I had a pretty rough day on my tank today. I started from home at 84.7 mpg. I drove my kids into town, had a lot of bad luck, and was down to 83.6 after about 30 miles. Then it got ugly.

I was alone with my 16 year old and I decided I am past due to resume driver training. He will be eligible to get his license in 2.5 months, and he needs a LOT more time behind the wheel. Mind you, I plan to give him EcoCar when he gets his license because it is underpowered and a manual transmission. I am teaching him in EcoCar and he has never driven anything else. I want his first car to be a manual trans so that he will be able to drive a stick for the rest of his life. If he learns on an automatic or an automatic is his first regular car, he may never learn to drive a stick and he may never afford himself the joy of a manual trans.

So today he drove about 1 hour, and covered about 50 miles, raising my trip meter from about 200 miles to about 250 miles. My mpg display fell from 83.6 to 79.4 with him behind the wheel!!!!! I don't know what was more horrifying, his driving and nearly running off my side of the road several times into the ditch or woods at 50+ mph, or watching my mpg slip away!!!

Fortunately, after I got the wheel back and drove the last 6 miles to home and got 2 ticks back, up to 80.2 mpg.

Tomorrow we plan to get in at least another couple hours of practice!!! I should get some special mpg dispensation for driver training time!! What do you think?

Bob