A couple of nights ago, my brother remarked that he'd started driving more like me. Gas prices here in Austin have reached nearly $3.00/gal, and I guess he has decided it's time to start paying attention to his driving technique in order to maximize his mileage.

That got me to thinking about a way I might use the current gas price situation to my financial advantage by offering private lessons on driving for maximum fuel efficiency.

Here's what I've thought up so far... I would post an announcement offering my services on austin.craigslist and probably some other local forums, with a link to my car dopmobile's entry in the FE database here on the GreenHybrid site as proof that I've attained the skills necessary to teach the subject matter at hand. Students would be asked to meet me at my house, and we'd head to a nearby gas station to top off their tank.

For the first phase of the lesson, we would drive around, doing some city, highway and backroad country driving, with me as the driver. During this phase, I would try to learn their car's personality while explaining the actions I was using to save fuel.

Phase two would begin back at the pump we'd filled up at earlier, to top off the tank and calculate the MPG we'd attained during phase 1. The student would drive the same route used in phase 1, while I monitored their technique and provided pointers. We would again end up at the same pump for a top-off and MPG calculation for their trip.

Phase three of the lesson would see the driver off with a small pamphlet or postcard with a bullet list of techniques to remind them of the techniques they'd learned. Okay, so that's not really a 'phase'

If I decide to undertake this task, and find that I'm successful both in actually gaining interest in the form of real customers and in their subsequent success stories, I'll approach UT's Informal Classes people to suggest a classroom-based version of the class for larger groups of people.

(edit: This lesson would be offered to all drivers, not just hybrid owners. Also, I would not teach techniques like rebooting or high-speed FAS that are impractical for non-hybrid cars.)

As you've probably guessed, the point of me posting this here is to solicit your feedback. Is this a dumb idea? Will it work? Got any tips in case I decide to try it?