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On a car with a throttle plate, which is pretty much everything some diesels and direct injection don't use one, you will have losses at low rpm because of the motor having to suck hard that air around the throttle plate, that is vacuum. Even though that loss makes the motor run outside of peak efficiency because of the low rpm it's still using much less gallons per hour of fuel than it is as say 4000-6000 rpm with a high load where it is peak efficiency. So use that peak efficiency to accelerate, then settle into a low rpm cruise. If you need to climb a hill, get back into peak efficiency with a downshift, then go back to the low rpm cruise. There is a technique called "pulse and glide" you can read up on here for even more mpg but you need usually more room with light traffic for that. Otherwise you might save gas, but the 50 car accordion behind you will be using double.
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