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Old 04-26-2008, 03:47 PM
BigTuna BigTuna is offline
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Posts: 162
Default Re: Should I cruise on long drives to hypermile?

Quote:
Originally Posted by mnsweeps View Post
I just want to know if cruising helps hypermiling. I usually do but in the LA - SF trip last night I did not cruise much and was handling the hypermiling myself. I realised when I reached SF that my MPG had dipped from 28 to 23 or so...do you think I should have cruised all the way ?

I have a 2007 HiHY.
A lot of people swear by the cruise control. Cruise is better than an unskilled human driver and it is better than a skilled driver who is distracted or otherwise not giving their full attention to driving for mileage. That said a skilled human driver can always beat cruise for 2 simple reasons, their eyes. A human can look ahead and anticipate road conditions that a cruise control is oblivious to.

Also a human can keep his combined potential and kinetic energy roughly the same (called "driving with the load") by allowing a car to slow down going up hill and speed back up going down hill. This technique can save a lot of gas.
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