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.

Hi,

I like to start with a baseline mileage by plotting an miles per hour vs MPG chart. Cruise control is perfect for this since it holds the speed fairly constant and you want to run for at least 1-2 hours and plot values that are about 5 miles per hour from each other:

This establishes a baseline so in the future, you will have a reference to compare.

I haven't seen anyone plot miles per hour vs MPG for the HiHY and if you have a return trip, I would recommend using that opportunity to do some data gathering. Later, you can start comparing manual speed management versus cruise control and have empirical data to know whether it was successful.

GOOD LUCK!
Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.

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.

I have a Ford Escape Hybrid.
Driving manually gives 10% better MPG than Cruise Control in every condition other than perfectly flat, and there are very few perfectly flat roads. On perfectly flat roads, cruise control matches manual driving, but never beats it.

I have a Honda Insight.
Driving manually gives 20% better MPG than Cruise Control. This helps explain why none of the Insights sold came with CC as a factory option. Every owner with it, has added after market cruise control. Honda did not offer it, and it looks like for good reason.

Part of it is, my human foot lets speed fluctuate a little. Driving with load constant is much better than driving with speed constant. Also, I can open the throttle gradually on hills, the CC tends to floor it no matter the size of the hill.

Now, both of these are cars with really small engines.

With large engines, cruise may help more than hurt.

I just came back from SF back to LA. I cruised most of the part ( over 80%) ...My mileage came to 26.7 mpg with the AC on all the way. While going the AC was not on.. I guess the CC helped me a lot...experts what say?

You were driving? You might consider updating your user profile to share this with your postings. If you are tracking your mileage, we can help you get a signature banner working.

GOOD LUCK!
Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.

Yes I was driving..

No, it does not.

"Hypermiling: Fuel economy-maximizing behaviors describe techniques that drivers can use to optimize their automobile fuel economy."

The successful application of the available hypermiling techniques (DWL, DWB, FAS, etc) will always provide better MPG results than the use of the typical cruise control found in most of today's vehicles.

Of course, "hypermiling" takes a bit practice and wee bit of learning which for some people is less attractive than just using the cruise control.

Cheers;

MSantos

Hypermiling truly is a skill to develop: one can't say "I'm going to hypermile my trip home today"(or something like that), dive right in and get great results.

It's a driving style one becomes accustomed to, vs just going "as everybody else drives". Anybody can just simply go slow, but knowing how to handle the infinite changing situations without causing trouble on the road takes time and experience.

Myself for example pre-hybrid I used to work a radar detector + monitor trucks on the CB to feed my +85MPH habit. I tried CC for a whole week of driving but found it INCREDIBLY boring so I gave it up.

When I began my hyperminling training I found it hard to get over:
a. Just adding gas when I felt like it.(Not load related)
b. Back and leg strain for stress. I had to learn to relax.
c. Mini-panic attack (Heart race etc) if anyone got behind at any distance.
(to name a few)

Small improvements came right away, but only after a year or so had significant increase. I did my personal record only after 3 years of training. (see my signiture below)

-Steve

Efficient drivers do it better.
1003 miles a tank personal record. 74MPG calculated. HCH1 CVT

What the others have said is absolutely correct, however if you like cruise than by all means use it. I generally use cruise on long interstate trips while listening to an audio book to relieve the boredom. Generally drive faster then normal, to save time.

That said, I never use cruise on my daily commute. The commute is short enough that fatigue is not an issue. If there is traffic or if I'm in a hurry I'll do "traffic friendly" (high speed) hypermiling. When there is no traffic and I'm not in a hurry I'll switch to full blown hypermiling, which may include coasting segments where speed dips pretty low. It is not something you should do in traffic IMHO.

Full hypermiling uses the least gas, cruise uses the most, and "traffic friendly" hypermiling is a compromise. I do all 3 depending on the situation. LA to SanFran is a long enough drive I'd more than likely use cruise.

Don't feel bad if you like to use cruise. If the drive is fairly flat hypermiling wouldn't help much anyways. You can save gas with cruise by slowing down at the expense of adding more time to your trip.