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Old 04-24-2009, 12:22 PM   #32 (permalink)
Chuck.
EcoModding Apprentice
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Dallas, Texas
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Again, really good fuel economy is three things: (1) good car (mods help), (2) good technique, (3) ignore the speeders and ragers. Actually you can get pretty good fuel economy with a car that is not all that fuel efficient.

It's worth repeating again: the more you feel like you have to keep your speed with the pack, the harder hypermiling will be. Two reasons for that. The first is on a graph of wind resistance, it takes off above 45mph, so if you do much of your driving above 60, it's going to be hard to get good results. If you vary that throttle - good fuel economy is almost guaranteed to not happen. The other reason is allowing speeders and angry drivers to drive like them and fillup like them.

I live in the Dallas area. Drafting on a typical commute is overrated. To effectively get better results, the semi needs to be going steady in the 50-65 range - unlikely in a city like Dallas. Outside cities, there are more opportunities, but truckers have been alerted to drafting and they often defeat it by weaving, changing speed, etc.

If you are three or more car lengths from the big rig, then it's not the type of drafting that has been demonized in the media.

Take inventory of how you drive and it will improve.
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