Hi AZCivic:

___In Hot_Georgia_2004’s case, I believe he is running ICE’less in the middle of the night on an empty road for the most part. I remember him telling us about how he is stealthing past a particular speed-trap with the officers sitting there not knowing what the heck he is doing while coasting down the slope at the speed limit Hot_Georgia_2004, please update the rest of us about your particular drives details in this regard …

___I use Forced-Auto-Stop under a specific set of conditions that might help you as well? There is an off-ramp here in IL. from I-55 to I-294 just W of Chicago where there is a single lane, 30 mph limit, ~ 50’ overall elevation drop by the time you hit the toll-gates from the start of said off-ramp. If you hit the off-ramp at ~ 50 mph, when you hit the single lane just a ½ block or so away, you have already shut down the ICE and rebooted and you can coast all the way to the tool booth ~ 1/2 a mile away without burning a drop. When I hit the peak of the ramp, I am traveling ~ 30 mph and coast into and through the Toll-booth at ~ 18 mph which is perfect for my I-Pass transponder to get the toll gate open as I pass through it without touching the brakes. A turn of the key and I am back on the ICE to accelerate down a small hill and onto I-294 another ½ mile or so away. You can imagine the fuel savings vs. regen which would slow you down well before getting to the gate and you would have to again reaccelerate or simply coast w/ the ICE running for that length of time while in neutral. A description as to how everyone else takes this ramp … Everyone has to coast some amount through this ramp but most run 55 mph up to the sharp end of the turn and hit the binders down to 20 mph or so and then accelerate up to the small peak and coast into the toll-booth with a hard set of binders again just at the booth. You cannot stop those that do not know better but you can follow the speed limits while burning nothing with careful timing.

___The real place that Forced-Auto-Stop works extremely well is in a traffic nightmare of crawling stop and go when your Auto-Stop logic is not been made up. HCH’s in particular can take advantage of this given Honda’s skewed logic for them. If you are on top of a hill/overpass/whatever and Auto-stop hasn’t been invoked, force it using the methods described and simply coast down the shallow hill with a large enough buffer from the car(s) in front of you to barely use your un-assisted mechanicals if you need them at all. There are many places out on I55 with these long down slopes and anytime I get caught in the numerous back-ups on the morning or afternoon commute home, I use this method with stunning success right into the troughs and start the ICE up again for the slow climb to the next peak. You are usually coasting along at < 10 mph and you have full brakes and steering although not-power assisted. I also use it in heavy stop and go on the flats when the logic is not quite made up as well but with the buffers, I do not have to use it that often. This is only to be used in warmer temps (> 50 degrees F) as the coolant temp loss on a long coast is awfully burdensome to high FE afterwards as you can well imagine.

___The above is not to be used in a situation where “Driving w/ Load” is the more appropriate technique but only if you are crawling with an elevation potential to take advantage of, if you will be stopping due to traffic or obstacle after some reasonable coasting distance has been traversed, if you are literally parked in a traffic jam for a period of time and Auto-stop has not been invoked, or if you simply have a very long and slow descent with no one in the way. You might find this situation appear at a particular lengthy light that you may have missed its timing as well. I have one of these lights in front of a large mall I have to drive though every day so when I screw up, Forced-Auto-Stop saves the segment a small but significant enough amount to make it worth performing imho.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.
___Waynegerdes@earthlink.net

 

I've never really added it up before but was suprised that I'm traveling almost 3 miles without burning any gas at all.
Wayne is right, I travel those 3 miles at 2-3:00 in the morning on completely abandoned streets, except for the occasional pedestrian critters that may cross my path, or the confused cop attending to his speed trap as I roll slowly, silently by.

I don't reboot at all in the daytime except in the case of a traffic jam.
I refuse to be at the mercy of the Auto Stop not coming on, so if my SOC is full I'll shut her down. When the cars move again to provide me with some buffer room I'll start back up, nudge ahead to a measured roll and immediately shut down and reboot.
I might loose 5 MPG's if I just let her run in a big jam, but mabe loose only 1/2MPG by rebooting.
Durring the day I might switch to N and idle down a hill if my SOC is full.

