 miles per hour, the speed limit, cars either honked or drove so closely behind me as to try to intimidate me out of the lane.
The car behind me finally drove around me and accelerated but did not make it past the red light. As I pulled up slowly to the light, I noticed he was one car ahead of me.
"Look how much farther ahead of me he is after he chased me down the road," I said.
"That's part of hypermiling: to understand that going slow is better than going fast," Johnson said. "Just be the smooth operator."
I was pretty smooth, Johnson said upon returning to the parking lot. "You already have a very nice, gentle technique," he said. That said, I kept modulating on the gas pedal, that is, applying pressure then easing up. I also spent too much time at stop signs and sometimes accelerated to a red light.
He showed me the readings on the ScanGauge. I had driven 6.9 miles at a rate that would get me 23.9 miles per gallon. The trip cost me 87 cents.
He looked at my tires. "When was the last time you checked your tire pressure?"
