[Fat Charlie]

I'm back from the family trip to NYC and just logged my two worst tanks since coming here- 22.48 and 22.88. Before I started hypermiling I would have thought of those as better than average commuting tanks. Now I'm impressed: fully loaded with the family and the roof box, using the AC, fighting Manhattan and Long Island traffic and dodging Massachusetts tornadoes, I beat what I used to get without any of that on my commute. I wasn't even aggressively hypermiling- no P&G, almost no drafting and limited downhill gliding. The amusing bit was that packed with people and stuff, my car could pass people on downhill glides. I did the trip without using Torque because the bluetooth eats my phone's battery, but from my brief time having an engine load gauge I've gotten a lot better at using as little as possible and the car's instant MPG display is now a good enough cue.

The real feel good part came this morning when I got to work. I had taken the box and crossbars off the car before heading out, and the tank had 150 miles on it at 24.2 MPG. When I got to work 43 miles later the tank was up to 25.8 MPG.