Pulse and Glide Your Way to 109 MPGs

Hypermiling. It may be the 2008 word of the year. You heard that proclamation here first.

Hypermiling is the act of maximizing the miles per gallon of your car to the fullest extent possible. The current record of 109.3 mpgs was in a Toyota Hybrid over 1397 miles of road in and around Pittsburgh. The people competing for that record are known as Hypermilers, a nomenclature that can be applied to anybody, Hybrid owner or not, who aggressively stretches out the efficiency of their car.

Hypermiling is pretty much a process of driving behavioral modification. No more racing between lights to then slam on your brakes at the next red light. No more lugging unused bike racks or using trunks as storage. No more low tires.

And the biggest no more: air conditioning.

I had begun what I assumed was the first step to hypermiling, to maintain momentum and to keep braking to an absolute minimum, but really what I should be doing is to pulse and glide, as outlined in this article on Metrompg.com.

The gist of pulse and glide is to accelerate to 70 mph, switch to neutral and then shut your engine off until you reach 50 mph, then repeat. There are some definite obstacles relating to power steering and power brakes when shutting your engine off. Some of those practicalities are broached in this Wired article.

Extreme Hypermilers will push their car in neutral with the engine off and then turn it over once forward movement has been achieved so as to eliminate the "throw away" energy used to get moving from a stationary position.

This is something I want to see on alternate side of the street parking days in NYC.