Civic hybrid 06 driving technic summary thread

[xcel]

Hi Slajenue:

___HS and LS P&G’s are not a newbie technique(s) in the least. Slowly accelerating and slowly decelerating, combining trips, and driving the furthest distance first with the subsequent segments towards home afterwards are newbie techniques. If you cannot hit the EPA combined in an HCH-II (49.5 mpg) after reading this thread, heaven help you. You do understand that hypermiling is easy to achieve as all it is the EPA, right? Just driving will get you to the EPA and if doing better then that chases people away, so be it. They know where to find the FE techniques. If they don’t care, then they don’t care and there is no need for them read anything in this thread. Because it’s so hot, some of us will come back again and again

___About Regen? Some of the discussion about regen can be way off if not used properly … Just another tip but the following is what is achievable when you do not grab regen. Notice no little cars (50 Wh of regen) over any of those 5-minute bars in this Prius II? Regen, is a FE killer if you can glide/coast instead



___Another opportunity for learning has just occurred

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes

[ElanC]

Originally Posted by xcel

Hi ElanC:
___Read the threads title again. Is it about getting the FE the HCH-II is easily capable of or is it about what clothes to wear and how to take a Sunday drive in the country in ones brand new HCH-II.

Fair enough. It would be fine if you just wrote about backing into parking spots to save gas. Even cute. But you're going overboard by beating people over the head when they say they can't or won't do it. Please spare us the moral arguments. The reason I mentioned supermarket drives and home heating bills is that, when it comes to "environmental morality", those things are much more significant than your parking lot maneuvers.

Originally Posted by xcel

By the way, it is 66 degrees when the house is occupied in the morning, day, and evening and 60 at night or when it’s not occupied. Because I am the only one home today, she sits at 60 degrees. Care to go that far or are you wearing one of those battery warming suits.

I do 65 and 58 respectively (58 when we're asleep too). Honest. Do I get the home hypersavings Nobel prize?

[xcel]

Hi ElanC:

Originally Posted by ElanC

The reason I mentioned supermarket drives and home heating bills is that, when it comes to "environmental morality", those things are much more significant than your parking lot maneuvers.

___Good point! And if you add Face-Outs, Potential parking, FAS’ to a spot, they all add up and can easily save more fuel then your std. one trip a week vs. two trip to your local grocery store over a tank as well.

Originally Posted by ElanC

I do 65 and 58 respectively (58 when we're asleep too). Honest. Do I get the home hypersavings Nobel prize?

___You definitely win the prize with that one

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes

[dshelman]

Originally Posted by ElanC

I do 65 and 58 respectively (58 when we're asleep too). Honest. Do I get the home hypersavings Nobel prize?

In SoCAl, it's getting down in the 40's now . We sleep with the windows open under a down comforter, and in the evenings before bed, I wear a sweater. Very briefly turn the heat to 65 first thing in the am (about 4:45) so my wife doesn't freeze her little footsies.

AND THEN I GO OUT AND BURN A WHOLE BUNCH OF FOSSIL FUELS GETTING TO WORK. MOO-HOO-HOO-HAHAHAHAHA.

I guess someone else wins.....

Don

[tbaleno]

huh?

[tigerhonaker]

Idea has just came to me about all these (Comments)

But I have been around way to long to be naive enought to say what probably should be said here.

So I want but I bet there are alot of you that already know, Now don't you?

Hushed;

Terry

BTW; I am (Kinda) surprised that a "Moderator" has not already ..............

[slajeune]

Hi Wayne,

Originally Posted by xcel

Hi Slajenue:
___HS and LS P&G’s are not a newbie technique(s) in the least. Slowly accelerating and slowly decelerating, combining trips, and driving the furthest distance first with the subsequent segments towards home afterwards are newbie techniques.

Pulse and glide was part of my drivers ed (over 18 years ago!). It was in the section "what to do if you are low on gas and you need to get to the gas station". All I'm doing is putting that technique in the hybrid context. If it's in the drivers ed, it's basic hence the newbie inclusion.

That is all I want to comment on this thread. The noise to info ratio is getting way to high.

You know what, here is what I suggest, start a thread for hypermillers wannabe and put all of your info in there. When newbies have reached a stage where they want (if they do) go to the next level, they can read your summarized info for hypermilling.

Cheers,
Stephane.

[CGameProgrammer]

We've been pretty civil, but let's keep the language and insults mild since the mods have been known to close threads that get too heated, and I want this one to be left alive.

xcel, you get 47.9 mpg lifetime with your normal Accord. The very best Accord Hybrid driver on this site gets 39.9 lmpg! Does the hybrid get 8 mpg worse than the normal one?

For another, I grew up in New York City and lived nearby until very recently, and I've driven in Phoenix and San Francisco (of the cities you've named). Well I think Phoenix is probably a great place for high FE but SF is like the rest of CA in that it's not (at least not downtown), and Manhattan is of course bad as well. All I'm saying is my worst mileage is in town, it has NOTHING TO DO with going 80 miles per hour on the highway. I do not drive 80 miles per hour in stop-and-go traffic.

