Saving Money While Driving

One of the best ways to save money is through hypermiling.  In a nutshell, hypermiling is a deliberate way of driving that reduces gas consumption for the purpose of saving money.  Lower gas consumption is accomplished by a variety of ways such as reducing speed or using the brakes less often.  

My Introduction to Hypermiling

I saw an episode, a while back, on CBS This Morning discussing the relatively unknown trend of hypermiling.  Prior to watching this, I had no idea that you can actually save quite a bit of money just by changing your driving habits just a little. 

Highway Driving

I’ll give some examples of how this works for me.  I have an old Chevy sonic that gets approximately 26 mpg when going 80 mph on the interstate.  This is pretty terrible mpg in my opinion, for a vehicle like mine.  So I started an experiment. Instead of driving on the interstate at 80mph I would try and reduce my speed to 60-65 mph.  I was amazed when my fuel efficiency jumped to 35+ mpg by doing this.  One trip I make about every three months takes about 5 hours when traveling 80 mph.  By reducing my speed to 60-65 mph I save approximately 2-3 gallons of gas for one way.  This is about $12 savings just by extending my trip by about one hour and I do this twice for a round trip, so $24 saved.  You can do a lot with $24.  And this is just for driving 2 extra hours.

So what do I do during these long commutes? Well something that I really enjoy doing is listening to audiobooks and podcasts, an extra hour is not necessarily a downside in my opinion.  If I’m listening to something interesting it’s actually not that bad.  

When I first started this I was worried that I would make drivers angry because I was driving so slow.  if this would have happened I would have definitely stopped this experiment.  But, as it turned out, doing this was not an issue at all.  The slower truck drivers already are going approximately 60-65 mph on a 80 mph interstate.  They drive in the right lane, so there is no disturbance to faster traffic in the left lane.  All I need to do is set my pace to match the speed of the truckers.  Doing this, I’ve had no issues whatsoever.  

City Driving

For city driving I use the following strategies. 

1. When I see a traffic light red in the distance and I know it Will remain red when I get it, I just ease off the gas and try to almost come to a rolling stop. 
2. If I’m waiting for a train I turn off my car so I’m not idling. 
3. When I accelerate, try and accelerate as gradually as possible.

The number one thing that goes through all of this is to try and conserve energy.  If I press on the gas pedal I want to make sure it gets me as far as possible.