(cleanmpg) 48-Contiguous State FE World Record Overall
 

(I haven't see it here. As how you drive is as important as what you drive, so here it is...)

Three cleanmpg members (Jenny Chen, Justin Fons and Wayne Gerdes) are attempting to beat a FE world record: 48-Contiguous State World Record of 58.82 mpgUS.

You can follow their attempt in near real time there : 48-Contiguous State FE World Record Overall - CleanMPG Forums

They are driving an unmodified HCH-II.

Denis.

I was wondering when that would pop up here. Looks like they're off to a good start. Good for them.

Did they get the car fixed? Last photo I saw had a massive grille block made from tape. :)

Hahaha! Still taped up.

Actually, they did have an incident on the way to the starting point. Overnighting at a truck stop / rest area, and woke up to a semi truck backing into them! :eek: Honda is dealing with the trucker's insurance. Honda was very gracious and provided ANOTHER new car, that they're driving now.

Getting crunched must have been a total bummer. I saw the photo.

But I'm calling that grille block a mod! :)

Thread about the truck incident: LA and the first 48-State drive setback - CleanMPG Forums

Yup, I think we can call the block on the leftmost car a mod...

http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/pix/081127/07grp.jpg

My fault :( Originally they wanted to beat the Australians, so I concluded that they was going to use an unmodified car.

I re-read the first messages and didn't found a word about the modification, but didn't found a word about the fact the car had to be unmodified.

They are then playing in different categories and Australians' record will stay. Bad as they could beat this 58.8mpg record so easily...

Denis.

The question is whether or not Guiness considers it as a mod. My guess is they do not else Wayne would not have done it.

Wayne is probably hoping they're just too stupid to notice so that he can slip under the radar doing whatever he wants (which appears to be driving around in circles across america).

Sorry, I just find it a little pointless.

Is there a min speed required for this? Does anyone know what kind of speed they are averaging?

Me too - but don't say that over at CleanMPG :-) Back when I used to post there a bit, I took quite a bit of flak for similar remarks about that Australian couple's record attempt. I guess I just don't understand their thinking: apparently it's bad for me to drive a little more adventurously than they prefer, and so lower my mpg average to a mere 70.9, but OK for them to do 5K miles of pointless driving to get their names in a record book. Though at least the CleanMPG crew aren't adding a couple of transPacific airplane flights to their carbon footprint :-)

I just think people should separate in their minds the useful from the sport. Driving around teaching people how to ecodrive is one thing, but...

EDIT: Yakno, I'm sure honda is paying them just like vw pays the australians for marketing. Any of you can do the same, if you are interested and want some contacts in the industry at various automakers and ecomodder's help, let me know. I had no desire to run the show or get my name in the record books, but I'd gladly help.

They're done. 68.54 mpg. Hypermilers complete new Guinness verified World Record at 68.54mpg (US)! - CleanMPG Forums

Beat the previous record handily, and in % above EPA as well.

I saw! Impressive numbers.

Any info posted about average speed? The Taylors usually post that info about their adventures on their site, but for some reason they didn't for their US trip.

I didn't see any response to tasdrouille's question about avg speed in one of the CMPG threads on this event.

I don't know.

I do know they made great use of the "Super Atkinson Highway Mode" sweet spot. As listed in that discussion, this spot is 50-65 mph.

14 days, 7500 miles = 535 miles / day
12-14 hours a day gives 45 mph average, including stops. The recorded stops for fillups and for state line crossings took a bit of time, I understand. I'd say their actually driving speed was more like 60 mph, then.

I talked to two of the three drivers at the last Milwaukee Hybrid Group Meeting.

The best little side story I heard about was that the charger for the iPhone they were using for updating their location caught fire.

Apparently, the driver just said "The Car's on fire. Take care of it!" to the passenger, who was sleeping right then.

Now that's focus on the road.

The same guy took my Electro-Metro for a spin around the block after the meeting. Nothing started on fire though.

Where can we see/read the rules and or conditions that needed to be met in order to set this record?

I didn't see any information on it in the posts nor was there much info on the car(s) that they used for the challenge other than it being a Honda Hybrid.

See part "The driving" in the first post of this thread :
Hypermilers complete new Guinness verified World Record at 68.54mpg (US)! - CleanMPG Forums

Denis.

That didn't give me the specifics I was looking for. I tried looking it up in the guiness site, but it has not been posted there as of today. Therefore Monday I will request the info necessary as if I was trying to break the record.

Might be an interesting bit of info to post on here in case anyone else wants to take a shot at it.

One of the requirements was a new (less than 6 months) vehicle, unmodified.

A little digging around here should bring up most of the other details. I'm too lazy to do the digging right now. http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17691

I take it Guinness didn't know or didn't mind that the grille was blocked. I still call that a mod. :)

I wonder if the Taylors did that.

Not diminishing their efforts - they likely would have beat them without the block, just not as dramatically.

not very impressive in my opinion.