As others have said, it's mostly the nut behind the wheel and not so much the machine. Good maintenance is important but doesn't offset "normal" (meaning - the usual unconscious, ill-advised, distracted, skill-free typical) technique.

I drive 100 miles/day commute to/from work ( karmic payback I guess for the 17 years where my commute was 2.5 miles). I've been able to get about 20% better mileage on a mostly interstate highway profile by adopting some additional techniques over my previous conservative and boring driving style. I have a mpg meter on the car that has helped me refine my techniques and rewards me with higher numbers if I do everything right and catch some lucky breaks on timing stoplights on the route.

Hypermiling has many valuable techniques in their list but they also have some that are uncomfortable, likely to cause more maintenance and up into outright dangerous behaviors.

I'm sure the construction guys in their empty F350 pickups I see blazing along tailgating and laneswitching their 90mph way to work are paying at the pump. They probably don't want to know how much of the bill is under their control. (Don't try to tell them either!)

I think one of the most fuel efficient ways to drive is to do so in a way that minimizes use of the brakes.

If you can drive on the highway without needing to brake and slow down for other traffic, then all your fuel goes toward moving your vehicle. It is not getting wasted speeding it up, for the brakes to slow it down. It means when in an area with lights not driving racing from red lgiht to red light. It means when you know a stop sign is ahead, getting off the gas and allowing the car to slow down without using the brakes before you get to the stop sign. Sure, you will have to use the brakes at times, but driving with the idea that you are trying to minimize their use is good conservative driving.

I'm sure its not the only place but these kinds of efficiency issues have been debated for a couple years on the Prius sites, like priusonline.com and priuschat.com. There's some real world evidence and data to back up alot of these things, mostly because the Prius comes standard with a screen that estimates your mpg every 5 minutes of travel, and a dynamic read out that gives you a sense of fuel consumption every 10-15 seconds. You obviously use more fuel heading moderately uphill, but its kinda amazing how little fuel you can use heading downhill or on low uphill slopes. So a few conclusions I can draw from my own driving habits since 2002 driving 2 Priuses:

- tire inflation is good; proper at least, a bit above that for a 2-5 mpg bump (but never exceeding the maximum psi); you have to check this often and keep the right inflation to benefit, and you should invest in a tire gauge that gives an accurate readout too, not one of those little stick gauges
- low rolling resistance (LRR) tire models are good, replacing the stock tires with a better brand were worth a couple more mpg in my case anyway; they don't necessarily wear out any quicker, my current set are a 40,000 mile brand, but they aren't great in all conditions, so shop carefully and reward the vendors with the safe, long-lasting tires on conditions that you drive
- changing or cleaning your engine air filter is good, its like your lungs, you want the right amount of good clean air for proper combustion
- changing oil is good, my mpg always bumps up 2 mpg after
- as is keeping up on general maintenance, particularly tire alignment, there aren't too many pigeon-toed four minute milers and the same goes for your car
- AC makes no difference, in fact on the Prius folks report better mileage with the AC set to On; I've never noticed any mpg difference with AC on or off so usually just leave it on
- hypermilers aside, *in a Prius* a quick start isn't penalized as much as in other cars, owing to the high torque and assist from the electric motor; getting up to your cruising speed quickly lets the engine cruise longer; anyone's mpg may suffer in stop and go traffic, but at least with a Prius when the traffic stops so does your gas engine; outside a hybrid ymmv literally
- hypermiling really does work in the Prius anyway, but fwiw its such an annoying way to drive alot of folks forego it and just live with their 45-50 mpg. Thanks to the interweb I'm now stuck behind Cadillac Escalade's trying to emulate the Prius hypermilers, all so they can get 12 mpg; and there's nothing worse than those Prius owners bragging about 70 mpg, they drive like little old ladies (with apologies to little old ladies anywhere, they are sweet, bragging Prius owners are not)
- lowering your speed really helps, 60 mph seems a pretty good speed to go, 70 mph and you give away alot of mpg in a Prius, although I still get about 45 mpg on 200 mile round trips heading up and over Snoqualmie Pass along I-90.

Exactly right. Coast to the stops. Every time you step on the brake you have wasted some gas and are working on an expensive brake job. Don't race to get to a red light. Start to accelerate after a stop by just taking your foot off the brake and letting the idle get you to 5mph. Then use the accelerator like your pumping gold out of your tank.

In other word drive like granny. Who probably learned to drive during the depression. When gas was precious and car repairs expensive.

FWIW...One of my clients was telling me a cold air intake adds a little power and improves fuel efficiency. He had that in his car along with an exhaust with better flow through. He said his power and fuel economy increased by about 20-30%.

Dan_McI
Art_in_FL

You said exactly what I wanted to say ( and in a better way)

Its good to check air filters and tire pressure but many drivers waste too much gas in needless acceleration and speeding. And then they dont waste money on gas, but brake shoes and other parts, not to mention dented fenders.

Furthermore this improves tire life significantly. However, no matter how well you maintain your tires, tires do get old.

Jeanette Isabelle

As others have noted, "driver slower" is such an over-simplification as to be wrong. Anticipation is more important - not so much not using brakes as not needing to use them. Cars have an optimum speed which is usually around 50mph, and which varies from car to car, so driving slower can be worse. (The extreme case is driving at 0mph with the engine running, which will use up all your fuel without getting anywhere.)

AC tends to be more efficient than opening a window at high speed, and less efficient at low speed, with the cross-over point depending on the car.