My 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid placed FIRST in the stock Honda Civic Hybrid category of the 2005 NESEA Tour de Sol Monte Carlo Style Rally with the highest fuel efficiency!

There was some concern that we were soundly beaten by a Canadian who was initially scored at 75 mpg. Chris Bertlesen suggested that the race officials may have erred in calculating his milege. Indead, they had forgotten to convert his odometer from kilometers to miles. After the correction was made it was confirmed that our #72 HCH was the winner with highest fuel efficiency in the category! Victory!

HCH category MPGs:
Veh. # Net MPG Entrant
72 61.17 J. Laughlin
61 56.37 Seal
77 53.65
88 46.31 M.Houle <-- Knocked down pretty far from 74!

The full results are available at:
Monte Carlo-style Rally Results Table (*.xls)
Note: the results haven't been updated to correct the error yet, but NESEA assures me that their webmaster will post them tomorrow morning.

Big thanks to the team, Chris Bertlesen, and Ania Malczyk!

 

Congrats, Jeff

 

Great Job! How do you achieve such high mileage? Is it all downhill with the wind behind you?

 

Well my average speed was 25 mph and we plotted our route to be as flat as possible even if it meant a slight detour. We avoided the interstate. Light acceleration, putting the clutch in and coasting as much as possible rather than using the brakes, except for regen on long downhills. Short bursts of regen don't really charge the batteries, batteries need to have current applied for a certain period of time before they really start taking charge. I guess you could say it takes them a while to shift gears. You might check with some of the other hypermilers on here. I drive a Jeep Cherokee now, I gave the hybrid to my wife :| 73 Jeff

 

probably without AC also... down here in southern Texas, AC is a must... I traded a 15 mpg car for my 40mpg civic so I'm happy with my bump in mpg. my wife also drives my hybrid, I drive a mini cooper s which also gets decent mileage but not what the civic does.