Over on TreeHugger, Sami Grover has suggested a new term: micro-hypermiling. Micro-hypermiling is hypermiling on a pre-defined route with which the drive is intimately familiar.
Sami writes:
So I’ve started memorizing the cycle at the two stop lights between my house and town, figuring out how long it takes for a red to turn green – that way I’m able to judge better when to lift the foot off the pedal when I see a red up ahead, and when to keep motoring in the anticipation that it’ll soon be green again. I’ve also learned just how far from the turn off for my house I can lift my foot off the gas, to decelerate to an appropriate speed to take the corner without using the brakes (I only do this when nobody is behind me!). On hot days I’ve started turning the AC off a few miles from home, so the remains of my journey are still cool, but I don’t crank out the cold air till the last minute.
I’ve been doing this same kind of thing on my commute. Fortunately, on my 33 km commute, I only have two traffic lights, and 5 stop signs. There is a relatively flat section, and a hilly section. My usual driving speed on most of this route is 70km/h. On the uphill sections, I let the car slow down to a lower limit of 50 km/h. Going down hill, I can reach 100km/h on the steepest hill if I let the car go. On the way to work, I can go the last 3.2 km without using the gas pedal. On the way home, there’s a 1.6 km stretch that I can do likewise. I’ve also started experimenting with keeping the car between two speeds. Lower limit: 70km/h; upper limit: 80km/h. I drive up to 80km/h then coast back down to 70km/h. If I watch the road carefully, I can time these pulses to end at the top of a downgrade, thus maximizing the amount of time coasting.
I started hypermiling back in the winter when the roads were icy. I noticed that by reducing my speed from a constant 80km/h (and passing slower drivers) to a constant 70km/h saved me a lot of gas. I went from using about 1/4 tank per day to 1/8 tank per day within a few weeks of experimenting. Recently, with using more coasting and pulsing between a upper and lower limit, I have been getting more out of a tank of gas. Since the summer arrived, I usually drive with my windows open, thus eliminating the need for running the Air Conditioning. As I’m not driving up to highway speeds, I don’t feel that there is enough of an increase in drag from having the windows open.
