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Extreme Personal Finance: The Most Fuel-Efficient Driver in the World Print
Monday, 5th March 2007 (by J.D.)This article is about Cars, Money Hacks
I don’t usually think of Boing Boing as a source for money hacks, but they just posted a blurb about Wayne Gerdes, who “may be the most fuel-efficient driver in the world”.
Through tricky coasting, careful acceleration, and driving without breaking, the “king of the hypermilers” can apparently squeeze 59 MPG out of a non-hybrid Honda Accord and more than 100 MPG from a Toyota Prius.
I read the original article about Gerdes and listened to the interview with him. How does he get such high mileage? Through a series of extreme measures, most of which aren’t appropriate for the average person. He doesn’t use the air conditioning or roll down the windows, even on hot, humid days. He drafts off eighteen-wheelers, riding just a car length or two behind them. He turns off the engine and coasts, when possible. This is anal-retentiveness at its best. (Or worst.) Some of the things Gerdes does are very, very dangerous.
But he does have recommendations for how the average person can conserve fuel, thus saving money on gas.
- Don’t speed.
- Go easy on the brakes.
- Inflate your tires to maximum recommended pressure.
- Never idle. (His rule of thumb is: “If you’re going to be stopped more than seven seconds, turn off the engine.”)
- Know your route so you can time the traffic signals.
- Keep your vehicle as empty as possible. Added weight reduces fuel economy.
- Remove racks and other objects on the outside of your vehicle.
- If you’re comfortable with it (because it is illegal), use a rolling stop.
- In parking lots, don’t use reverse. Pull into a spot so that you’re facing out.
A google search yields a lot more info on Gerdes and on “hypermiling”. Yet another example of extreme personal finance (by which I mean “things that I could never do”) .
[Boing Boing: Mileage hacker Wayne Gerdis]
March 5th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Because you live in PDX you will appreciate this. My grandfather would drive from Portland to Seaside about twice a week. He worked the drive from PDX to the coast so he could coast once he started the descent. It is 32 miles.
March 5th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
I got him beat by ~66mp”g”.
http://geeklimit.com/2006/05/09/i-drive-a-30k-80mph-166mpg-suv/
March 5th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
One of the reasons that VW TDI’s were/are so popular is the outstanding mileage. At the annual TDIClub.com meeting, they have mileage runs. I thought I was doing great with my 71 mpg, but got schooled with several participants getting well over 130 mpg, on biodiesel, in ‘96 passats. Insane.
My best was a trip from Cleveland to Woods Hole, MA on a little over 7 gallons of diesel.
Now I’m happy with 40 mpg in my gasser passat.
March 5th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
I can get great gas mileage out of any car I drive. The same trip over the same roads when my husband drives uses 2 to 3 times as much gas as when I drive.
March 5th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
“In parking lots, don’t use reverse. Pull into a spot so that you’re facing out.”
Maybe I’m missing something obvious, but wouldn’t that require you to back into the spot? Thus using reverse?
March 6th, 2007 at 5:10 am
I read the whole article. Great he gets all that mileage, bad he drives so unsafely. I don’t want to be anywhere near this guy.
March 6th, 2007 at 6:53 am
I agree with Roy… this guy should probably be arrested for some of the things that he does. I’d rather be safe than save a few bucks on gas. I think there is a lot that all of us can learn about driving more efficiently, but this guy takes it to a dangerous extreme.
March 6th, 2007 at 10:25 am
“Maybe I’m missing something obvious, but wouldn’t that require you to back into the spot? Thus using reverse?”
I assume he was referring to a large open lot where you can pull around the “other side” of a parking slot open at both ends and position yourself so that you’re facing outwards.
From the article: “If you’re comfortable with it (because it is illegal), use a rolling stop.”
Nice way to encourage people to put themselves at risk for tickets. A $150+ fine plus maybe traffic school will more than eat up any minuscule savings you get using the “California stop” technique. And I speak from personal experience on this having been dinged twice in a relatively short period of time for rolling through stop signs.
March 6th, 2007 at 10:41 am
NOTE: Do not inflate your tires to the max at all.
Think of it like this, inflate a balloon to about 2 inches in size, and place it on a piece of glass, see how much of the balloon touches the glass. Now inflate it to 12 inches, and see how it touches the glass. Notice how its less now.
Thats called the contact patch, and all tires have such a patch where the rubber meets the road. When you inflate more than you need to you subtract from the contact patch.
Believe me, you need to grip the road. Look on the Drivers Door Jamb there should be a plate that tells you the recommended tire size and pressure.
March 6th, 2007 at 11:55 am
This is yet another area where losing weight helps you save money.
March 6th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
hehe “California Stop”. We call it “The South Philly Slide”.
This guy reminds me of my dad. I think there’s a fine line between being frugal and being cheap. My dad goes so far as to turn off all the electricity in the house except for the room he’s using (he lives alone) at the circuit breaker. This includes the hot water heater, so taking a shower in his house requires you to get his permission, turn on the hot water heater, wait until the water heats up, then turning the heater off, then bathing with what’s in the tank.