For anyone new here please let me post this warning:
Some of the other wierd, odd things I do to improve MPG deals with stop lights. Often I find myself with no other cars to change the lights ahead of me. Still, I'm not satisfied with stopping so I did some experimenting.

One light that I wish I could go straight through is always red, but I can keep most of my momentum and hang a hard Right, then quick Left and this road merges with my original road.
Instead of stopping and burning it off in the 30-40MPG range, I can keep it in the 60-100MPG range all the way through.

Another light I'll hang a hard Left before the light, drive all the way across an abandoned (Closed for the night) supermarket parking lot, pull a Right out of the driveway and turn Left back onto the road I was just on.
This saves alot of fuel as the light is situated in the middle of a strong incline, a real FE killer if coming from dead stop.
Remember, this is done at about 1:30 in the morning and no one else is around.

This can only show that not only how we drive but where we drive can increase MPG. I used to just easily hop right onto the freeway thinking it is the only practical way to work, until I did some experimenting. That's how I found my highway route and can avoid the 70MPH limits. Now I gain several MPG just with that alone.

I haven't found much to do with the 5:00PM Atlanta city traffic. Just a big jammed mess. Probably the best I can do is just watch everyone else pass me as they gas it to the next piled up stop light and I'll arrive just as they are beginning to go.

A word of advice to anyone who is not satisfied with their current MPG and is willing to make some changes:
1. Get the advice from experienced hypermilers (Not neccessarily me, I'm just an apprentice. There's lots of us to tap into.) and then:
2. Experiment! Experiment! Experiment! Try it out, follow the advice given.
Remember this is a learned skill that can be applied to all your other vehicles as well.

Springtime must be for Hybrid cars.
I haven't seen any other hybrids for some time and just yesterday I saw a brownish-gold Insight in my tiny community of Hoschton, Ga.
I was so impressed, almost wanted to follow to see where they go.
Whenever I see one of those things I always get Insight envy. I always imagine Homer Simpson saying "Mmmm, a hundred miles per gallon"

Later on the freeway I was passed by an '03 HCH, followed by a red Prius hot on his heels. I was tempted to catch up and wave or something but didn't want to burn off the fuel and likely be mistaken for a nut. (Or not mistaken)
I'm just going to have to come up with a sign or something to display my MPG to another car, like the passing Prius or HCH friend.

Enough rambling, thanks for reading.

 

I'm just curious, is the hill so shallow that you lose speed to quickly if you keep it in drive? At idle, you're burning at least a tenth of a gallon per hour, whereas in gear when fully off the gas the ECU will engage fuel cut, and you'll be burning zero gallons per hour. I know in the Helm manual for my 97 Civic it gives the RPM at which fuel cut can be activated for each of the models. On the HX for example it will engage fuel cut as low as 850rpm.

 

Some of these hill are quite long and steep.

If I keep it in D I have a couple of options:
1. Let the foot completely off the gas and let it idle. However if I do this there are a couple of additional factors:
a. IMA will kick in 4 or more bars of recharge, slowing the car down.
This is great if you need it, but not if you don't.
b. Along with drag from the IMA, you're also being limited by the drag of the friction caused by the spinning ICE.

2. Apply enough gas to turn off the IMA recharge, and to overcome the friction caused in the spinning ICE.
This is fine, but as pointed out you must add gas in this case.
The gas that is used to overcome these factors are burned, and not saved in the tank.

The most reliable method of gauging FE is the FCD.
Sometimes I'll keep it in gear and apply #2 above and can see the instant gauge move slowly up to the 120MPG mark and the average increments very slowly.

Alternately, I can switch to N and the instant jumps right to 120 and seems like it would go quite far if not the limitation, but more important is the average, which is incrementing at a much faster rate than if left in gear.

