Lunatic gets great gas mileage

[John Many Jars]

http://www.motherjones.com/cgi-bin/print_article.pl?url=http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/01/king_of_the_hypermilers-3.html

[JoshV]

Ugh, i got admit, reading that drove me crazy. Gas is still a fairly cheap commodity overall, while my time isn't.

[Charles]

Best way to get gas mileage is to accelerate and drive slower. Keep your RPMs low. You can increase fuel efficiency by about 30%.

[Robert Sharp]

Ugh, i got admit, reading that drove me crazy. Gas is still a fairly cheap commodity overall, while my time isn't.

You did note that timing wise, many of the things these guys do adds very little to your travel time, right?

[Flowers]

He's fuckin' wastin' gas by racin'.

[Backov]

Driving is enjoyable, that would be annoying as shit.

I'll be happy to lose driving as a pleasure when I and everyone else are driving cars tied into some automated super-efficient driving system. Until then, I want to enjoy it.

[Stroker Ace]

Driving is enjoyable, that would be annoying as shit.

I'll be happy to lose driving as a pleasure when I and everyone else are driving cars tied into some automated super-efficient driving system. Until then, I want to enjoy it.
Obviously he's enjoying it. I know I'd pay more attention to my efficiency if I had a meter in front of me. I'll game anything if I'm bored and it has a meter.

[Backov]

Obviously he's enjoying it. I know I'd pay more attention to my efficiency if I had a meter in front of me. I'll game anything if I'm bored and it has a meter.

It takes a specific type of personality to enjoy driving slow and pissing off everyone around you I guess. :)

[Bill Dungsroman]

Obviously he's enjoying it. I know I'd pay more attention to my efficiency if I had a meter in front of me. I'll game anything if I'm bored and it has a meter.
Hey Stroker that reminds me, can I have back my copy of Postal Weight Tycoon you borrowed?

[BobJustBob]

Driving is enjoyable, that would be annoying as shit.

I'll be happy to lose driving as a pleasure when I and everyone else are driving cars tied into some automated super-efficient driving system. Until then, I want to enjoy it.

Driving is only enjoyable at night with no traffic. These techniques would apply the rest of the time.

Guy's still crazy.

[Stroker Ace]

Hey Stroker that reminds me, can I have back my copy of Postal Weight Tycoon you borrowed?
Not until I beat my personal record for months holding someone else's crappy game. Remind me again in 2009.

[Backov]

Driving is only enjoyable at night with no traffic. These techniques would apply the rest of the time.

Guy's still crazy.

Thanks for letting me know what I enjoy, Bob. :)

[BobJustBob]

Thanks for letting me know what I enjoy, Bob. :)

If you enjoy driving in traffic with the hot sun in your eyes, then you're the lunatic. :)

[Robert Sharp]

Some days there are clouds. Like today. Look outside, Bob. It'll be alright...I promise.

[Lunch of Kong]

When traffic is extremely heavy, I drive the average speed. For example, if folks are going 30mph for 30 seconds, then are forced to stop for another 30 seconds, all they are doing is creating a standing wave. They may as well all drive 15mph. So I'm the guy that'll drive that 15mph and be relaxed, coasting with the clutch pushed in when folks cut in ahead of me. Standing waves waste energy for everyone.

[Bullhajj]

So I'm the guy that'll drive that 15mph and be relaxed, coasting with the clutch pushed in when folks cut in ahead of me.

The rest of us are the guys flipping you the bird.

[Charles]

When traffic is extremely heavy, I drive the average speed. For example, if folks are going 30mph for 30 seconds, then are forced to stop for another 30 seconds, all they are doing is creating a standing wave. They may as well all drive 15mph. So I'm the guy that'll drive that 15mph and be relaxed, coasting with the clutch pushed in when folks cut in ahead of me. Standing waves waste energy for everyone.

I'll do that in traffic as well. Bonus points when you can just let your car roll at idle speed and never have to tap the breaks.

[Mark Asher]

"If people could see how much fuel they guzzled while driving, Wayne believes they'd quickly learn to drive more efficiently. "If the epa would mandate fcds [fuel consumption displays] in every car, this country would save 20 percent on fuel overnight," he says. "They're not expensive for the manufacturers to put in—10 to 20 bucks—and it would save more fuel than all the laws passed in the last 25 years. All from a simple display."

That would be a great idea. I bet it really would make people more conscious of how their driving affected their consumption.

[BobJustBob]

Some days there are clouds. Like today. Look outside, Bob. It'll be alright...I promise.

Yeah, today the weather's pretty nice. Too warm though.

[Jojo]

Is his fuel consumption display different to the ones that some cars already have? Mine has one and its useless. If I take my foot off the accelerator it says I'm getting 0mpg. It also has assumed mileage left, which is hilarious. Since I mostly drive city, which is horrible mpg, if I fill up the tank then immediately get on the freeway, it goes beserk trying to recalculate and tells me that I have 600miles left in the tank!