He pays like $100 for *yearly* electricity.
I want to be frugal, but not at the cost of modern convenience. For my part, I have resolved to drive close to the speed limit to and from work. Its odd to see people blowing by me like I’m standing still. Since my commoute is like 6 miles, it really makes no difference time-wise to me. We’ll see if I notice any kind of gas mileage improvement.
March 7th, 2007 at 9:00 am
Starting your car 50 times a day isn’t frugal. You’ll end up replacing starters and batteries at a much higher rate, at probably $75 for a battery and $500 for a starter.
The guy’s also not really that technically savvy- the article mentions him doing a turn in an Insight instead of braking to slow down. The man way that hybrids get their efficiency is by recovering braking energy. Doing a turn to slow down instead of using the brakes is a zero sum game in a non-hybrid, and just stupid in a hybrid.
Same issue with “The death turn” - he burns a lot of his energy up squealing the tires, when, in a hybrid, he’d be better to slow down with the electric brakes, put the energy into the batteries, and then use it later.
March 8th, 2007 at 8:42 am
Since he’s willing to break the law to save money on gas, why doesn’t he just steal it? Seems a little easier than what he’s doing now.
In all seriousness, I would be afraid to be on the road with this guy. He’s risking his life and others just to save a few pennies. He’s going to end up under a semi one of these days.
March 12th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
The way I see it, he’s more of a kind of high-performance athlete. Someone like Michael Schumacher or Andre Agassi would be willing to go to much greater lengths to achieve their chosen goal (ie. winning races or achieving higher gas mileage than anyone would have thought possible or reasonable). You might not think he’s “technically savvy” but clearly his techniques are working. If you read to the end of the article, in the hi-milers competition he recorded a mileage figure of 180mpg.
April 9th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Potentially Insane Ways To Increase Your Fuel Efficiency…
Wayne, the world’s most fuel-efficient driver, really hates wasting gas. From MotherJones: Wayne doesn’t get high mpg marks by tinkering with engines or using funky fuels or even, most days, by driving a hybrid. He gets them by driving consciously……
June 29th, 2007 at 8:39 am
See how much money he saves when he has to replace his totaled car for rear ending a semi. Or fuel when he is broadsided doing a California roll (not stop thus the sushi) and breaks open his gas tank.
February 11th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
He’ll be lucky if it’s just his car that’s totalled.
By driving that close to a truck he guarantees 2 things: to be completely in the blind spot, and to have no visibility for conditions or traffic ahead.
I’d rather pay more for gas and drive safely.
February 12th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Wayne never advocates dangerous driving. He’s only showing us the possibilities.
Ian
February 18th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Truckers know how to deal with people like him. Eventually one of them will.
I don’t know about where that driver lives, but in Michigan, the law says you have to stay a safe stopping distance behind other vehicles. If you don’t, the accident is your fault and your next of kin may never collect a dime.
BTW, JD, I Stumbled in here. — Bill
March 1st, 2008 at 3:28 am
It’s alot easier to do if you have a standard, depending on the route I take I can coast as much as half the way, why waste gas driving downhill. I always turn the car off at stoplights etc. It saves me about 5% on a tank of gas.
One thing I won’t do is turn the engine off while driving, I might turn it off and coast to a stop, but never on the highway.
As a note most accidents are caused by speeding and aggressive driving.
May 28th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
[...] to squeeze an extra 5mpg out of my car (oooh up to 26. sad.) using basic and mostly safe and legal hypermiling techniques. Sweet. Consuming [...]
June 2nd, 2008 at 5:38 pm
i started hypermiling in my 2008 yaris. not a hybrid like my mother’s prius. and i went from 29/36 mpg to 65/72 mpg. double! and i dont draft big trucks to do it. the trick is knowing your route and knowing when to cut the engine and when to accelerate. you dont have to perform illegal rolling stops to save money. just leave the engine off till it is safe to go. another thing to do is accelerate to the speed limit and cut the engine alowing it to slow down about 10 mph and accelerating. it is especially easy to do in my car because it is has a manual transmission. for the people knocking it and comming up with excuses like a starter costs “$500″ Where the heck are you buying your starter, i need to go into the starter business!!! a starter for my 2008 yaris costs $217. if it goes out in a year and i save $1500 in gas, oh well its under warranty for five years anyway!! pardon my spelling but if a hick from texas like me can do it on the road with all these jacked up 4×4 trucks on the road racing up and down the streets … you can do it too. and at 3.79 to 4 bucks a gallon… it adds up quick in a years time what you can save on gas. so call us “misers” or penny pinchers or whatever, but when the money i save on gas puts my son through college… what will your excuse be to your children why they can’t have this or that? gas? please!!!!
August 10th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
I get 97-100 mpg on my 2008 Genuine Scooters Stella simply by driving carefully and averaging 35 mph. Only downside is I can’t use it during the winter.