Hypermiling Your MPG Solar Power Energy
Generation Guide
Hypermiling Your MPG Helps Reduce The Need For Fuel
By James J Dixon
The first step to hypermiling your MPG to get better
fuel economy involves knowing what your miles per gallon
reading is. There are several methods of doing this.
To calculate by your odometer, fill your gas tank all
the way and write down your odometer’s mileage.
Next, when it’s time to refuel, fill the tank completely
again and write down how many gallons it took to fill
the tank, as well as the new odometer reading. Once
you take two odometer readings, you’ll be able to calculate
your MPG.
Calculate the distance driven by subtracting the previous
odometer reading from the new one; then divide the number
of miles driven by the number of gallons it took to
fill the tank. The result will show you what your vehicle’s
MPG was for that driving period.
Applying Your Brakes More Than You Need
First, you need to ask yourself, "Am I driving
aggressively?" You may not even realize it, but
you might be speeding to get around other cars on the
road, which causes you to brake hard later on.
On the highway, you might choose to drive 65 instead
of 55 or enjoy leading a pack of cars in the left-hand
lane. If you find yourself driving like a maniac, you’re
not alone. On average, drivers apply their brakes 10-25%
more than they need to.
Two Second Buffer Between Cars
If cars left the appropriate two-second buffer between
them and the cars ahead, they would have more time to
coast before applying the brakes, which is what hypermiling
and saving money on gas prices is all about.
Next time, take your foot off the gas when you see
that red light up ahead and simply coast to the finish
line, rather than hurrying up to wait with all the other
cars and wasting your precious fuel.
Braking And Accelerating Habits
The next step in hypermiling your MPG is to look at
your braking and accelerating habits, which greatly
affect your fuel efficiency. You want to avoid hard
braking as much as possible by taking your foot off
the gas and coasting as soon as you see brake lights
or a red traffic light ahead.
More often than not, you’ll be able to just keep coasting
through the intersection as the light turns green when
you arrive. If you do happen to get stopped at a red
light, take a deep breath and accelerate slowly from
the stop.
Keep Your RPMs Under 3
Ideally, you’ll want to keep your RPMs in the low numbers
(under 3) and use the "accelerate" button
on your cruise control to begin accelerating at 1 MPH
per second. These hypermiling tips are sure to improve
your fuel consumption in no time at all.
When hypermiling your MPG, you’ll want to keep moving
in traffic congestion, said electrical engineer Bill
Beaty in 1998. On his website, www.trafficwaves.org,
Beaty identifies a number of techniques to keep your
car moving during a jam.
Drive Smoothly At The Average Speed Of Traffic
Many of these ideas have become like a hypermiler’s
bible. For instance, instead of speeding up and slowing
down with the traffic, he recommends just driving smoothly
at the average speed of traffic.
"Sometimes I hit it just right and never had to
touch the brakes at all," he reported. When he
approaches a traffic jam or accident, he leaves extra
space before him, knowing that he can’t make the cars
ahead of him go faster but he can make the cars behind
him go slower, which will free up space for cars to
accelerate better once they get past the obstruction.
He added that people should always leave a couple car
lengths ahead of themselves and allow traffic to merge
to keep all cars steadily moving and getting more miles
per gallon.
About the Author:
James J Dixon has written a number of articles on recycling,
waste management and renewable resources including
Environmental Jobs,
Waste Water,
Disposal Of Plastics.
Look out for new articles as they become available on
this site.
Little Known Hypermiling Facts.....
Can hypermiling be used in any vehicle?
Yes, hypermiling can be used in any vehicle.
Of course you are going to see a far better result in hybrid or electric
vehicles that can get hundreds of miles per gallon but that is not the
purpose behind this practice. The practice itself is something every
driver needs to know about and apply to their own vehicles. So even
if you drive a gas guzzling SUV, you can still get better gas mileage.
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