[JoshV]

You did note that timing wise, many of the things these guys do adds very little to your travel time, right?

From the article " The speed limit is 55, and most of the traffic is zipping past at 75 or so, but Wayne hovers around 50 mph. He's riding the white line on the right side of the right-hand lane. "


Explain to me how going 50 mph when you could be going 75 is going to add very little to my travel time? If i had to go someplace that was 150 miles away, it would take me three hours at 50, or two at 75, and most likely, that would need to be a round trip, so it'd take six hours of driving time, or four.

[Lunch of Kong]

Is his fuel consumption display different to the ones that some cars already have? Mine has one and its useless. If I take my foot off the accelerator it says I'm getting 0mpg. It also has assumed mileage left, which is hilarious. Since I mostly drive city, which is horrible mpg, if I fill up the tank then immediately get on the freeway, it goes beserk trying to recalculate and tells me that I have 600miles left in the tank!

Some cars have good ones. Some have less useful ones.

If you take your foot off the accelerator, your current mpg should rise sharply. If you put the car into neutral while over 30mph or so, it should peg all the way to max (99.9mpg for most displays).

More interesting to me would be a display that measures fuel use by second. That way you can measure the fuel you're using while idling and starting, and can better judge when its worth turning the engine off altogether when stopped at a light.

[walTer]

Ha, try that shit in LA

[krayzkrok]

Most of the really bad drivers, though, tend to drive company vehicles and they don't give a shit how much fuel they're using, just as long as they're right up your ass because you're only doing 10 kph above the limit and not 30.

I'd like to install deployable land-mines in my car for this reason. Then I could get a bumper sticker that says "If you can read this, you're about to DIE motherfucker!"

[olaf]

I'd like to install deployable land-mines in my car for this reason. Then I could get a bumper sticker that says "If you can read this, you're about to DIE motherfucker!"
That would be a sweet bumper sticker even w/o the land-mines.

[Michael Fitch]

"If people could see how much fuel they guzzled while driving, Wayne believes they'd quickly learn to drive more efficiently. "If the epa would mandate fcds [fuel consumption displays] in every car, this country would save 20 percent on fuel overnight," he says. "They're not expensive for the manufacturers to put in—10 to 20 bucks—and it would save more fuel than all the laws passed in the last 25 years. All from a simple display."

That would be a great idea. I bet it really would make people more conscious of how their driving affected their consumption.
Greetings:
Yeah, my mom got a Prius, and I drove it for a bit, and the display is really addictive. They have a running average and a current rate as well as doing 5-minute "samples" with a bar graph, so you can see your efficiency second by second, over the course of longer driving sessions, and over the long haul. I would totally get better gas mileage if I had one of those just because I couldn't not try to game it.

On the other hand, I wonder how many accidents would be caused by having them in every car...

Best,
Michael.

[dannimal]

If this nut is so obsessed with cutting back on how much money he gives to Osama, why doesn't he just get a diesel and run it on used vegetable oil/biodiesel?

[Lunch of Kong]

The reason I employ dubious methods to save gas sometimes is because I have to make up for my morning drive, in which I employ dubious methods to make it to work in time for our scrum.

As a buddy pointed out to me this morning, "Holy shit... it's you!"
http://www.xkcd.com/c207.html

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/what_xkcd_means.png

[AndrewM]

I prefer the inverse Ackermann function, myself.

[Southern]

I'd prefer one of these beauties instead:

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/01/07/detroit-auto-show-its-here-gms-plug-in-hybrid-is-the-chevy-v/

has 2 motors, 1 is electric and has a 40 mile driving range, the other runs on gas, or diesel or biofuel or 85 or 100 ethanol. the gas powered motor is not connected to the drive train at all, it is purely to recharge the battery.

one tank (12 gallons) of gas can recharge the battery 16 times giving you a max range on one tank of 640 miles.

if you never drive more than 40 miles at a time, you don't even use any fuel.

awesome stuff.

only thing holding them back is developing the lithium ion battery huge enough for production.

[Ben]

He uses the Accord for a hellacious two-hour commute to the Braidwood Nuclear Power Station

His coworker who lives 10 minutes away and drives an Expedition is using less gas to get to and from work. Take that, Osama. This dude is an idiot in addition to a lunatic and a terrible driver.

[Balasarius]

Isn't driving without a running engine painfully retarded? Doesn't the act of starting your engine consume significant amounts of fuel...?

It was an interesting read, however. Maybe I'll try drafting some time...

[Stroker Ace]

Isn't driving without a running engine painfully retarded? Doesn't the act of starting your engine consume significant amounts of fuel...?

It was an interesting read, however. Maybe I'll try drafting some time...
I was wondering about that as well. I know with a manual transmission rolling starts are "free", but I have no clue if you can do the same with an automatic, which I assume everyone has now that we're living in The Future.