Electric Vehicle Forums - 1st 600 mile tank and 60 mpg tank (almost)

Well, since this is the Anything Goes forum, thought I’d use it for my own personal blog. Hope you don’t mind…:embarass:

This past weekend I took a trip to Atlanta. Put 1863 miles on the HCH II. Some observations:

Didn’t see many hybrids on the trip. Four or five Prius’s, an Insight and an HCH. But, the non-Prius crowd is much harder to pick out… Still, I thought I'd see more driving around Atlanta.

I don’t usually travel the freeway, so this was an opportunity to learn some things about Hypermiling. Started out with the long drive through Illinois with pouring rain most of the way. OUCH! 43.8 mpg was the best I could muster out of that tank, but I did have to pick my speed up to 70 mph for much of the tank because I forgot to factor in the 1 hour time loss involved with the time zone change, and I had to be at the Airport by a certain time.

P&G through the mountains in Tennessee was a hoot! Managed to do much better on the mileage. Got up into the low 50’s. There is a mountain pass between Murphreesburo and Chattanooga that is a 5% uphill grade for about 4 miles, then a 6% downhill grade for about 4 miles. I know you people in CA get to do this all the time, but this is always an experience for me. This time, I got behind trucks going up in an attempt to reduce fuel consumption. I managed to make it all the way up and still had 5 bars on the SOC!

Going down the 6% grade, I just let her go until the SOC was one bar shy of topped out. This took maybe a mile. I started getting bored with 60 mph, so I did something I swore I’d never do. I reached down, slipped ‘er into neutral, shut it off and rebooted. OMG! Flying down the side of a mountain at 80 mph with nothing between me and certain death but whatever was left of my brakes. I felt like Fred Flintstone!:omg: (jeez, I hope no one is reading this :embarass: )

When almost all the way down, I restarted it and re-engaged the tranny, as smoothly as I could. The SOC peaked up to full, and I smelt a burning, like has been described in posts here. But it was very short lived. Hmmm…

While in Atlanta I had to make the 45 mile trip to the airport several times. GA 6 is a neat road for P&G, especially on the weekend and after hours when there is little traffic. Lots of rolling hills and green lights! :shade:

Coming back I tried several different techniques, and was struggling to make 54 mpg. I tried cruise, P&G and DWL, they all were about the same (though I am inexperienced). Finally as I got onto I-57 I got behind a truck, at about the same time that my 62 mile bug was resetting the trip mpg.. This truck was a flatbed, hauling what looked like some type of ingot. It had the high air scoop on top even though it was a flatbed. It was traveling at about 65 mph. I pulled in behind it and immediately noticed that my trip mpg was hovering around 70 mpg. Since it was a flatbed he could see me and didn’t seem to mind my being there. It was the truck from heaven! I managed to follow him for about 30 miles until he pulled off, and my trip mpg was sitting at 72.4! God, I wished I had had a camera! :(

So I started drafting more trucks, even though I knew it wasn’t safe and it probably pissed the truckers off to no end, but I was bored silly at this point. I traveled about the last 1/3 of a tank drafting like this, picking up trucks as I could. My mileage was consistently in the high 60’s. I got 616 miles from the tank, and could have gone another 50 miles with the fuel I had left. I got 59.5 mph from that tank. If I had drafted the first 2/3 of the trip I would have hit high 60’s, maybe even close to 70! I don’t recommend this practice – it is dangerous. But it was interesting to try.:angel:

Oh, and after 800+ miles one way, the seats were still comfortable! :shade: