Drive for maximum fuel economy

Don’t drive aggressively
Flooring the gas and slamming on the brakes is the quickest way to burn a hole in Your wallet and empty your gas tank. According to fueleconomy.gov, you may experience a 33% decrease in fuel economy by rapidly accelerating and braking. The hard fact is that you share the road with other drivers and ultimately have to stop at all the stoplights and stop signs like everyone else. Save yourself some heartburn, speeding tickets, accidents, and lots of cash by taking it easy on the pedals.

Plan your stops ahead of time

If you see a red light up ahead, rather than pressing on the gas until you need to brake, coast to a stop by taking your foot off the gas and putting your car in neutral for manual transmission. You have enough momentum to keep your car moving forward for a while (without needing to feed more gas into the engine by maintaining pressure on the gas pedal). By coasting, you’re making sure that the gas you use is taking you as far as possible—the key to getting a higher MPG.

Study the lights

When driving a familiar route, you can identify the intersections at which you typically must stop (so you can coast up to them), as well as the lights that change more quickly due to sensors or the size of the intersection. Smaller, less busy intersections usually have shorter lights, and if there are sensors, allowing cars to get ahead of you to trigger them (also known as “Rabbit Timing”) will allow you to coast through. You can make the best time and enjoy greater efficiency by knowing when to coast or when to push through at a constant speed.

Switch lanes

If you have to stop quickly with no room to coast, choose the lane that has fewer cars stopped at the light so that your momentum will carry you farther, rather than using gas to cover that distance later when you need to accelerate.

Find the clear lane

Don’t get caught in a lane in which traffic conditions require you to speed up and slow down repeatedly. For example, avoid driving behind buses on surface streets, and on the merging or exit lanes of highways.

Accelerate slowly

Don’t push down the pedal more than a quarter of the way down when accelerating. Anymore and you’ll be pumping excess gas into your engine while going the same distance.

Shift up early and shift down late For manual transmission owners, this will keep your car running at a lower RPM at a higher gear, which helps fuel economy.

Release the throttle early

Some automatic transmissions can be coaxed to up shift sooner when accelerating by briefly releasing some throttle pressure (lifting off the gas pedal), then re-applying
throttle pressure to continue accelerating. It may take a little practice to get the timing just right.

Keep a constant, low RPM

Those with manual transmissions will find this easiest to do, but if you have an automatic transmission, driving 1-3 mph faster or slower can change the gear you are in. Choose the speed that produces the lowest RPM for the gear you are in. Travelling at
higher speeds in low gears can consume up to 45% more fuel than needed.

Don’t idle

When idling, you use gas while travelling zero miles—this really reduces your average MPG. If you know you’ll be idling for more than 30 seconds, you will save more gas if you turn off your car and restart when you need to start moving (the break-even point for idling versus using gas to start up the car is about 20 seconds). Hybrid cars take advantage of this by turning off the engine automatically when stopped, and will restart again when the gas is applied.

Shift to neutral

If you do idle, switch to neutral. The car uses less gas when it’s in neutral. It’s also easier on the transmission and allows the engine to cool.

Driving without brakes (DWB)

This is not to be taken literally, but it’s a term hypermilers use when referring to their fuel economy philosophy. If you really had to drive without brakes, what would you do?

You would slow down, drive with more anticipation, and coast to slow down. DWB encompasses the broad view of the hypermilers’ best fuel economy practices.

Engine-off coasting (EOC) or Forced Auto Stop (FAS)

One of the biggest reasons hybrids get much better fuel economy is their Auto Stop feature. Hybrid engines shut down in various situations, one of them being when the accelerator is released (when you’re coasting) at under 40 miles per hour. Extreme hypermilers apply this strategy to their non-hybrid cars, which is very dangerous, and most likely illegal. Not only is there a series of precise steps you must execute (i.e. settings to turn the key and how to rev back at the right gear when restarting the engine), but you also lose all power for power-steering and power-braking, which is not a good situation for anybody, whether you’re the one driving or just in the vicinity of such a driver. If you are determined to use this technique, buy a hybrid—a car that is specifically designed to operate in this way.

Drafting

Following a large vehicle closely to drive in its slipstream is no “tip.” It is extremely dangerous and no amount of MPG increase is worth the risk. There is simply no time to react to any sudden moves by the truck you’re following.

Pulse and Glide

This originally started as a technique used by hybrid owners, which hypermilers have adopted to their non-hybrid cars (like EOC/ FAS). Rather than going at a steady speed (let’s say 40 mph), you accelerate to 45-50 mph (pulse), and then coast until you’re at 30 mph (glide). This gets you higher fuel economy than traveling at a steady 40 mph. Hybrid cars are best suited for this technique because of the interaction between the gas and electric engines during the pulse, and because the engine shuts down during the glide. The idea is that you only use gas for roughly half of the trip, which should yield you twice the MPG. But using this method on a non-hybrid vehicle requires much more strategic maneuvering and the use of extra instrumentation.

Drive shoeless

Some extreme hypermilers drive without shoes so they can control the accelerator to the finest degree. Hypermilers got this idea from race car drivers, a big source of inspiration for fuel economy tricks (like drafting).

Use A/C sparingly

Setting the A/C on max can have as high as a 25% reduction in fuel economy. Use the A/C as sparingly as possible. If you do need to cool down, when driving at low speeds (under 50 mph), rolling down your windows is better than using the A/C, but at higher speeds, using the air conditioner will get you better fuel economy.

Close unused vents

If you’re driving alone, close the vents for the passenger side. You’ll be able to get more air at a lower setting, and nothing will be wasted cooling down unoccupied areas of the car.

Cycle the A/C

Set the air flow to re-circulate, turn it on when under light engine loads or deceleration, and turn it off when under heavy engine load or acceleration.

Turn off the A/C early

When you are a few minutes from reaching your destination, turn off the A/C. It doesn’t need to keep working until the very last minute when you turn off your car. There will be enough residual cool air to keep away the heat until you stop.

Don’t start until you’re ready

Wait to start the car until you are ready to move. Buckle your seat belt, get settled, make sure everyone is in the car and the traffic is clear before starting your car. Otherwise you’ll end up idling for no reason.

Don’t warm up

Cars today don’t need a warm-up time before they begin moving. You can warm up your engine faster by driving, rather than idling, which is terrible for fuel economy.

Source: www.wisebread.com