 

Since there was some interest in my last post regarding my trip statistics leaving work on the way home in the middle of the night,
I thought that some might possibly think that my road to home is mostly downhill, which it is not.
Each way is basically a staircase of hills, with the peak about half way and lasting about 5 miles.
So today I brought my voice recorder along and made these notes. I reset the trip meter in the driveway, leaving for work at 4:30PM.
A thunderstorm had moved through the area a few hours before but the roads were mostly dried up and there was no wind to speak of, temps mid 60’s:

0MPG @ 0Miles In my driveway
40.8MPG @ 1 Mile
46.5MPG @ 2 Miles
53MPG @ 3 Miles
54.1MPG @ 4 Miles
52.6MPG @ 5 Miles
53MPG @ 6 Miles
54.5MPG @ 10 Miles
56.7MPG @ 15 Miles
59MPG @ 20 Miles
59.4MPG @ 23.4 Miles, about to get onto 65MPH limit freeway
60.1MPG @ 25 Miles
60.5MPG @ 30 Miles
61.3MPG @ 35 Miles
61.6MPG @ 40 Miles
63.4MPG @ 43 Miles, exiting freeway onto 5:30PM rush hour Atlanta city traffic.
62.8MPG @ 45 Miles
62.8MPG @ 45.2 Miles after climbing 4 stories of parking deck, parking and shut-down.

Note that because of the daytime traffic and not caught in a lengthy jam there was no reboot, which I routinely do in specific segments on my return trip home posted earlier.

These figures are my typical statistics.
If I had to drive under the earlier thunderstorm & rain I’d likely parked with 55-60MPG. If a strong head wind would have prevailed I’d likely park in the lower 50’s. Strong tailwind could bring almost 70MPG, as posted in my signature below.

I suspect that the rest of us who are in the upper 50’s tank average have about the same statistics?

 

Steve,

Thanks for the new stats. It is interesting to see information like this. As in your previous stats the MPG took a jump around 10 miles. The engine seems to be pretty consistent.

Billy

 

*thinks to self*
Gee, the next thing they're gonna ask for is "trip" analysis in the mileage database...
*grumble*

 

Umm...in my world (IT), that's called 'scope creep', Jason...lol...as a developer, you get used to it.

Actually, in the real world, you'd get to add it as a 'feature', and *bill* for it, maybe even tacking on a 'point' upgrade. Now we just have to figure out how to get you compensated

 

I'd sure be interested if any Insight hypermiler would take the time for a similar post. I simply took along my pocket recorder in the car, made a verbal note of MPG, mileage & segment as I drove. (I kept the segment info off of this post for simplicity...meaningless anyway for anyone else)

Then listened to the recorder and punched the figures in a word proccessor.

I'm really so curious about the Insight numbers, play by play.

 

Steve-
thanks again for the further driving stats. I wish you had also noted your speed at the data points. I found both to be very informative from your first post. while I'm a newbie & inexperienced hybrid driver I'm working hard to get my numbers up, however I'm not seeing anything near what you're getting to. were there any stops/traffic lights in your second drive? what was your speed?
closest I've gotten to those numbers was on the cape (off season) last weekend when I could drive a steady 40-45mpg with no lights- suddenly I was getting 54mpg. this was an eye opener, since my regular driving I struggle to stay near 47mpg. usually I'm driving locally about 30mph, often with stop lights every 1/2 mile or so. I struggle to keep the FCD at 60 without my speed going down to 20mph and getting tailgated.

some other interesting facets I've noticed in the hypermiling department. Steve is driving on different OEM tires than I have. I have the brigestones at max 44psi- I think you're running about 55psi, every little bit helps - I wonder if the additional 10 pounds reduces rolling resistance. it sure does from 30-40psi!
also, as I've mentioned before- there are 2 different engines in the hybrid civic; the 33a6 which is rated ULEV and has a 13 gallon tank. and the 3ycv which is rated AT-PZEV and has a 11 gallon tank (from my manual). since I can't seem to find out anything about these engines and what their actual difference is- I did a quick run down on the civic miileage stats. using tank size to determine engine, only did cvt's (since that's what I drive) with a minimum of 3 tanks listed (so I could tell tank size):
except for Kenny (congrats)the top 7 cvts and all the cvt's over 50mpg are ULEV engines!
now obviously- driving is the major factor in mpg efficiency- and these guys have all had their cars for a year or more to 'learn' how to hypermile them. but I still find it interesting that 90% of the top cars are the ULEV engine - why is that?

enough playing with smiles-
summer mileage is coming! (I hope)