May 13, 2009HYPERMILING - Tuning to Maximize Gas Mileage

(for more pamphlet photos, click here)

While the online car forums take repeated jabs at the print magazines, it is hard to dispute the enjoyment gleaned from picking up an issue of Car & Driver, Automobile Magazine, Motor Trend and flipping through the actual pages stopping as articles or pictures catch your eye.  

Yesterday, while combing through June 2009’s Automobile Magazine, I started reading an article about hypermiling, “a method of increasing your car’s gas mileage by making skillful changes in the way you drive, allowing you to save gas and thereby have an easier time withstanding the rising oil and gas prices” (source: http://www.hypermiling.com/).

What fascinated me most is that this practice has been on-going since at least the 1930s when Mobil began sponsoring a Run from LA to Yosemite. In the 1950s Mobil published a pamphlet (see above) encouraging behaviors to enhance gas mileage.

Automobile Magazine details the adventure of three staffers who drove three different gas-guzzling cars of equal EPA ratings (14mpg/city, 20mpg/highway, 16mpg/combined)- the BMW M3, the GMC Yukon, and the Inifinity M45x - from West Hollywood to Lost Hills, CA.  

Each driver made modifications to his car and to his driving style using tips available at CleanMPG.com and hypermiling.com. Some of these tips included using painter’s tape to cover exposed car seams and employing a driving style with minimal braking (which even means putting the car in neutral at stop lights on flat roads). 

The results?  The BMW averaged 25mpg, landing it in first place.  The Infinity achieved a mean 24mpg.  And, not surprisingly, landing in third place was the GMC Yukon which achieved 21mpg.  

Can’t find the article online - you’ll have to pick up a copy of Automobile Magazine (June 2009) to read the full article.