Today I had 32 mpg going 3 miles in bad traffic. I finally successfully got on the highway and went 70-80 for a few miles, perhaps 7, and that brought my mileage up to 39. That means I was getting 43 mpg on the highway. Of course when I left it and had to do more city driving, that brought it down, despite my attempts to be as careful as possible. I think it was in the low 38s when I parked at the office.

In city driving I've been accelerating very gently and coasting the instant I can see a stop ahead (which isn't often since lights often turn yellow/red when I get near). Actually that brings me to a pet peeve of these roads, many lights turn red after the previous one turns green. It's not nearly as bad as in LA in my experience, but it's stupid. New York City does the opposite; after one light turns green, the next one does shortly after, and so on, so once you get a green light, you can begin moving and never ever have to stop except for traffic, since each light turns green when you get to it.

[CGameProgrammer]

Originally Posted by xcel

Hi ElanC:
Oh, you live in CA. with all that NG electrical power production. Here we have Nuke for electric but our heat is mostly NG too

Your frowny face puzzles me; are you complaining about nuclear power, natural gas, or both? Natural gas is quite clean; it's the cleanest combustible fuel, besides hydrogen, that exists, AFAIK. You can't smell anything when turning on a gas stove, and the reason is because it's so clean. And there's no catalytic converter on that stove. As for nuclear energy, it emits zero pollutants, but it does of course warrant burying the spent plutonium/uranium/whatever somewhere safe and that's not great... but then the unused metal was buried somewhere safe anyway, as is petroleum... dangerous materials being buried underground is nothing new or man-made.

[xcel]

Hi CGameProgrammer:

___Actually, the AH is worth about 2 - 3 MORE mpg’s then the non-hybrid Accord just like the EPA shows … Maybe not with a HS P&G regiment because of the AH’s tranny issue but as a general hypermiler, that thing is kick @$$! Look in the Accord Hybrid - Share at my week with the AH as that should suffice? You could look at the Hypermiling video of the AH that Tbaleno hosted of that first day with her as well? IIRC, we hit 56.x after ~ 10 miles at the I-294 and I-55 toll booth out near Hinsdale, IL. That was from a stand still and reset Trip meters. I believe the final was 52.x after traversing 45 miles of heavy side winds along with the ~ 10 miles to the toll booth. Not my best effort but that was only my third hour behind the wheel. If Tbaleno and G&B had been along with the video camera AFTER I had learned to drive that hybrid for maximum FE properly just 3 or 4 days later, I am sure she would have done even better. The final day I had her was when she hit 60.x over 50 miles or something like that? Maybe it was the day before? Either way, the AH was putting up 50 - 60 mpg segments all week long when I had the chance to take her off G&B’s hands in late spring. He liked the Acura MDX but said it was a bit to big for him … And his mileage wasn’t so hot either

As an edit, here is my week with G&B’s AH …

Day 1: http://www.greenhybrid.com/share/image220.html
Day 2: http://www.greenhybrid.com/share/image221.html
Day 3: http://www.greenhybrid.com/share/image223.html
Day 4: http://www.greenhybrid.com/share/image229.html
Day 5: http://www.greenhybrid.com/share/image230.html
Day 6: http://www.greenhybrid.com/share/image233.html

___I hope you wouldn’t drive 80 miles per hour in stop and go Manhattan would kill all but the Prius II and FEH. San Francisco was only a SOB when in and amongst the stop lights. The hills were not bad (although they were awfully steep) because of the gain down the back sides but the lights were murder. We went to Fisherman’s Wharf or Pier 49 (I think it was called something like that?) and also drove down that goofy back and forth road that was carved into the cliff with houses on both sides? It’s famous for some reason and its almost downtown IIRC? We drove over the GG to Sausalito and received a free pass on the way back because there were 3 of us in the car. That was a traffic nightmare as well. Probably the worst was driving into Hoover Dam. We were stuck in a 1 hour long stop and go within 2 miles of the dam itself and being 105 +, MAX A/C again … Climbing to the Yosemite overlooks was not that fun either but coming down was not too bad? When we arrived in Vegas for a one night stay, the wife and I decided to cruise the strip once. Big mistake! About an hour to cover maybe 2 miles and back. It was in the high 90’s at night so A/C was on MAX again. The LA excursion was just along the outskirts and we hit maybe 15 miles of sporadic Stop and Go’s. Either way, even though that Buick pig was not setup properly, she provided some excellent FE even through all that mess and with the A/C on MAX most of the time. There was not that much thought to all this, it just happens …

___If I get out there next summer, Blue, NASA, yourself, and I are going to have a hypermiling clinic. That is about the only way I can cure you of a few habits that may be holding you and your HCH-II back! Those 80 miles per hour jaunts are not helping but that inner city stuff? We can do a lot of things with that.

___The NG comment comes because the darn stuff is so expensive right now (all time highs all last week ) and I am stuck using it no matter what I do at this point in time. Have you seen the Corn Furnace thread? That will probably be my next large scale house upgrade unless we actually do move out to your neck of the woods? IL. electric is basically all nuke (no GHG’s or smog based emissions) so that is a good thing. I work at one of them which is also a good thing.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes