Xcel will love this...
Took the same route as before. But this time, we took my wife's Escape! I think I used to get 20-21 MPG on this trip before. But driving it the same way I drive my HAH, I was able to get 26.4 MPG on the way home! That's over a range of 218 miles. Cruise control set to 70
MPH for all but 15 minutes of our trip.
On way down, I got 23.2 MPG after 300 miles. But that's with about 80 miles of city driving through Tucson.
The only driving habit I've changed is rapid accelerations and and flooring it to pass other cars. Now, I smoothly start out from a stop. I wait until there's a rather large gap before passing, so I'm not rushed to do it. And I've dropped my speed from 80 to 70
MPH.
I calculated my fuel savings from this 518 mile trip to 4.192 gallons. At $2.25/gal that comes out to
$9.43 that's
staying in my wallet.