Interview and Hypermile Drive with Newspaper Reporter Today!

Hey all! Sorry for the long post but I have alot of info. to share about my experience today.

This morning I met a local "green living" reporter to talk about hybrids, hypermiling and efficient driving in general. It went very well! The article will be published in a week or so and I'll post the link on here when it is. Hopefully, it will be what I expect it to be...guessing by the results today it will be very positive.

We met for a little over an hour first discussing my 2009 Toyota Prius and her 2007 Hyundai Sonata...comparing the two and how they work and how to get the best mileage out of both of them. We did the standard walk around the car to talk about tire pressure (her 44 psi tires were at 34 psi...not bad for a non-hypermiler). We talked about not storing too much items in her trunk (I used the "Store your car in your garage not your garage in your car" line). Her trunk was not filled with many heavy items (10-15 lbs.) so that was a plus. We also talked about my grill block, EBH and max psi. There was a photographer there that snapped some pics of my grille block, me checking her tire pressure and me sitting in her car hooking up my ScanGuage II.

After hooking up the SGIIto her car we proceeded to drive her car over a 7 mile course mixed with city and highway (10am...traffic was moderate...temp was around 68). She was highly impressed with the SGII and said she wanted to get one for her dad for Fathers' Day!

She drove the car first and she drove well enough to get a little over 26 mpg (her car is combined EPA of 24). She was a little quick on the highway running the rpm as high as 2800 one time when changing lanes. Overall, not bad for a regular driver.

I had her drive to a gas station as the destination so we could fill up and give her a starting point to begin monitoring her mpg tank to tank. We reviewed the SGII stats (she was very impressed with the instant mpg, cost per mile and avg. speed stats). We reset her trip odometer to help her track her tank mpg and it was my turn to drive (ironically her car has a trip mpg guage built into it that she did not know about so it was an added bonus to point this out to her).

I drove her car back to our original meeting point and was able to pull over 34 mpg (8 mpg more than her). I did not have time to inflate the tires to max psi so I just drove with the same psi as her (would have liked to add the psi to put up a great number...but didn't have the time). After driving my Prius for the past 3 months I was a little rusty on the giddy up of a 2.4L engine (vs. my 1.5L Prius engine) so I lurched it a couple of times from a stop...probably cost me a little mpg. I talked to her while driving to explain the different techniques I was using (pulse and glide, neutral coast, timing lights and traffic, etc). She asked a lot of questions while I was driving and we really got to some good talking points about hypermiling.

After we parked at the original meeting spot we chatted a little more about hypermiling and the SGII. I didn't look at my mpg until we parked so I was pleased to see over 34 mpg on the SGII (more than 30% over EPA with no grill block or max psi)!!!

The focus of her article was about looking for a new car (she's considering the Prius, VW TDI and Chevy Malibu and will be interviewing their representatives over the next couple weeks).

We did get into the "is the Prius battery safe, durable, efficient and recyclable" talk a little which I expected and I think overall she was satisfied with my replies. She will be doing alot of research on the Prius battery so I'm sure she will form her own opinion (positive or negative) regardless of what I said.

Overall, everything went well and I'm looking forward to seeing the article! She will be putting my phone number and email address in the article in case anyone else wants to take a Super Commuter Driving lesson from me!

 

She was very knowledgable when we met today and she asked questions that were relevant to hypermiling...I was impressed. She had never seen a Scanguage II before and I almost fell on the floor when she found a sweet spot for her car in the 47-48 mph range on the highway. We were only on the highway for about 4 miles and after hitting the sweet spot at about mile 1 she nailed it and held it a couple more times before exiting the highway. I only told her once to get past 50 mph and back it down to the sweet spot and she got it spot on.

Her current Sonata is a lease that's up in a couple months and she's debating whether to buy the Sonata, buy a Prius/VW/Malibu or lease one of them. I sent her an email updating her on the status of the 2010 Malibu hybrid.

 

She was aware that mine is a 2009 but we did not have time to take it for a drive...I had another appointment right after our meeting.

I'd love to take her for a drive in my Prius to show her the great FE...but I'm not crazy about her driving my car. I'm a little OCD about me FE and her driving would bring down my mpg! Crazy...I know...but I work hard to get the highest mpg possible.

 

The article came out last Friday...most of the facts were accurately represented by the writer...she made an error on my recommended tire pressure for her car (she quoted me as saying 44 psi but that was recommended psi for my Prius not her car). Lively comments were made on the site when the article came out...some typical hypermiling bashing by a couple people but mostly positive comments).

Here's the link to it...

Drive down gas consumption by hypermiling your commute - SalemNews.com, Salem, MA