Hypermiling

Sick of rising petrol prices? Then maybe hypermiling, aka eco-driving, is for you.

The global movement, known as hypermiling in the United States and eco-driving in Europe, is based on getting drivers to change their driving habits to maximise fuel efficiency.

Hypermilers claim up to 100% extra kilometres per tank in extreme cases, with savings of 33% being commonplace. And, while eco-driving has not quite taken off in South Africa, local experts argue that savings of between 25% and 30% can be achieved simply by driving more carefully.

Techniques range from the straightforward — driving at a constant speed — to the more outlandish methods, such as pushing your vehicle whenever practical.

Hypermiling focuses on the savings a driver can make by taking it easy on the accelerator and is the name for motorists who try to exceed their vehicle’s US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) fuel economy rating, according to cleanmpg.com, a hypermiling website.

Eco-driving is equally concerned with the decrease in emissions that can be achieved by greater fuel efficiency and greater road safety. But the basic rules for both hypermiling and eco-driving remain similar. According to ecodrive.org, they include anticipating traffic flow, smooth deceleration and less braking (a huge energy waster), shifting into a higher gear at between 2 000 and 2 500 revolutions per minute (RPMs) and maintaining a constant speed.

But hypermilers have myriad other ways of maximising fuel efficiency, which give the notion of efficiency a more fanatical, competitive flavour. They include pre-warming your engine with an electric block heater prior to starting your car — a process that can take up to two hours and the advanced hypermiling technique called the pulse and glide. This involves accelerating then coasting or gliding with the engine off (but only in ideal situations). There are also pointers such as choosing a route with some kind of barrier, a tree line for example, to shield a vehicle from any cross winds that might slow it down.

Hypermilers are also encouraged to make fuel economy a game or challenge so drivers can compete against themselves and others. Websites such as hypermiling.com, ecomodder.com and cleanMPG.com provide a wonderful platform for hypermiling nuts to swap notes, compete and show off their DIY redesigned cars in attempts to achieve better aerodynamics.

Says one forum member who began hypermiling on his 2005 Dodge: “I have to say I had fun trying to get better gas mileage and be the most FE [fuel-efficient] Dodge Ram on the CleanMPG.com mileage log site. I had been driving the Ram for a year and was averaging 17mpg [miles per gallon] and spent $3 100,65 on gas. After using those methods I increased my mileage to 18,2mpg.”

Some critics claim hypermiling promotes unsafe driving habits, such as tailgating or “drafting” behind larger vehicles –to reduce wind resistance to the hypermiler’s car — but adherents claim it simply requires a commonsense approach to driving.

Eco-driving has gathered a huge following in Europe and eco-driving campaigns have been established in a host of EU countries, including Finland, Germany, France, the Czech Republic, Poland, Greece and the United Kingdom, according to the Ecodrive web. Promoted through an EU-wide project called Ecodriven, pilot projects have been created to integrate eco-driving techniques at driving schools in countries such as Spain.

South Africa still has a long way to go when it comes to eco-driving, or fuel-efficient driving of any kind. But according to Dave Johnston, responsible for defensive driver training standards at the Automobile Association (AA), better drivers on local roads automatically lead to greater fuel-efficiency.

Johnston’s experience lies in teaching people to become more defensive drivers. Many of the simple behavioural changes required for eco-driving parallel some basic principles of defensive driving. In South Africa defensive driving not only increases fuel-efficiency, it also increases road safety and decreases your risks of being hijacked.

For Johnston, anticipating traffic flow is a must, an eco-driving golden rule. This means leaving a greater following distance between your car and any vehicle in front of you, which allows you to observe things happening up to 15 to 20 seconds ahead. Johnston says this allows for two things that maximise fuel-efficiency: first, you can keep constant, even pressure on your accelerator, minimising fuel intake into the engine and, second, it allows you to decelerate smoothly, decreasing your need to brake.

“When breaking you create friction and heat, which wastes energy,” says Johnston. “The more you anticipate traffic ahead of you, the less you need to break.”

Another way to maximise fuel economy, says Johnston, is to decrease idling, particularly at traffic lights. “Try to anticipate the change,” he says. In doing so you cannot only save fuel, but also decrease your chances of being hijacked, since most hijackings take place at, you guessed it, robots.

“We’re talking about economic driving, which we are very bad at in South Africa,” he says. “Just doing those simple things can see a massive fuel-efficiency result.”

According to the Natonal Energy Efficiency Agency (NEEA), simply driving a vehicle at a steady speed of 100km/h can increase efficiency dramatically. A typical hatchback can increase its fuel efficiency by 33%, while decreasing its fuel consumption from an average of 8,5litres/100km to 6,07litres/100km. Similarly a large SUV can decrease its consumption from 16,8litres/100km to 12litres/100km, increasing fuel efficiency by some 25%.

Hypermilers are also encouraged to observe their fuel consumption carefully. Many modern vehicles already have built-in fuel-efficiency gauges, but there are aftermarket products that allow drivers to observe how their driving affects fuel consumption.

One such nifty number is a ScanGauge, which connects to a car’s on-board diagnostics (OBD) port, found in vehicle models 1996 or later. On-board diagnostic technology is mandatory in European and US vehicles to measure noxious tail-pipe emissions. The ScanGuauge gives drivers real-time feedback on how much fuel they are consuming at any given time. But they are available only in the US and read miles per gallon instead of metric kilometres.

For those with less up-to-date vehicle models, drivers can fit far “cruder” devices in their cars, such as a vacuum gauge, says Stuart Rayner, chairperson of the fuels and emissions working group at the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa). The gauge reads the vacuum pressure in a car’s inlet manifold and gives some indication of how hard the engine is working. When pressure is low it’s a sign that the engine is working very hard, pulling in lots of air and consequently lots of fuel, he says.

“But this is not a practical option for older vehicles,” he says. “You can achieve the same thing with careful driving, changing gear earlier, maintaining constant speeds and so on.” For Rayner calculating your consumption each time you fill up is a far better way to manage fuel economy.

Rayner says new technology, such as a basic gear-change indicator, will soon be installed in new-generation cars in a bid to increase fuel-efficiency. The indicator will simply tell the driver when to change up to maximise fuel economy.

“The Department of Minerals and Energy, with cooperation from the Department of Environment and Tourism and the [South African Bureau of Standards], has published a standard that requires all new vehicles to have a label on them to indicate their fuel-efficiency in l-per-100km as well as its CO2 emissions,” says to Elsa du Toit at NEEA.

“This is the first step in making South Africans aware of the impact of their vehicle on the environment and assisting them to make informed decisions. Vehicle choice is the first place where energy efficiency starts.”

Du Toit says that drivers who have fuel-consumption gauges built into their vehicles already should be “encouraged to use this function and adjust their driving techniques to use as little fuel as possible”.

Du Toit has decreased her personal fuel consumption in her Citroen C2 1400 from 6,5 litres per 100km to 5,5 litres per100km, simply by keeping her revs below 2 000 RPM wherever possible.

Of course, if you don’t feel like changing your driving habits, there are two other options available to you: foot the bill or get there on foot. Du Toit has decreased her personal fuel consumption in her Citroën C2 1400 from 6,5 litres per 100km to 5,5 litres per 100km, simply by keeping her revs below 2 000 RPM wherever possible.

Of course, if you don’t feel like changing your driving habits, there are two other options available to you: foot the bill or get there on foot.

How to get the best from your tank

The golden rules of eco-driving from www.ecodrive.org

Some hypermiling techniques from www.ecomodder.com

If faced with worst-case “stop and crawl” traffic conditions, leave as much space ahead of you as possible and continually “accordion” that space to keep your vehicle moving near a constant speed while the cars in front of you stop and start.